AP - June 30, 2001

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Politicians from Yugoslavia's smaller republic promised Saturday to work with their Serb colleagues to form a new government and resolve a political crisis triggered by Slobodan Milosevic's handover to the U.N. war crimes tribunal.

The calls for compromise came a day after Yugoslav Prime Minister Zoran Zizic and other government officials from Montenegro resigned to protest Serbia's abrupt extradition of Milosevic. The extradition defied a federal court ruling.

The resignations drove a deeper wedge between Montenegro and Serbia and shook the already fragile Yugoslav federation, where the constitution calls for federal elections if a new government is not in place three months after a prime minister's resignation.

However, Zizic said Saturday that his Socialist People's Party -- whose backing in the federal parliament is crucial -- was ready to support a reshuffled Yugoslav government rather than push for new elections.

``That is the way to go,'' Zizic told The Associated Press.

Another official from Montenegro, Predrag Bulatovic, also said the smaller republic's deputies in the federal parliament could negotiate to preserve the coalition with Serbia's pro-democracy bloc that ousted Milosevic from power last October.

``We believe that federal Yugoslavia has to be preserved,'' Bulatovic said. ``All of us who want to save Yugoslavia can find an optimal solution through dialogue and compromise.''

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic urged renewed efforts to resolve relations between his republic and Montenegro. ``The federation is in a deep crisis,'' he told Germany's ARD television.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica is to begin talks aimed at forming a new Cabinet on Monday.

In a statement Saturday, Kostunica denied any knowledge of plans to extradite Milosevic to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, and reiterated criticism of Serbia's government for ignoring a court ban on the handover.

``The truth is that I was not informed of Milosevic's extradition,'' said Kostunica, who was elected last September in the vote that led to Milosevic's ouster.

He said the first news of the Serb government intentions reached his office after the former president had been taken from his jail cell, and that an hour later he received confirmation that Milosevic was on his way to The Hague.

Djindjic, the Serbian prime minister, had said earlier that a minister from Kostunica's party was in on the government's extradition decision and that Kostunica ``was in a position to know of it, had he wanted to.''

Kostunica, a former law professor, said he never backed Milosevic's extradition or that of any other Yugoslav citizen to The Hague without ``proper legal procedure.''

Milosevic's extradition sparked two days of protests by his angry supporters, but the crowds were relatively small. About 6,000 rallied Friday in front of the federal parliament in Belgrade.

The UN's chief war crimes prosecutor has expanded the indictment against Slobodan Milosevic for crimes committed in Kosovo and officials say he could face genocide charges.

Carla del Ponte said further charges were being drawn up against the former Yugoslav president relating to the wars in Croatia and Bosnia.

Full story here.

Seventy-four men have been found in two mass graves in a village in eastern Serbia, the independent Belgrade-based news agency Beta reported.

The revelations in Petrovo Selo, near the town of Kladovo, came a day after investigators exhumed at least 36 bodies - including those of children - from a mass grave near the capital, Belgrade.

Full story here.

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic was in jail in The Hague on Friday facing charges of crimes against humanity in a decade of ethnic wars in the Balkans that left hundreds of thousands dead.

The former Yugoslav president, 59, was whisked to the Scheveningen detention center by helicopter an hour after midnight local time after a flight to the Netherlands from Belgrade via Bosnia, in a British military aircraft.

``He's in the detention unit,'' Tribunal spokesman Jim Landale told reporters, ending a climate of suspense that surrounded the anticipated arrival.

At one nearby military airbase, reporters saw a large plane land without lights on a darkened runway. But it could not be identified, and rumors flew until the helicopter touched down inside the compound to applause from waiting bystanders.

Milosevic will be the first head of state to be tried for alleged war crimes carried out while in office.

Serbia's reformist authorities handed him over despite legal attempts by his allies to block the move. He was taken from his cell in Belgrade's Central Prison and flown by helicopter to the big U.S.-run airbase outside Tuzla, northern Bosnia.

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Zarko Korac told Reuters the ex-president had been placed in the custody of a representative of the Hague Tribunal in Belgrade before leaving.

His transfer clears the way for Yugoslavia to receive around $1.3 billion in funds to restore an economy shattered by NATO bombing and sanctions imposed to punish Milosevic's policies.

NOT ALL APPLAUD

But the political costs may be high.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, who describes himself as a moderate nationalist, in hard-hitting comments late on Thursday slammed the handover of his predecessor as illegal, raising the prospect of political turmoil over the handover.

Montenegro's Socialist People's Party (SNP), a former ally of Milosevic's now in government with the Serb reformers who toppled him, has consistently opposed moves to hand him over and its leader said the transfer spelled the end of the coalition.

``We will remain firm in our stand. This is the end of the coalition,'' SNP chief Predrag Bulatovic told Reuters in Montenegro's main city Podgorica.

``I don't see how they will be able to avoid a government crisis,'' commented one Western diplomat in Belgrade.

The domestic criticism was in sharp contrast to reactions in the West, where President Bush and other leaders applauded the move .

``The transfer of Milosevic to The Hague is an unequivocal message to those persons who brought such tragedy and brutality to the Balkans that they will be held accountable for their crimes,'' Bush said in a statement in Washington.

The Tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, said the transfer was only the beginning of a lengthy legal process.

``This day will be remembered as an important milestone for international criminal justice,'' she said in a statement.

``The transfer itself does not represent the end of the process. On the contrary, this is only the beginning of criminal proceedings and a great deal of work now has to be done to bring the case to a just conclusion,'' she said.

BIG FISH AT LARGE, CHARGES TO COME

The handover struck one big name from the top of the tribunal's wanted list, but plenty of others remain at large.

Indisputably top of the list are Bosnian Serb wartime leaders Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic, both accused of genocide -- the tribunal's most serious charge.

The Hague tribunal indicted Milosevic in May 1999, accusing him of responsibility for the mass killings and expulsions of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo province.

Del Ponte also plans to charge him with war crimes committed in Bosnia and Croatia, where the breakaway of the two former Yugoslav republics from Belgrade's control sparked four years of war that killed more than 200,000 people.

Croatia and Bosnia say Milosevic armed and supported nationalist Serbs who resisted incorporation into the new states. They say he was partly responsible for vicious campaigns to drive out Croats and Muslims from Serb-dominated areas.

One official involved in The Hague tribunal was jubilant. ''We're over the moon. This is the crowning moment for us.''

Around 2,000 angry Milosevic supporters rallied in central Belgrade to protest against the handover. Some tried to beat up cameramen from Western media. They denounced Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and other reformists behind the handover.

Earlier on Thursday Yugoslavia's Constitutional Court, stacked with Milosevic loyalists, ordered a freeze on all moves to transfer him.

But their decision did not officially take effect until Friday and the Serbian government, in emergency session, decided to act swiftly on extradition in case procedures bogged down.

The former Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, is in custody in the Hague where he will become the first former head of state to appear before the International War Crimes Tribunal.

He arrived by helicopter at the United Nations detention centre in the Dutch city on Thursday night. Correspondents say Mr Milosevic will not be brought before the judges until Monday.

In allowing this to happen, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic ignored objections from Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, who has denounced the extradition as illegal and unconstitutional, and the Yugoslav constitutional court, which had sought put a hold on the extradition process. .

Full story here.

BEIJING, Jun 26, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) China has executed at least 49 people for drug-related crimes in the run-up to Tuesday's International Anti-Drugs Day, state media reported.

These included five people from Taiwan as well as one person from Myanmar, according to information published in the local media.

The Xinhua news agency said 18 drug criminals were executed Monday in the municipality of Chongqing in the southwestern part of the country, mainly for heroin trafficking.

Li Shaoju, a citizen of Myanmar, was put to death in the southwestern province of Yunnan for smuggling more than 135 kilograms of heroin and 12 kilograms of opium into China between 1988 and 1998, the China Daily said.

In the city of Zhongshan in southern Guangdong province, nine people were executed for crimes including drug trafficking on Monday, the China News Service reported.

On the same day, another six drug traffickers were executed in the southeastern port city of Xiamen, following a mass gathering where their death sentences were announced, Xinhua reported.

