‘People will think we are all wild animals’

Good morning from West London…

There are a number of stories that have caught my eye today. Serbia and the attack on the American Embassy in Belgrade, immigration controls, alcohol controls and controlling teenage pregnancy.

Pakistan votes

Good morning from London, the big international news today is the people of Pakistan voting in a crucial parliamentary election overshadowed by violence and fears of fraud. If the count goes as usual, initial results should be announced about the time we are on air, with a good idea of the final results beginning to come in around 2200 gmt. Should we talk about the elections or wait until tomorrow when we’ll have a better idea of what has happened?

Here in the UK the top story is the nationalisation of Northern Rock. The bank’s troubles are tied to the subprime lending problems in the US and the global economic downturn, which we discussed last month, but could they herald a geopolitical sea change in the world economy, as Martin Jacques argues in The Guardian, that will be more fundamental than that brought by the oil shocks of the 1970s?

Who decides who is entitled to independence?

Kosovo is poised to declare it’s independence from Serbia in the next few days. Although the United States and several European Union countries are likely to support the move, Russia and Serbia have said any such declaration would be illegitimate and have urged the United Nations Security Council to take swift action against it.

Tonight we want to hear from you if you are in Kosovo, is independence the right move for you? And what are the rules for any state that wants to become independent? If your country has recently declared its independence we want to hear from you, how has your life changed?

The state of Kosovo?

Good morning, what to talk about today? The news website isn’t much help – its top story, “Vaccine against HIV ‘no nearer'”, is a headline I would have got a ticking off for way back when I worked at a newspaper. The theory is that if nothing has changed, why would someone want to read it? Anyway, moving on to the World Service, our first item is the Serbian foreign minister telling the UN Security Council that it must stop the province of Kosovo declaring independence.