BELGRADE, Serbia: The Serbian president’s praise of Slobodan Milosevic as a “great” leader triggered outrage on Monday in neighboring states where his nationalist policies in the 1990s caused bloodshed and destruction.
In his keynote speech while visiting Kosovo’s Serbs on Sunday, Aleksandar Vucic called for peace and reconciliation with Kosovo Albanians, but also praised former Serbian leader Milosevic.
“Milosevic was a great Serbian leader whose intentions were certainly for the best, but our results were very poor,” Vucic said. “Not because he wanted that, but because our wishes were unrealistic, while we neglected and underestimated the interests and aspirations of other nations.”
He also criticized the former Serbian pro-Western officials for handing over Milosevic and his generals to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands.
Milosevic, who died in 2006 while on trial at the tribunal, is widely considered the most responsible politician in former Yugoslavia for the bloody breakup of the federation and the death of at least 120,000 people in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.
Vucic, an ultranationalist during the wars in the Balkans, was Milosevic’s information minister in 1999.
Kosovo President Hashim Thaci said Monday that praising Milosevic was “a provocation.”
“We heard words of peace, understanding and good neighborly relations,” Thaci said. “But we also heard praise for Milosevic and his generals. The two things don’t go together.”
Kosovo was a Serbian province when Milosevic’s crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1998-99 led to the deaths of more than 10,000 people.
The conflict ended with NATO intervention, which forced Serbia to pull out of the province. Kosovo declared independence in 2008, a move that Serbia doesn’t recognize. Serbia and Kosovo must mend ties to advance toward European Union membership.
The two sides have been engaged in EU-mediated negotiations, with Vucic and Thaci leading the delegations.
Reacting to Vucic’s praise of Milosevic, European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said Monday that reconciliation in the Western Balkans will only be possible if policies of the past that brought decades of misery and suffering to the region are rejected and overcome.
“All partners in the region have a clear European perspective and therefore are required to respect these principles,” she said.
Serbian president’s praise of Milosevic triggers outrage
Serbian president’s praise of Milosevic triggers outrage
- Aleksandar Vucic called for peace and reconciliation with Kosovo Albanians, but also praised former Serbian leader Milosevic
- He also criticized the former Serbian pro-Western officials for handing over Milosevic and his generals to the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague
Trump's 'gold card' program goes live, offering US visas starting at $1 million per person
- The president said all funds taken in as part of the program will “go to the US”
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that his long-promised “ gold card ” was officially going on sale, offering legal status and an eventual pathway to U.S. citizenship for individuals paying $1 million and corporations ponying up twice that per foreign-born employee.
A website accepting applications went live as Trump revealed the start of the program while surrounded by business leaders in the White House's Roosevelt Room. It is meant to replace EB-5 visas, which Congress created in 1990 to generate foreign investment and had been available to people who spend about $1 million on a company that employs at least 10 people.
Trump sees the new version as a way for the U.S. to attract and retain top talent, all while generating revenue for federal coffers. He's been promoting the gold card program for months, and once suggested that each card would cost $5 million, though he more recently revised that to the $1 million and $2 million pricing scheme.
The president said all funds taken in as part of the program will “go to the U.S. government” and predicted that billions would flow into an account run by the Treasury Department “where we can do things positive for the country.”
The new program is actually a green card, effectively offering permanent legal residency with the chance for citizenship.
“Basically, it's a green card but much better," Trump said. “Much more powerful, a much stronger path.”
The president made no mention of requirements for job creation for applying corporations or on overall caps on the program, which exist under the current EB-5 program. Instead, he said he'd heard complaints from business leaders who had been unable to recruit outstanding graduates from U.S. universities because they were from other countries and lacked permission to stay.
“You can't hire people from the best colleges because you don't know whether or not you can keep the person,” Trump said.
Trump has built his political career around clamping down on the U.S.-Mexico border and championing hard-line immigration policies. His second administration spent its first 10-plus months launching mass deportation pushes and sweeping immigration crackdowns that have targeted cities including Los Angeles and Charlotte.
But he's also drawn criticism from leading voices of his “Make America Great Again” movement for repeatedly suggesting that skilled immigrants should be allowed into the U.S. — something the gold card program could facilitate.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the program will include $15,000 for applicant vetting and that the thorough process used to scrutinize backgrounds would ”make sure these people absolutely qualify to be in America.” Companies will be able to receive multiple cards, but will be limited to one individual per card, he said.
Lutnick also said the current green card holders earn less money than the average American, and that Trump wanted to change that.
"So, same visas, but now just full of the best people,” Lutnick said.
Investors’ visas are common around the world, with dozens of countries offering versions of “golden visas” to wealthy individuals, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Malta, Australia, Canada and Italy.
Trump said the program means the U.S. is “getting somebody great coming into our country because we think these will be some tremendous people" and singled out top U.S. college graduates from China, India and France as among those who will possibly be receiving gold cards.
“The companies are going to be very happy,” he said.