The six, who included five residents of Taiwan, were condemned for manufacturing or selling drugs such as "ice," the agency said.

The Police Daily reported eight executions of drug traffickers Monday in the central city of Wuhan and four in the eastern city of Ningbo, while other media said three were executed for drug crimes in the central province of Hunan.

The new wave of death sentences comes on top of hundreds of executions made public since early April when the government launched a "Strike Hard" campaign against crime.

China executes more people than the rest of the world combined, but does not publish detailed statistics about its executions, as the data is considered a "state secret."

But according to a Beijing-based diplomat who has compiled statistics on executions from official press reports, close to 1,100 people have been put to death in the course of this year's "Strike Hard" campaign.

MOSCOW, Jun 25, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A German national who worked as chef in a top Moscow hotel has been shot dead, his co-workers said Sunday.

Helmut Kurt, who had worked as chef at Moscow's exclusive Sheraton Palace hotel, was discovered with a bullet wound in his head on a central street early Saturday, a hotel manager said.

He died shortly after being taken to hospital. Police sources said Kurt may have been victim of a robbery attack.

ALKHAN-KALA, Jun 25, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Russian troops killed around 10 civilians during a search operation in a village near the Chechen capital of Grozny, witnesses told AFP Sunday.

Residents of Alkhan-Kala who asked to remain anonymous said dozens were also injured in Thursday's operation, and almost 100 people were arrested.

Troops from the Russian interior ministry and FSB security services mounted the operation in Alkhan-Kala and nearby Kulari, 10 kilometers (7 miles) southwest of Grozny, the Interfax news agency said Sunday.

It quoted sources at the Russian military headquarters for the northern Caucasus as saying a Chechen rebel chief, Arbi Barayev, had been killed during the operation.

But a spokesman for the FSB refused Sunday on Russian TV to confirm the information, and a spokesman for separatist president Aslan Maskhadov, in a separate interview on Moscow's Echo radio, denied that Barayev was dead.

Russian forces have taken control of much of Chechnya, including Grozny, since a military campaign began on October 1, 1999.

Tension remains high in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, after a night of street violence prompted by a government ceasefire with ethnic Albanian rebels.

In some of the city's biggest protests for years, several thousand nationalists demonstrated outside parliament, angry at what they see as government leniency towards the guerrillas.

Led by a group of police reservists firing volleys of automatic gunfire in the air, the protesters stormed the parliament building demanding President Trajkovski's resignation.

Full story here.

By RICHARD W. STEVENSON

WASHINGTON, June 22 — The major industrial nations warned Russia and two other countries today that they would face restrictions on their dealings with international banks if they did not make quick progress in clamping down on money laundering.

A committee that includes the United States and 28 other countries said Russia, the Philippines and Nauru, the Pacific island nation, has done little in the last year to halt flows of illegally earned money through their financial systems. If the three countries do not enact legislation on the problem by Sept. 30, the panel said, they would be subject to sanctions, including tighter monitoring of international banking transactions or denial of permission for their banks to operate in other nations.

The International Monetary Fund has estimated that at least $590 billion a year, an amount roughly equivalent to the entire annual economic output of Spain, is moved from illicit enterprises through financial institutions around the world. The fund said the figure could be as high as $1.5 trillion a year.

Much of the focus today was on Russia. The transition in Russia from Communism to capitalism has created a financial free for all in which laws and regulations have remained far behind the sophistication with which legitimate and illegal enterprises move money around the world.

Full story here.

LE BOURGET, France, Jun 22, 2001 -- (dpa) French bailiffs on Friday seized a Russian fighter plane at the Le Bourget International Aeronautics and Space Salon, a French government spokesman said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau said in Paris that the seizure was the result of a commercial lawsuit by a private Swiss firm against the Russian government.

The plane, a Sukhoi SU-30, was taken from the air show near Paris early Friday. The seizure was initiated by the Swiss firm Noga in an effort to recover some of the 63 million dollars owed it by the Russian state.

Last year, the company had the Russian sailing ship Sedov, the second-largest ship of its kind in the world, impounded as it was about to participate in a sailing regatta off the coast of France.

However, it failed to win its case in court and was forced to pay damages.

In Moscow, Russian Vice-Premier Ilya Klebanov condemned the plane's seizure.

"I think that this act is a detriment not only to Russia, but above all to the Le Bourget air show," he said.

The move comes at an embarrassing time for French President Jacques Chirac, who is scheduled to visit Moscow at the beginning of July.

The organizers of the air show reacted with shock at the news.

A spokesman for the French Aeraonautics and Space Industries (GIFAS) said that the head of the salon, Edmond de Marchegay, was "astonished".

"We do not understand why private industry present at the salon is attacked in a legal case against the Russian government," the spokesman said.

BELGRADE - The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) has offered the Belgrade District Court a much larger sum as security for the release of its president and former head of state Slobodan Milosevic - 250 million D-marks, Milosevic's defense lawyers Zdenko Tomanovic and Veselin Cerovic confirmed Friday.

Editor's commentary: Makes you wonder where and how did they get this money in Serbia.

The latest horrific allegations were published in Thursday's edition of the independent weekly magazine, Vreme.

In the article, a man now said to be under the witness protection programme of the Hague tribunal gives details of 10 journeys he made in the spring of 1999, from military camps in Kosovo to a copper-smelting complex at Bor in eastern Serbia. He claims that on one occasion, he opened the back of the lorry and found it packed to the ceiling with bodies. 1,000 bodies

Other lorry drivers have come forward, saying they made similar journeys from Kosovo to two mass grave sites already unearthed by the Serbian police - one in Batajnica, near Belgrade, and another at Petrovo Selo in eastern Serbia.

The Yugoslav Interior Minister, Dusan Mihajlovic, has said evidence exists of a meeting between the then president Slobodan Milosevic and senior police and military chiefs in March 1999, at which Mr Milosevic allegedly ordered the disposal of war crimes evidence. The minister has also said that he believes over 1,000 bodies were moved.

Full story here.

Belgrade, Jun 20, 2001 -- (dpa) Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic has confirmed the existence of a third mass grave of victims from Kosovo during the war in the province two years ago, the Belgrade radio B-92 reported Tuesday.

The location of the grave, with bodies brought from Kosovo after "battlefield cleansing" will soon be announced," the radio quoted Mihajlovic as saying.

He directly accused the deposed Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic of responsibility for the efforts to remove traces of atrocities committed against ethnic Albanians.

"It definitely was an action organized by Slobodan Milosevic, who wanted to remove all evidence which could have been interesting for The Hague Tribunal investigators," Mihajlovic said.

Yugoslav investigators, observed by the International War Crimes Tribunal, have begun the work on a mass grave with 86 bodies, found near Belgrade.

The bodies from that grave, mostly of women, children and elderly people, were first dumped into the Danube in March 1999, in a refrigerator truck, and secretly reburied after the truck resurfaced.

The finding of another grave with 25-30 mostly male corpses, in the same area in eastern Serbia, was announced last week.

Milosevic, under arrest since April 1 on corruption charges, was indicted by the war crimes tribunal in May 1999.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, whose reputation as a European statesman was tarnished last year in a slush fund scandal, is returning to the public arena to campaign against ex-communists in the Berlin city hall.

Kohl, 71, has largely kept a low profile since admitting breaking party funding rules by accepting $1 million from anonymous donors during his 16-year rule. His Christian Democrats are still struggling to recover from the affair.

But the architect of German unification says he wants to help his party fight new elections called in Berlin after the Social Democrats pulled out of a decade-long ``grand coalition'' with the CDU in the city over a financial and sleaze crisis.

The ex-chancellor, still remembered fondly in much of the former communist east for his drive for unification in 1990, said he wants to stop the reform communist Party of Democratic Socialists (PDS) entering local government in the capital.

The SPD has said that after the Berlin election, likely to take place in September, it may form a coalition government in the city state with the party that is successor to the feared East German SED -- which built the Wall 40 years ago.

``My dream and my political goal was always the unity of Germany and Berlin,'' Kohl told the mass circulation Bild newspaper in an interview on Wednesday.

``I would never have thought that only 12 years after the fall of the Wall, the SPD wants to rule in this city with the support of the successor party to the SED.''

