From Wikitravel

For future reference the Wikitravel:CIA World Factbook 2002 import can be found at Talk:Serbia and Montenegro/CIA World Factbook 2002 import.

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Contents 1 Research links removed from article 2 Safe for American civilians? 3 Depleted Uranium 4 Montenegro independence? 4.1 Update

Research links removed from article

These links may assist contributors -- Huttite 02:29, 18 Jan 2006 (EST)

• B92 The most popular news portal
• Burek Forum The Biggest forum in Serbia and Montenegro
• RTS Webpage of National Television
• Krstarica The most popular local search engine

Safe for American civilians?

Is travel in Belgrade and the rest of Serbia safe for Americans, and are they generally well-received if they can speak at least some phrases in Serbian or Russian? --153.104.16.114 01:17, 18 March 2006 (EST)

My experience is that it was fine. They're generally very friendly. (as of 2003)

Depleted Uranium

Come on... You're probably going to get more of a radiation dose on your 30,000 ft airplane flight than you will from 7-year-old DU exposure in Kosovo! (That's my best guess, but I would invite anyone to show some good evidence otherwise.)

You are correct, DU is basically just lead. So unless tourists eat it, they'll be fine. --153.104.16.114 16:04, 4 May 2006 (EDT)

Wrong. Uranium does eventually decay to lead, but the half life of U238 is 4.5 billion years, and that is only the first step. Uranium stays radioactive effectively forever. On the other hand, it is not highly active, so I doubt it is worth worrying about unless you plan to spend a lot of time touring battlefields. Does anyone here actually know. Pashley 06:16, 28 May 2006 (EDT)

Um, an extremely long half life basically means it's not dangerous, because it's decaying veeeeeeery veeeeeery slowly. Wikipedia says that the issue with DU is not the radioactivity, but the fact that uranium in itself is kinda nasty stuff. (As is lead, for that matter.) Jpatokal 06:58, 28 May 2006 (EDT)

Plutonium has a long halflife, and, well, i wouldn't want it under my bed either, thank you. I wouldnt mind very much about a slap of lead, though. --10:25, 28 June 2006 (EDT)

I'm not sure anyone "actually knows," but I've worked with the stuff for a living, and Jani's explanation is correct. Its specific activity as a radiation source is so low that it's routinely used as radiation shielding, since it's dense. There is a fair bit of controversy surrounding the heavy-metal-poisoning aspects of DU in the environment, with some anecdotal reports of health issues but little in the way of concrete epidemiological evidence that it's a real problem. To cite it as a specific and objective health issue, anyway, seems like overkill (so to speak). One could as justifiably point to areas infested with honeybees, which definitely do kill people. If that text should be in the article, it's probably because people react psychologically to the "threat" of DU in the areas -- which is a real phenomenon, if one that may or may not be objectively justified. -- Bill-on-the-Hill 09:28, 28 May 2006 (EDT)

Montenegro independence?

I've seen news reports this week that an independence vote in Montenegro got a small majority. Does that mean they'll be independent soon, and how should our pages change? Pashley 21:46, 23 May 2006 (EDT)

Montenergo isn't in the clear yet. There will probably be a recount and assuming the current outcome is confirmed again the parliment must then vote to change the constituion with a two-thirds majority. It's unclear if the change will occur to the constitution, because apparently pro-Union parties are objecting as so are the anti-independence blocs, so we have to wait for the parlimentary vote, first before we could consider such a move. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 21:56, 23 May 2006 (EDT)

Montenegro exists as an entity in Wikitravel and is pretty close to being a country article already, so it wouldn't be a huge task to deal with when/if the split goes into effect. We'd have to:

• Clean up Montenegro to conform to MoS (should be done in any case) and add the necessary nation-state bits.
• Add Montenegro to Mediterranean Europe, Europe, etc.
• Change Montenegro's IsIn.
• Delete the existing redirect at Serbia and move this page there.
• Remove any Montenegran content from this page (e.g. recolor the CIA map).
• Check "What links here" and change the links to "Serbia", "Montenegro", or "Serbia and Montenegro", as appropriate.
• Update the IsIn for the this article's current subarticles (in theory just the regions, but the cities' IsIns might not all be region-specific.

- Todd VerBeek 09:35, 24 May 2006 (EDT)

Update

Ok, Montenegro is officially a completely new and independent state [1]. Begin the seperation on Wikitravel? - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 01:56, 4 June 2006 (EDT)

• Jpatokal and anyone else who wants to help with the seperation,

Apparently we need to change the isIn for cities. I changed Montenegro's isIn, however, that change was not reflected on Montenegro's city articles. Is it a caching issue? The solution was moving the isIn tag to a different location within the article, which, seemingly fixed the issue with the breadcrumbs. - Andrew Haggard (Sapphire) 02:34, 4 June 2006 (EDT)

Yeah, that's a caching issue. The next time any of these articles get updated, the breadcrumbs will sort themselves out. - Todd VerBeek 10:19, 4 June 2006 (EDT)