The capture of Radovan Karadzic
What this Byzantine saga reveals is the influence of the European Union at its deepest level, says an Independent leader. The lumbering behemoth, for all its superstructure of political controversy, has a profoundly benign influence on the cultural as well as economic polity of the region. The arrest of Karadzic shows how the EU works as a "soft power". The lure of membership leads those who want to join into changes which are social and legal as well as political. A place in the European family depends on embracing European values of justice and human rights. For Serbia, the arrest of Karadzic signals a definitive break with the nationalism of the past. It augurs the coming in from the cold of a nation which has pursued a policy of unrepentant and truculent isolationism for almost two decades.
Leader The Independent
Full article: A triumph for all of Europe 
News in Pictures: Karadzic found in Belgrade
The case for war crimes justice in its present internationalised form remains in question, writes Simon Jenkins. Every murder is a crime against humanity. The glamour of Nuremburg still hovers over a process that has become bureaucratic and trespasses on conflicts that should be dealt with nationally. It is always better for a nation to seek atonement within itself. Local justice might be rougher and tougher, but it compels warring parties to confront their past actions on their own territory, and before their own people. Such domestic "restorative justice" is a surer way to reconciliation. Karadzic should have faced his own people. His removal to The Hague is about barter not justice.
Simon Jenkins The Guardian
Full article: The concept of international justice will be on trial, too
Anti-Serb bias means he won't get a fair trial
It took more than a decade to find Radovan Karadzic, writes Janine di Giovanni. More than a decade of rumours that he was disguised as a woman, living in the remote mountains of Montenegro. Or that he was still in Pale, where his creepy daughter Sonya ran a radio station. Ethnic hatred is what fuelled Balkan wars in the past and, sadly, I am sure it will in the future. But for now, the world needs to focus on Mladic. He and Radovan Karadzic acted as tweedledum and tweedledee, and one cannot sit in jail while the other is free, wandering around Belgrade restaurants. It's true Serbia wants to join the EU, and it's also true that it finally wants to give in and help us. So go and get him, boys. Janine di Giovanni The Guardian
Full article: Spectres of Sarajevo
Why the disabled won't work
When people demand that the disabled should work, they generally mean that they should do rubbish jobs for rubbish money, writes Alice Miles. Fill the call centres with cripples. Dogsbody jobs for the deaf; boring ones for the blind, they can't see anyway. But where are the decent job offers? On the other hand, the fault doesn’t just lie with employers - too many disabled people are negative, aggressive, socially excluded and ready to take offence. When they don't work they're depressed; when they are offered a job they complain that they feel patronised. No wonder that if you have claimed incapacity benefit for more than two years, you are more likely to retire or die than get another job.
Alice Miles The Times
Full article: Who'll be first to offer disabled people a job?
Mugabe's compromise
Negotiations will be tinged with the surreal: Robert Mugabe's representatives will be ensconced with people against whom he sanctioned a campaign of murder and intimidation, says a Times leader. Mugabe hinted four months ago that he was open to standing down if a face-saving formula could be found. The signs are that he still is. The challenge for those meeting in Pretoria is to find such a formula. The price of such a resolution would be high. It would diminish the chances of Mr Mugabe being held accountable under international law for crimes against his people, and probably involve the continuation in power of Zanu (PF) elements. But if the alternative is continued political stalemate, economic paralysis and human suffering on an almost biblical scale, it would be a price worth paying.
Leader The Times
Full article: Made in Africa
The handshake that shook a continent