The SPD's Klaus Wowereit took over as Berlin mayor at the weekend, forming a minority coalition with the Greens supported in parliament by the PDS, after long-serving CDU mayor Eberhard Diepgen lost a vote of no-confidence in the state parliament over the capital's mounting cash crisis.

Kohl said he would do whatever the party he led for quarter of a century asked of him to help in Berlin. ``I am an old party soldier. I don't want to be anything else. I am an old-timer. If I can help my party, I will do so with great gusto,'' he said.

Kohl still exerts influence in the party and is believed to have intervened in the CDU's choice of candidate for Berlin mayor, backing young local hopeful Frank Steffel against Wolfgang Schaeuble, his right-hand man while in power who blames Kohl and the slush fund affair for ruining his career.

Editor's commentary: Since we all know who was behind East German communists and who was working there as KGB agent it is obvious that Putin and Kremlin want to further destabilize unified Germany by supporting criminals who betrayed their nation and country and served to Russian imperialists. Instead of being in jail for treason, murder, plunder and violation of every known law and human right these gangsters and scumbags are now in charge of German capital. There is no need of any argument here, it is necessary to ASAP start criminal investigations against these Russian paid thugs and put them behind bars, not to let them be in charge of Berlin.

NICOSIA, Jun 18, 2001 -- (Reuters) Police in Cyprus are investigating the death of a Russian businessman whose body was found bound and gagged on a remote beach, they said on Sunday.

The body of the Russian, identified by relatives as Valeri Popov, 56, was found in a cove in western Cyprus on Saturday afternoon and police said they believe he drowned. He had disappeared from his home in Cyprus several days ago.

Cyprus has a large Russian community, many of whom work for offshore companies based on the east Mediterranean island.

Editor's commentary: Now we know why Milosevic was transferring money to Cyprus and why communists recently won elections on this beautiful Mediterranean island.

BELGRADE, Jun 18, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Russia will make a "big effort" to help Yugoslavia overcome its economic woes, Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus said after talks Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"Russia will make a big effort to develop our economic relations to solve the problems of (mutual) debts and to set up a solid basis for long-term economic cooperation" between the two countries, Labus said.

Top Russian and Yugoslav officials met on the sidelines of the presidential visit this weekend for talks on bilateral relations, the security situation in the region and economic ties between the two countries.

Among the main economic issues were the settling of Yugoslavia's debt of 260 million dollars (301 million euros) to the Russian gas giant Gazprom, as Russian gas deliveries are crucial to Yugoslavia's impoverished economy.

They also discussed the Russian federation's debt to Yugoslavia of 560 million dollars (649 million euros), dating back to the former communist federation.

"There is a great will to solve these problems in the correct manner ... President Putin said that we should base our economic relations on a market basis, but without burdening the Yugoslav economy," Labus said.

Labus said he was encouraged by the talks with the Russian delegation, notably Gazprom chief Alexei Miller.

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said after the talks with Putin and other Russian officials that Belgrade was "promised that the gas will be delivered without interruption."

"We did not have any disagreements during our talks," Djindjic said.

The Yugoslav economy faces numerous difficulties after more than a decade of mismanagement and international sanctions imposed during the rule of jailed former president Slobodan Milosevic.

Editor's commentary: It is clear that some of Serbian politicians mentioned here will have to face multiple criminal and treason charges sooner or later. We are back to Cold War days when Russian puppet regimes in Eastern Europe were letting USSR ravaging their countries while serving them obediently and telling lies to their own people about friendly leaders from USSR. USSR debt to FRY is nowhere to be found here while Russian debt is grossly minimized, probably due to massive shipments of rusty and old weapons to lunatic Milosevic. They want to convince us that actually FRY is in debt to Moscow gangsters similar to what mafia does. They lend you some money "friendly" and later they ask for high interests. When you are unable to pay them back on short terms they brake your legs, shoot you or burn your business to the ground because you didn't pay on time. That's what Gazprom is, a criminal enterprise run by Russian FSB criminal government that is nothing but a tool for mafia operations. We'll give you our gas, you can pay later, oooops some problems, we need money right now, oooops you can't pay, we'll settle it somehow, you end up being their hostage and you are happy to unconditionally serve them because they will let you live. Real debt of Russia right now is more than 6 billion dollars because most arms shipments were secret to avoid international sanctions so they can't go public about it. Debt to Gazprom is nonexistent and it is artificially created because all arms deals went through Gazprom. You get your weapons, you pay to Gazprom. It is however incredible to believe that leading Serbian politicians are that stupid to let Serbia and FRY slip into clutches of Russian mafia. That's why we are 100% sure that these people are not stupid at all, they are just hardcore criminals willing to sell out their country for fistful of rubles. This is a serious crime for which they should be brought to justice sooner or later and no they will not be sent to the Hague, they will be tried at home just like they desired for Milosevic and his gang. Too bad that they never considered that some day they will lose their power, similar mistake Milosevic did before. Russia who is currently underdeveloped country in serious debts to international community now wants to "help" rebuild Serbian economy!? What a load of garbage!

The after-shocks of France's biggest corruption trial of recent years are beginning to reverberate uncomfortably close to the current socialist-led government, as the principal accused in the Elf affair fulfil their oft-repeated threat and start to talk.

Two leading members of the cabinet - Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine and Employment Minister Elisabeth Guigou - have just been personally fingered by their former colleague, the convicted ex-Foreign Minister Roland Dumas.

All that can be said for certain is that Prime Minister Lionel Jospin - already under pressure over the revelations about his Trotskyist past - will be watching events with some apprehension.

He deliberately marked his distance from the Mitterrand era when he became prime minister in 1997 - precisely because of its reputation for loose ethics.

Full story here.

Belarus has been rocked in recent days by allegations that key political opponents of the country's President, Alexander Lukashenko, were assassinated by a death squad working for the country's senior leadership.

The idea that Mr Lukashenko's disappeared opponents might have been murdered is not a new one but until now, the allegations have remained just that.

Now new light has been shed by an e-mail, sent by two former staff members of the prosecutor's office, to Belarus's most popular state-owned and independent newspapers.

In it, they allege the complicity of the country's leadership in the murder of a former interior minister, a former deputy prime minister, and Dmitrii Zavadski, who once worked as Mr Lukashenko's personal cameraman.

Full story here.

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia (Reuters) - Bosnian Serb police clashed with nationalist rioters Monday, using tear gas and water cannon to beat back mobs trying again to disrupt a ceremony to mark the rebuilding of a medieval mosque.

Hundreds of Bosnian Serbs in the city of Banja Luka attacked police with stones and bottles, injuring 15 officers, three of them seriously, the local SRNA news agency said.

The demonstrators, angered at the Western-driven efforts to reintegrate Bosnian Muslims driven out during the 1992-1995 war, shouted anti-Muslim slogans and sang nationalist songs but failed to stop the ceremony.

It was the second time violence had marred efforts to mark formally the re-establishment of Muslim religious life in the ''capital'' of the half of Bosnia now controlled by Orthodox Christian Serbs.

Riots a month ago killed a Muslim man and forced the postponement of the cornerstone ceremony for rebuilding the 16th century Ferhadija mosque, which was destroyed by Serb extremists in 1993 during campaigns to expel local Muslims.

That outburst of chauvinism brought fierce condemnation from the Western overseers of the Dayton peace deal that ended the war in 1995. The riots underlined the difficulty of damping down the extreme nationalism that divides Bosnia's ethnic groups.

Three top Bosnian Serb interior ministry officials lost their jobs after last month's riots in northwestern Banja Luka and in the southern town of Trebinje, where a similar mosque reconstruction was blocked by violent Serb nationalists two days earlier.

A tight security cordon allowed Muslim clerics, Bosnian officials and Western diplomats to proceed with the rebuilding ceremony Monday.

``Let this mosque be a bridge of reconciliation between Muslims and Christians,'' the head of Bosnia's Islamic Community Mustafa Efendi Ceric said at the ceremony.

Mirko Sarovic, the nationalist President of the Bosnian Serb republic, which together with the Muslim-Croat federation makes up Bosnia, participated in the ceremony.

He had refused to attend last month.

