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The Dutch State is responsible for the death of three Muslim men from Srebrenica. This was the ruling given by the Dutch Supreme Court today. The men had sought refuge in the compound of the Dutch battalion (Dutchbat). Dutchbat decided not to evacuate them along with the battalion and instead sent them away from the compound on 13 July 1995. Outside the compound they were murdered by the Bosnian-Serb army or related paramilitary groups. In two judgments the Supreme Court upheld earlier judgments of The Hague Court of Appeal of 2011 (ECLI:NL:GHSGR:2011:BR0132 and ECLI:NL:GHSGR:2011: BR0133) and 2012 (ECLI:NL:GHSGR:2012:BW9015 and ECLI:NL:GHSGR:2012: BW9014) and dismissed the State’s appeal in cassation against these judgments. Background Both cases concern events that took place shortly after the fall of the Srebrenica enclave on 11 July 1995. Hasan Nuhanović was in the employment of the United Nations. He worked as an interpreter at the compound in Potočari where Dut...

Ibrahim Vajzovic sits behind a large wooden desk at First Bosnian Insurance Agency, the company he started in St. Louis eight years ago, and talks about the values of education and hard work. It’s one of three businesses he owns, in addition to teaching a course at Webster University, a liberal arts college in Webster Groves. Vajzovic, 53, who came to the U.S. in 1994 as a war refugee from Bosnia, is the portrait of a striving, successful immigrant that business leaders would like to see replicated, by the thousands. They say nothing short of St. Louis (USCUSTLO)’s survival as a major American city is at stake. Enlarge image St. Louis Welcome Mat Says Help Wanted From Huddled Masses For much of its history, St. Louis was a place people wanted to be. Its “Gateway to the West” motto was earned during westward expansion in the 1800s and German immigrants steamed up the Mississippi River to settle there. Photographer: Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images While states such as Arizona an...

Her small, strong arms wave through the air in quick, measured loops -- gestures that allow professor Dijana Ihas to bring all of the room's violins, cellos, and violas into harmony. Suddenly, she stops. Her hands come to her side and her brown eyes soften. "Students," she said. "What do you think is heart of this piece?" Without failure, her booming voice and thick eastern European accent command their attention. She is asking them to assign emotion to the music. To not only learn how to play it, but to experience it. "This class becomes an emotional release for a lot of students -- a really powerful one," said Sarah Tomscha, a Pacific University student and pupil of Ihas. Ihas has seen music's ability to lift one's spirit even in the direst of circumstances. Being a musician helped her survive the Bosnian War. It's how she helped others survive, too. Born in 1963 in Sarajevo in what was then socialist-run Yugoslavia, ...