This year, a leading but insufficiently supportive newspaper owner in Belgrade, Slavko Curuvija, was shot dead.

ECONOMIST: What next for Slobodan Milosevic?

Human-rights groups believe that the secret police were responsible for killing Slavko Curuvija, an opposition newspaper editor, earlier in 1999 and perhaps also for the disappearance of a former Serbian president, Ivan Stambolic, who was bundled into a white van while out jogging six months ago and has not been seen since.

ECONOMIST: Yugoslavia: Closing in | The