Banja Luka's mayor had ordered all bars and restaurants near the reconstruction site to be closed until late Monday afternoon to prevent the intoxication that fueled the May riots.

The city was the second biggest Bosnian town before the war but its most of its large Muslim population either fled or was expelled early in the war.

All 15 mosques in the town itself and 90 in the Banja Luka area were blown up.

A total of 618 mosques throughout Bosnia were destroyed during the bloody ethnic conflict that left up to 200,000 dead.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has become the first Russian leader to visit Yugoslavia for a decade.

He meets President Vojislav Kostunica on Sunday morning, with discussion expected to be dominated by Albanian rebellions in Macedonia and southern Serbia, and the situation in Kosovo where Russian peacekeepers are based.

Mr Kostunica has stressed the importance of Russia's military and political presence in the Balkans, saying it is crucial for the stability of the region.

Full story here.

By FRANK BRUNI

ARSAW, June 15 — President Bush called today for an Atlantic Alliance that would stretch all the way to Russia's borders, delving more emphatically and aggressively than any of his predecessors into a matter guaranteed to make Moscow nervous.

On the day before his first meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Bush used a speech in the capital of this former Soviet bloc country to urge a broad, steady expansion of NATO into the countries of Eastern Europe that are not now in the alliance.

"As we plan to enlarge NATO, no nation should be used as a pawn in the agendas of others. We will not trade away the fate of free European peoples. No more Munichs. No more Yaltas."

Full story here.

By TODD S. PURDUM

LOS ANGELES, June 14 — Forget those occasional contests in which a California cabernet beats out a French Bordeaux. Here is a real blow to the chauvinism of the nation that invented the word: La Belle France has been bumped from fifth place among the world's economies by the Republic of California.

A shaky euro, a strong dollar and California's booming $1.330 trillion economy combined last year to push the nation's most populous state past France's $1.281 trillion economy and within striking distance of Britain, which is the world's fourth-largest economic power, at $1.415 trillion, according to a new analysis by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, a business group here.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: Where is powerful Putin's Russian empire if I may ask? It seems that Putin's economic power is smaller than of LA's new mayor Hahn. What kind of Russian arms race we are talking about? Is it with Poland and Lithuania or with U.S.? It is better for Putin to be a good beggar and ask Bush to give him couple of bucks rather than threaten with empty words and risk collapse of Russia next year.

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) -- Two 12-year-old friends sat on prison trains 60 years ago, peering through barbed wire and listening, confused and afraid, to the clickety-clack of wheels against the rails.

Their families, like thousands of others across the three Baltic states, were awakened by Soviet troops on June 14, 1941, marched at gunpoint to cattle cars and packed in. There wasn't room to lie down; holes in the wooden floors served as latrines.

In a surreal interlude, their trains -- already in Russia and en route to Siberia -- drew side-by-side a few days later and young Lennart and Ulo suddenly saw each other. They shouted excitedly across the gap for several minutes until their trains finally diverged for good.

Lennart Meri, now Estonia's president, and Ulo Johanson were lucky enough to survive cruel conditions and return safely home, years later. Both Johanson's parents died in Siberia, as did thousands of the estimated 200,000 Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians deported through the 1940s and early '50s on orders of Soviet leader Josef Stalin.

``What a wonderful feeling to meet him again,'' said Johanson, now 72, after seeing Meri earlier this week. ``We played as children and we shared the same tragic fate. When we shook hands just now, he said, 'You see, we survived after all.'''

Meri spent the past three weeks crisscrossing the country to personally greet as many survivors as possible, and thank them, he said, for persevering. At a park in Tallinn on Wednesday, 2,000 people waited in a cold, blustery rain for up to three hours to exchange words with the president. One of the last in line was Johanson.

``This isn't our day of glory, but neither is it a day of infamy,'' Meri told one gathering in southern Estonia on Monday. ``We have won and they have lost.''

After Stalin and Adolf Hitler signed a nonaggression pact dividing Europe into spheres of influence, the Soviet Union forcibly annexed the Baltic states in 1940. The Nazis invaded in 1941, and the Soviets returned in 1944. The Baltic states only regained independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The three Baltic states consider the deportations national tragedies that they now commemorate every June 14.

``Estonians were also arrested and killed before June 14, though this was done mostly in silence,'' explained historian Toomas Hiio. ``But that day was when all Estonians saw with their own eyes what the new regime meant.''

Flags draped with black ribbons flew across all three Baltic states Thursday. In Estonia, church bells tolled at noon. In Latvia, people lighted candles by a railway where they or their relatives had been herded onto Siberia-bound trains.

Nearly 10,000 Estonians, including 4,000 children and infants, were arrested on June 14, 1941. That was 1 percent of the country's population. Another 50,000 followed. Many didn't return and presumably died of overwork, disease, starvation, abuse -- or were executed.

Meri's office said Thursday that during his three-week tour, he met about 7,000 former deportees.

He has supported the prosecution of a handful of former officials who helped carry out the deportations. Estonians aren't out for revenge, he insists. But they do want to understand and shed light on what happened.

``We don't have the luxury of living in the past like some old French aristocrats,'' he said in an interview. ``It's our duty to live for the future. And this can only be achieved without hating the past and without seeking revenge.''

He told an audience of deportees that Estonia needs to focus on integrating with the West by joining the European Union and the NATO military alliance.

Baltic leaders often cite Soviet repression as an inspiration for their bid to join NATO. The alliance says the door is open to them, but Russian opposition has made the question of Baltic entry politically sensitive.

``Estonia is expecting to join NATO,'' Meri said. ``It'll mean our children and children's children won't have to be worried about their security. Let them be worried about their math homework instead.''

RIGA, Jun 14, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Forget musty old tomes which collect dust on shelves, a Latvian researcher has issued a CD-ROM with interviews and footage about the fearsome Siberian gulags to mark the 60th anniversary of Soviet deportations.

The forerunner of the Soviet KGB rounded up tens of thousands of people from the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia on June 14, 1941 to send them to labor camps in Siberia, and Ingvars Leitis wants to make sure young people do not forget it.

"This is for a new generation that won't read about it in books," said Leitis, who hopes that despite a lack of interest in history young people will be more attracted to the video footage of a handful of camps and interviews.

"The old people that care don't know what a CD-ROM is," he told AFP. "It's for the next generation, it's their history too and they must not forget it."

Leitis released last week the first CD in what he hopes will be a series, with most of the material coming from a 20,000-kilometer (12,500-mile) bicycle trip he made across the Soviet Union under the guise of a journalist in 1975.

Inspired by Nobel-prize winning author Aleksander Solzhenitsyn's account of the Soviet labor camps in the "Gulag Archipelago", Leitis told authorities he was researching Siberian villages and visited exiled Balts to collect stories there.

Soviet forces deported or executed more than 250,000 people from the Baltic states after it seized the countries at the outset and end of World War II.

After Leitis returned to Latvia the KGB got wind of his true intentions.

"They told me that if I went there again I would not come back," he said.

Leitis kept an archive of hundreds of hours of interview footage a secret until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

VILNIUS, Jun 13, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A group of children slowly filed into the dimly-lit room with drab green walls.

Squeeze 20 schoolchildren into a confined space of no more than 15 square meters (160 square feet) and the result was predictably an outburst of giggling, shuffling and poking one another.

"Comfortable?" asked the guide, Richardas Padviaskas. "This is how many prisoners used to be kept in the room."

Silence.

Silence is the only befitting response to the horrors which happened in the basement of this stately downtown Vilnius building, where the Soviet Union's dreaded KGB and its forerunners executed 1,037 people with pistol shots to the head.

Tens of thousands of Lithuanians passed through the prison's cells and torture chambers before being shipped off to labor camps in Siberia before the country gained back its independence in 1991.

As the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia mark this week the 60th anniversary of the first mass deportations by the Soviets of their people to Siberia on June 14, 1941, the unique KGB museum is an integral part of efforts to keep the memories alive.

Opened in 1992, the museum is visited by up to 2,000 people every month, including many schoolchildren.

"It used to be part of our forbidden history, but now we can talk about it, and teachers like to have something to show children so it's not something distant in some book," Padviaskas told AFP.

If they are lucky, children can have a former inmate tell them about the prison.

Juozas Aleksiejunas was 24 years old when he was locked up in the prison for two months in the spring of 1945 before being sent to a labor camp near the far northern Russian city of Vorkuta.

Despite it bringing up unpleasant memories for him, Aleksiejunas spends several days a week leading visitors through the prisons cells.

"If we don't tell them about it then who will tell them what happened -- nobody will," he told AFP.

Visitors can look at the bloodstained walls of the padded cell where some prisoners were put in straitjackets and beaten, their cries of pain inaudible to the rest of the jail.

Two rooms held pools of water about a third of a meter (1 foot) deep. Stripped to their underwear prisoners would be made to stand on a box in the center of the room until they fell asleep and tumbled into the icy water.

Sleep deprivation was another tactic interrogators used on prisoners, keeping them up all night with questioning and not allowing them to sleep during the day.

Snoozers ended up in a cramped unheated isolation cell dressed in only their underwear.

The conditions weren't much better in regular cells, where until the 1950s prisoners slept on the floor in their clothes in the damp rooms.

Meals were miserable and barely enough to keep a person alive.

The Soviets were trying to break into submission the people of the Baltic states, which had been independent between the wars.

Aleksiejunas was one of tens of thousands of Lithuanians who fled into the woods after the Soviets drove German troops out of the country.

Many hid only temporarily to escape deportation, but about 30,000 stayed to fight a partisan war against the Soviets which lasted into the 1950s.

In the biggest wave of deportations, in March 1949, over 100,000 Balts were sent to Siberia.

While Balts so far seem in little danger of forgetting their history, as they approach this summer the 10th anniversary of restoring their independence there is a sense of disappointment among many.

A majority of residents in neighboring Latvia believe their country has headed in the wrong direction, according to a recent poll.

But Aleksiejunas finds things very clear.

"Today we can say and do whatever we want while for 50 years we could do only what we were told," he said.

In the French National Assembly, socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin recently set out a manifesto for uniting Europe against unwanted influences from the US.

Europe, Mr Jospin said, had its own identity, which was more important than the rules or institutions of the European Union. Europe was "a model of society, and a vision of the world."

He accused the US of having "forgotten its international responsibilities" by rejecting the Kyoto accords. European countries, he said, had to build up their own strategic industries, their own political voice and military capability, to prevent "American domination".

He also said they should speak up about US missile defence plans and the risk of a new arms race. He criticised the US Government for its unilateralism, its love of free-wheeling capitalism, its protection of tax havens and its use of the death penalty.

Mr Jospin's words pleased his coalition partners, the Green Party and the communists. But, according to government economic adviser Laurence Tubiana, they were also meant as a European challenge to US leadership.

"Now the responsibility is on the shoulders of Europe. We need to show leadership," he said.

"It's not easy. Trying to improve the world economic order, or anything, with a big free-rider like the US is of course something very difficult to imagine - even to be sure that a true European solidarity can be built.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: Who will be the new European leader? Jospin, Schroeder, Kostunica, Blair or maybe Putin? They all very like American money that help them in their spending lunacy so who is freeloader here? All he offers is just another leftist manifesto and nothing else. Within 48 hours of becoming French PM he admitted that all his plans and ideas are false and fake and that he can't deliver his preelection promises. Self admitted liar and impostor would like to lead Europe into certain disaster. He and his supporters are aware that their time is over on political scene in Europe. That is why they are so overzealous in defending their interests and not because they can offer something better to Europe right now. Hypocrisy of Green Party is well known to everyone. They are always concerned about western industry and capitalist world while Russia, China and the rest of communist bloc are not of their interest although they make far more pollution than all capitalist countries combined thanks to their primitive and underdeveloped industry and outdated technologies. Moscow overwhelmingly supported these hypocrites for decades in order to slowdown western economy allowing them enough time to pick up with the West. Where were Greens during Chernobyl disaster, soviet nuclear ground testings that included civilians? Someone said that when ever Washington decides to invest in Alaska, hordes of Green hypocrites swarm this ice forsaken land to "protect" natural wildlife. It more seems like acting on behalf of Moscow and Beijing and sabotaging U.S. than helping endangered wildlife. Time of red and green coalition chaos is coming to an end and there is nothing that Jospin or similar leftist zealots can do about it. Moscow is bankrupt and without their funds it is too hard to challenge Washington on their own. It is time for old methods of financing, Stalinist way of robbing banks, taking hostages and blackmailing hard working people. Have you ever asked yourself when these people work and earn money when they are protesting everything and anything around the world 24 hours a day? Do they have a job or they win lottery frequently or they have fast dying relatives leaving them large amounts of money? Jospin is however right about past European leadership of the world but too bad he forgot to mention why was Europe destroyed in WWII and who caused this destruction leading ultimately to U.S. overtaking leadership of the world. Forces of left socialism (communists) and right socialists (fascists) started the worst bloodbath in human history in their drive to enslave the world and send humanity to the Middle Ages, not U.S.. Jospin and his comrades should blame each other for loss of world leadership, not U.S. You all of course know by now that they are all just bunch of hypocrites and cowards who can't take any responsibility for their actions and foul deeds so their ignorance and "blame U.S." policy is no surprise. That is why Milosevic doesn't recognize jurisdiction of Hague tribunal, doesn't admit any responsibility in mass slaughter of civilians in former Yugoslavia during '90s and his responsibility of transforming Serbia into giant criminal enterprise. "Blame it on U.S.", says Milosevic, "I'm innocent". If FRY gets any money soon from the West he will say that they are paying war reparations to FRY for NATO bombing, not because he is going to the Hague, and claim another glorious "victory" similar to his past great "victories".

The Serbian authorities say they have discovered a mass grave at a police training camp near the capital, Belgrade. The grave is believed to contain the bodies of dozens of ethnic Albanians killed by Yugoslav troops during the crisis in Kosovo.

Full story here.

WASHINGTON, Jun 12, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Beijing has increased its military ties with Havana and over the past months has sent at least three shipments of weapons and explosives to Cuba, The Washington Times reported Tuesday, citing unnamed U.S. intelligence officials.

The shipments were traced from China to to the Cuban port of Mariel and were shipped aboard vessels belonging to the China Ocean Shipping Co. (COSCO), U.S. intelligence officials told the Times privately.

The transaction involved a "known Chinese arms dealer" who arranged the transfers, according to the Times.

The officials told the newspaper that one of the cargoes included "military-grade" dual-use explosives and detonation cord.

The latest arms delivery coincided with December 26-30 visit to Cuba of Chinese military chief of staff General Fu Quanyou.

Chinese arms shipments to Cuba could result in U.S. economic sanctions on both China and Cosco, which has several operations in U.S. ports, the officials told the Times.

MOSCOW, Jun 12, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Russians today live in a democracy but need to be vigilant to make sure that they keep their post-Soviet freedoms, President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a Kremlin reception to mark the 10th anniversary of the declaration of Russian sovereignty, Putin praised the achievements during the decade since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union.

"The very nature of the Russian authorities, of the state, the constitutional order, has changed. The government has a new democratic face," he said cited by the Interfax news agency.

But Putin, a former KGB colonel who has been accused by liberals of seeking to curb freedoms, added that society should continue to fight for its rights.

"Democracy and civil rights are society's legacy to be defended daily," he added.

Editor's commentary: Under this new Putin's democratic face we can uncover FSB's true face and that's what present government in Russia is all about. Putin's statement reminds us of Stalin's days and Orwell's 1984 and "doublethink". Say one thing and do the opposite is what Putin and FSB are doing in Russia right now. Do you know of any other country in the world run by state security? How about electing CIA chief as the next president of U.S. while he appoints all ministers from CIA ranks? That would be something! Bill gates ends up in jail because of tax evasion, his property confiscated, NY Times bought by Exxon controlled by the government, Ted Turner is hiding in Cuba to avoid extradition on tax evasion and bankruptcy while CNN becomes CIA propaganda machine glorifying president, ex-CIA chief. "Walking with Putin" is more like "Dead Man Walking". Russians can expect nothing more than they used to expect during Stalin's days and that is gulags, hardship, terror, hopelessness and death.

By DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON, June 11 — President Bush made clear today that he had no intention of reversing his opposition to a global warming accord supported by the European leaders he will meet with this week. And he strongly suggested that any new accord would have to bind developing nations, especially China and India, to the kind of commitments that would be made by the United States.

In an effort to mollify his European critics in the hours before he left for Spain tonight on his first trip to Europe as president, Mr. Bush acknowledged the severity of the global warming problem and said the United States would "lead the way by advancing the science on climate change." He described several new research initiatives that could mark a potentially significant focusing of American climate study.

But while suggesting a new approach to the issue of global warming, Mr. Bush remained firm in rejecting the 1997 Kyoto accord, noting that it set no standards for major emitters of greenhouse gases, like China and India, while creating mandates for the United States that could prove economically crippling. His aides further argued that the accord — aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases below 1990 levels — was written to make it easier for Europe than for the United States to meet the goals.

Full story here.

BEIJING, Jun 11, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Seven people have been executed in Tibet, the first in the region to fall foul of the Chinese government's "strike hard" campaign that began in April, a newspaper said.

The seven were executed immediately after their appeal was rejected by the Supreme People's Court of the Tibet Autonomous Region, according to the May 31 edition of the Tibet Legal News seen in Beijing on Saturday.

The seven condemned were found guilty of murder, theft and causing explosions, the newspaper said without giving details.

Chinese media had reported in mid-May that at least four criminals had been sentenced to death in Tibet -- two in Shigatse about 200 kilometers (125 miles) west of Lhasa, and two in Nagqu, 250 kilometers (155 miles) north of the Tibetan capital.

It was not clear whether the four individuals were among the seven executed.

The executions are the first to be reported in Tibet since the beginning of the nationwide "strike hard" against crime campaign which was launched by President Jiang Zemin.

At least 1,000 people have been put to death during the crackdown, according to diplomats in Beijing who have been compiling figures based on reports in the official press.

The actual figures though are thought to be far higher because not all executions are reported in the state press.

Human rights organizations fear that the campaign could also be used to eliminate political opponents, particularly in Tibet and in the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang where at least two ethnic Uighurs were sentenced to death last month for separatism.

BEIJING, Jun 8, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Twenty convicted criminals were executed in northern China as part of the "strike hard" campaign which has seen more than 1,000 death sentences carried out in two months, state media reported Friday.

The convicts were executed on Thursday in the city of Xian after a public sentencing rally attended by several thousand people," said the local Huaxi City News.

The paper gave few details of the crimes of those executed. It said one man, 29-year-old Li Jianwei, was convicted of murder after he killed a man who stole his girlfriend.

President Jiang Zemin initiated the "strike hard" campaign in early April -- demanding police speed up arrests, convictions and executions -- and so far more than 1,000 executions have been reported in the state media.

However diplomats and human rights experts say the real number of executions is likely to be far higher.

Executions do not take place in public and are usually carried out with a single bullet to the back of the neck. Sometimes prisoners' organs are removed for transplants.

In theory each convict has 10 days to appeal the sentence, but in practice many appeals are rejected within 24 hours. Human rights groups say legal delays are often dispensed with during special campaigns.

China executes more people each year than the rest of the world combined, but the total number remains a heavily guarded state secret.

BELGRADE, Jun 6, 2001 -- (Reuters) Serbia's interior minister said on Tuesday he had ordered police to inform people who had been labeled "internal enemies" and put under surveillance by the secret police of former president Slobodan Milosevic.

Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic told a news conference he had ordered his state security chief to find out who had been under surveillance and to start mailing them in a fortnight, explaining how they could access their secret police files.

"Letters to citizens will include information on why they were under surveillance and when, where -- in which police station in their respective towns -- and in what way they may see their files," Mihajlovic said.

He added that the removal of the files from police premises or copying them would not be allowed.

The announcement followed the government's decision last month to de-classify certain files marked "state secret".

Milosevic's secret police were notorious for putting people under surveillance, usually without authorization, and keeping secret files on them. The work was carried out by a department called "The third line - internal enemies".

Mihajlovic said the files to be made available to citizens would also cover the work of secret police before Milosevic, "from its beginning, after the Second World War".

He could not say how many such files existed but said the number from the Milosevic period would probably be the lowest, "since his police were interested only in then opposition leaders, some reporters and other participants in the process of democratization".

Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic said last month that the files declassified so far showed that current Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was the person most frequently put under surveillance.

Files that can be opened under the government decision include those of people "who were put under surveillance for their political belief and work".

However, Mihajlovic said Serbs suspected of cooperating with foreign intelligence or taking part in terrorist actions would not be able to see their files.

Foreign citizens, like reporters and diplomats, could theoretically get access to their files if files were opened on them, but added: "It is highly unlikely any of them was under surveillance for being an internal enemy".

Editor's commentary: More lies and excuses from former agent of SDB Mihajlovic. What this crap means? It means that they are going to sell us a lie that SDB during Milosevic's reign of terror only spied on opposition leaders. How convenient that current Serbian PM has the largest file. This is more like Djindjic's propaganda crap supposed to prove that he was not collaborating with Milosevic. Releasing today reports from Tito's reign can only boost Stalinist forces in Serbia eager to blame Tito for Serbian nationalist issue. That's what Kostunica, Cosic and Milosevic want. What about journalist Milovan Brkic who was brutally beaten almost to the death in 1996 by secret police? Is this SDB idiot going to claim that SDB was not spying on Brkic because he was not an opposition leader? How strange that SDB spied only on 10 persons. Although these documents are now supposed to be public, no one can copy them and quote them!? If these documents are not state secret anymore then why keeping them secret? What about others who were spied on the charge of terrorism or spying for foreigners, what about hundreds of members of youth organization "Otpor" who were mercilessly persecuted by Milosevic's secret police known as SDB? Mihajlovic already tried to give members of "Otpor" secret files but these young people are not stupid. They discovered immediately that files given to them were files from ordinary police containing nothing important while real secret files from SDB were never delivered to them. Mihajlovic is a liar, gangster, member of Serbian mafia, Milosevic's agent, former member of SDB and war criminal. This man should be put in jail with Milosevic not to let him telling us Milosevic's lies all over again. Access to these files was supposed to be granted last week but some "difficulties" appeared out of nowhere. This is similar fraud as Amnesty law that was never in effect. They sure did proudly announced in March general amnesty but no one was released from jail and those at large are still wanted. The latest news is that every one of those at large must report, serve military service and then they will decide whether to drop charges!? What is ridiculous here is that this applies for all which means it includes those who al;ready served military service but refused to fight in Bosnia and Kosovo, includes those who were never recruited for military service and includes those who deserted from their units in Bosnia and Kosovo while serving as reservists. That's why international community should abandon any kind of aid to FRY and that is why even harsher sanctions should be established right now. This gang of criminals have been mocking international community for years while brutally exploiting Serbs and murdering and looting all who were against them. It would be insane to give billions of dollars to these criminals and award them for their crimes against humanity. Milosevic and his associates are in jail but where are the charges, where are the trials, where is the evidence against them? Mihajlovic and Djindjic claim that they have solved all murders from Milosevic's period but no one knows except them who did those crimes, where is the evidence and when the hell they are going to be tried. The worst of all cases is the case of Rade Markovic, former chief of SDB who is going to be secretly tried for secret charges!? He is going to be tried because he said in public state secrets from Milosevic's period of rule!? Does anyone buy this piece of garbage? It is time for even more pressure on these criminals who think that world has forgotten what they have done.

A report that Labour would use a landslide general election victory as a platform for launching Britain into the eurozone has prompted sterling to fall to a 15-year low.

On Wednesday afternoon, the pound slid to $1.3920, equalling a 15-year low. In late New York trading, it was even lower at $1.3914.

The fall followed a newspaper report that Labour, buoyed by an overwhelming victory in Thursday's general election, could begin campaigning as soon as September for the UK to adopt the euro.

Full story here.

The Harehills district of Leeds is now quiet after several hours of sporadic street violence involving more than 150 people. Two dozen cars and a shop were set on fire and police officers in riot gear - who tried to restore calm - were pelted with bricks after violence flared after 2200 BST on Tuesday.

Full story here. Video clip here.

A 24-year-old Kosovan named Bekim, who had been waiting for his asylum application result for a year, quizzed Mr Hague.

Mr Hague told him he would have had his asylum case dealt with much more quickly under the Tories.

"You shouldn't have to wait two or three years."

But Bekim said that the detention centres planned by the Tories were "like jails".

'Kill or be killed'

"Hitler put the Jews in detention centres and he killed everyone.

"You will put us in detention centres and you will send us back.

"For 99% of Kosovan asylum seekers it is a 50-50 chance to be killed or to kill."

Mr Hague said: "You have had a dreadful experience which most people in this country cannot even imagine."

He said that a "a very large proportion" of the people who came from Kosovo had a genuine case but that did not mean that "abuse of the system" was acceptable.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: This really shows how low Tony Blair has gone just to get reelected. It is a well known fact that Albanians are number one asylum seekers in the world who blatantly abuse asylum policy. What is the reason for Kosovo Albanians to seek asylum today when NATO troops are in Kosovo? British forces are part of NATO troops which means that they have the same protection in Kosovo as in Great Britain itself. Those who might seek asylum from Kosovo today are non-Albanians exposed to frequent harassment of Albanians. Conservative policy on asylum is identical with UN's policy and there is nothing to complain about. Labour asylum policy is to deny asylum to everyone while UN policy is that genuine asylum seekers should get asylum while those who pretend to be asylum seekers like Kosovo Albanians should be sent back. Just pay attention on what that man is saying. First, he mentions Hitler's concentration camps mistaking them with detention camps. Albanians were allies with Hitler who created Greater Albania for them and while no Albanians ever finished in Hitler's concentration camps. No one gets killed in detention camps while in Hitler's concentration camps people were systematically murdered. Second, he says that they will all be put in detention centers and the sent back which immediately negates his first statement. No one was ever sent back from Hitler's concentration camps. Third, he says that there is 50-50 chance for almost all Kosovo Albanians asylum seekers to be killed or kill!? Have you ever heard someone seeking asylum because he is going to kill people? You can only seek asylum if your life is endangered and currently lives of Kosovo Albanians are not. Who is going to kill them today except Albanian mafia? NATO troops won't and Serb forces are out of Kosovo for good. This is what happens when you have Albanian as your campaign manager Tony. Next time think more wisely but again there may be no next time for you. Unlike Clinton Tony can still practice law.

Labour leader Tony Blair told 11,000 supporters at a rally on Tuesday evening that William Hague deserved to be beaten because of a swing to the right by the Tories.

Speaking in Derby, he said: "They have disqualified themselves as as a serious party of government.

"They have abandoned the centre ground.

"They are camped on the Right - pointing in the direction of the past.

"And now it's too late for them to return to the mainstream."

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: What is the mainstream and why should you always be on the centre ground? Tony thinks that "Third Way" is mainstream not realizing that Clinton is gone and that Bush's strategy is in the right direction which means that Conservatives are in the mainstream while Tony has moved left. While being moderate is sometimes good we all remember how that looked during Major's rule. That's why Conservatives voted for Labour in 1997. Blair further said:

He urged people to speak out "clearly and unequivocally that no party should ever again attempt to lead this country by proposing to cut Britain's schools, hospitals and public services".

Conservatives do not propose any cuts to schools, hospitals and public services but cuts to taxes which is not the same.

David Kerr, professor of clinical oncology in Birmingham, said that in 20 years in the health service there had never been a time of "so much commitment.

He continued: "It would be an unmitigated disaster if after all that has been started, we were to stop now and cutback on cancer funding."

Should working family pay for those researches? Certainly not! These kind of researching is supposed to be financed by business and rich individuals who can afford this not poor working families who can barely afford to survive. Taxes are equal for all and they hurt poor people the most not to mention raise in prices for food after foot and mouth disaster. What do you have for dinner in London tonight? Beef? I don't think so. Maybe Labour wants to make all Britons vegetarians?

In a direct appeal to voters, Mr Blair said: "If you want an extra 10,000 doctors in the NHS, then go out and vote for them.

"If you want an extra 20,000 nurses in the NHS, then go out and vote for them.

"If you want more equipment, more hospitals, then go out and vote for them.

"And if you want to vote against £20bn of Tory cuts, then go out and vote against them."

He urged voters never again to return to the 1980s agenda of "boom and bust economics and "chronic underinvestment in our public services."

Doctors and nurses who need a job we'll sure vote for Labour but what about the rest? Why would farmers, truck drivers, lawyers vote for this? If you want more equipment for hospitals then go vote for Conservatives because you all very well know Labour's policy towards machines who replace workers. Labour wants to hire more workers always while ignoring machines and equipment as unnecessary, expensive and enemies of the working class. Who the hell is going to vote against £20bn of Tory cuts and why? Working families do not need high taxes and other money draining solutions of Labour Party. People need more money for themselves not to give it away to the government. If we go back to '80s we can find out that Margaret Thatcher and Conservatives were extremely popular by saving Great Britain from anarchy and chaos from previous Labour government during '70s. Do you want anarchy and chaos from '70s or good times from '80s is the real question here for Britons. Labour was fortunately unable to reverse all the good things that happened during 18 years of Conservative rule so they need more time to return Britain to '70s. Thanks but no thanks Tony. What kind of a lunatic increases investment in social services while state is heading for bankruptcy like Labour did in '70s? When you are broke then you have to cut your spending. It is always easy to spend money that someone else has earned like Labour did for the last four years with money and wealth accumulated during Conservative rule but how about earning it yourself. Shopping spree and holidays can't last forever. Four more years of increased Labour spending would turn Britain back to '70s. Do you have savings account Tony or you spend every penny before the first of the month?

Later in Rugby, Mr Blair said the election would be decided by the voters, not opinion polls.

We all hope this happens because we are sick of misleading phony leftist polls. Balir further said:

"For the vast majority of people who need their children to be educated in state education and who need the NHS then I tell you this election matters," he told an audience of Labour supporters.

Who needs to send kids to state schools? Labour leaders send their kids to private schools. Private schools will always be better than state schools because of better funding. With Conservatives you will be able to save more money and eventually send your kids to better private schools but with huge Labour taxes your only choice will be state school that will never be good as private ones. Conservatives do not plan to close NHS or cut funds. They simply do not see solution to NHS problem as Labour does. Hiring more nurses and doctors will not improve NHS but seriously deteriorate it because more money will be spent on their paychecks and less money will be left for renovation of hospitals, new advanced medical equipment and medicine. If you are not a nurse or a doctor seeking government job then you should not vote for this because it will only worsen NHS problem.

French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin has admitted he had links with a Trotskyist group in the 1960s.

"It was a personal, intellectual and political journey of which I am not in the least ashamed."

The confession was intended to take the heat out of growing calls on the prime minister to come clean about his past, and accusations that he has told lies about his membership of the OCI (Internationalist Communist Organisation).

What a surprise! Full story here.

TRIPOLI, Jun 5, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited Libyan leader Colonel Moamer Kadhafi to Russia, Libya's JANA news agency reported.

Yevgeny Primakov, the former Russian prime minister who has been traveling as a presidential envoy through the Middle East since May 26, delivered Putin's message to Kadhafi, JANA said.

Putin praised the "deep ties" between Libya and Russia" and "Russia's will to further develop the ties and enlarge them in all domains," JANA said.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said on May 28 that a visit by Kadhafi to Russia was upcoming, but dates had not been set.

To Washington's displeasure, Russia and Libya decided to strengthen their cooperation in all sectors, including the military, during a visit by Ivanov to Tripoli in early May.

The United States does not have diplomatic relations with Libya which it considers a sponsor of terrorism.

Agence France Presse

BEIJING, Jun 4, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Twelve years after the brutal crushing of the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests, few Beijingers appear more concerned with the bloody handling of the incident than China's top leadership.

The publication of the "Tiananmen Papers," the secret conversations of hardline leaders ahead of the crackdown, has resulted in a leadership bent on stifling opposition to the official view that the crackdown saved China's one party communist rule, China experts said.

However, robust efforts to discredit the papers, published in the United States in January, appear to have strengthened hardliners like parliamentary head Li Peng, long-blamed with the late Deng Xiaoping as the leading force behind the crackdown, they added.

"Twelve years have passed, but the shadow of Tiananmen over Chinese politics is getting bigger and bigger," Wu Guoguang, a political scientist at City University of Hong Kong told AFP.

"There may be unity among the top leadership now, but next year's Communist Party (CCP) congress will split that unity and the situation could become very dangerous," he said.

According to the editors of the papers, the publication was intended to force debate on the official assessment of the Tiananmen protests ahead of key leadership changes scheduled to take place at the congress.

The goal of Zhang Liang, the pseudonym of the reformist Chinese official that leaked the papers, was to split reformist elements in the party from hardliners like President Jiang Zemin, appointed CCP boss following the crackdown, and Li Peng, currently the CCP's number two leader.

Hundreds of unarmed protesters died as Chinese soldiers shot their way into the city center and surrounded the square on June 4, 1989, ending six weeks of protests for greater democracy and an end to official corruption.

The government has called the Tiananmen Papers "sheer fabrication," but imposed draconian regulations on the leaking of "state secrets" and last February began a compulsory "education campaign" aimed at "unifying" China's top leaders on the matter.

"Party officials are being educated that Li Peng saved the regime and that he is a hero that has the ability to maintain the primary status of the party," Wu said.

"At this critical stage in China's development, many are saying that it will be good for the regime if next year Li Peng stays on along with Jiang Zemin," he said.

Wu formerly worked for ex-party boss and political reformer Zhao Ziyang, who lost the political struggle with Deng and Li and was ousted in 1989 for supporting the student demonstrations and opposing the military crackdown.

Except for a lack of political reformers in the current leadership, the political and social landscape was currently "extremely sensitive" and very similar to the environment that led up to the 1989 protests, Wu said.

Both Jiang and Li were previously expected to step down from some or all of their top posts during next year's congress, making way for a younger, more reform-minded official class.

"One thing we've learned from the Tiananmen Papers is the political bargaining that goes on at the highest level," Paul Harris, a China expert at Hong Kong's Lingnan University told AFP.

"But, if the majority of people at the highest level support the official verdict on the Tiananmen crackdown, then Li Peng could become stronger from this," he said.

Political in-fighting would become more aggressive as leaders seek promotion ahead of the congress, with areas of disagreement expected to erupt on a wide range of issues not necessarily linked to the Tiananmen issue, he said.

"There is also an aggressive response to any opposition to the government that stems from tremendous paranoia and concern that something like 1989 could happen again," Harris said.

He further linked a police crackdown on Chinese intellects and the recent arrest in China of five Chinese-born U.S. scholars to the Tiananmen Papers and the sensitive nature of Chinese politics, as debate over next year's leadership changes intensifies.

"Oh sure, the arrest of these scholars could be linked (with the Tiananmen papers) because these are the types of people who are likely to be the conduit to get to editors in the U.S.," he said.

Meanwhile, Tiananmen Paper's editor Zhang Liang, claimed in an interview with Radio Free Asia on Friday in Washington that China's security apparatus had set up a wide ranging dragnet to arrest him.

"Those suspected of being 'Zhang Liang' have been threatened, followed, 'politely' questioned; their homes and work phones have been bugged, their homes and offices have been searched and items have been confiscated," he said.

BEIJING, Jun 4, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Mothers of victims of the 1989 killing of democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square demanded Sunday a review of the massacre as the Chinese government warned against commemorations of the June 4 incident.

The communist government has ignored repeated pleas to reassess and apologize for the brutal crackdown, which it says had been necessary to maintain one party rule and a stable environment for economic reforms.

"We are against the refusal to reassess the 1989 Tiananmen movement and the June Fourth incident in the name of maintaining stability," a message from 111 mothers of Tiananmen victims said on the eve of the 12th anniversary of the incident.

"We support all economic reforms that would bring prosperity to the Chinese people ... but strongly oppose stagnation in the political arena," said the message, sent to journalists by the New York-based Human Rights in China.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators were mowed down by Chinese troops as they approached Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing on June 4, 1989.

The Tiananmen Mothers group, led by retired professor Ding Zilin whose son was killed in the incident, has lobbied for years for an official apology for the massacre.

The group's message was released as China's foreign ministry warned AFP against unapproved interviews with political dissidents around the anniversary of the crackdown.

"We want to remind you that this is a sensitive period and you shouldn't be engaging in any unapproved reporting," foreign ministry information official Li Jianping told AFP Sunday.

"Otherwise you will be responsible for all consequences," she said.

A veteran Beijing-based pro-democracy activist told AFP he was also warned by police not to participate in any events commemorating the Tiananmen crackdown.

Ren Wanding, 57, said he was visited by two uniformed officers Saturday at his home in Tongzhou, an eastern suburb of the Chinese capital, and taken to a police station for about one hour of questioning.

Six other democracy activists were detained in southwestern Sichuan province last week and warned against engaging in any activities commemorating the event. At least one of them remained in police custody over the weekend.

Other political dissidents in Beijing have reported increased police surveillance of their homes in the past few days, a practice that has become routine in recent years around June 4.

A council has said it is considering whether to take legal action against the BBC after a reporter obtained postal ballots for five people who had died in the constituency.

There has been a call for an inquiry into the new rules allowing a postal vote on demand following an investigation in the marginal constituency of Torbay in Devon highlighting the potential for fraud in the system.

It has been estimated that up to 20% of the electorate may be voting by post - and in the constituency of Stevenage it is expected that 25,000 out of 70,000 voters may be posting their ballot papers.

Full story here.

Tony Blair has accused the Conservatives of using "desperate" tactics in the run up to polling day. The prime minister said Tory calls for people not to vote Labour because of fears of a Labour landslide was a "desperate throw of the dice".

Those warnings have raised fears among the Labour leadership that its core supporters may not bother to turn out to vote on 7 June.

Mr Blair has spent the past few days urging voters to turn out on polling day and give him a mandate to spend more on public services.

Mr Blair urged Labour supporters to take no notice of opinion polls but to make sure they cast their vote next Thursday to give Labour the "strength" to continue investing in public services.

Mr Blair said he was "delighted" that the central issue of the campaign was now investment in public services and said the choice facing electors could not be clearer.

"The choice is between this government investing in schools and hospitals and a Conservative party that would return to cuts."

Heartlands appeal

Earlier, Mr Blair made a direct appeal to core Labour voters when he pledged to do his best for "hardworking families" if he wins the election.

"We are the first to accept that there is more to do," he said.

"But we also know that we have made a start. That the foundations are in place."

He added: "Don't just give us a mandate for better schools and hospitals but send us an instruction give us our marching orders to make the changes, the improvements, that the people of this country desperately want to see."

Labour Party workers are distributing up to one million pledge cards in towns and cities across Britain on Saturday.

The cards include the party's five pledges, which are to keep mortgages low; to recruit more nurses; more doctors; more police; and to keep the winter fuel payment and increase the minimum wage to £4.20.

Mr Blair said: "Today is pledge day. A day when every Labour candidate takes our crusade for schools and hospitals to every part of the country."

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: It is obvious who is desperate right now. Labour is aware that polls are fake and that is the reason why their leader Tony Blair is urging hardcore Labour voters to vote for him. If it was the opposite then turnout would be high and there would be no need for this last minute call for hardcore Labour voters. All this indicates strong possibility of vote rigging that was mentioned by Conservative leader Hague earlier. Turnout in 1997 was very high and that helped Labour a lot. In general, leftists get better if more people vote. Those undecided voters who vote irregularly swing more to the left than right. Blair lies when he accuses Conservatives that they appeal to the people not to vote. Conservatives appeal not to vote for Labour and since there are only two major parties in Britain it is obvious what that means, vote Conservative. Blair's appeal to the voters to give him one more turn to spend more money is outrageous. This is similar to the dictators in banana republics who use people and later spend their money on increasing their personal wealth, building palaces etc. What people need is government that will take less of their money and spend less on projects they don't need at all like that Blair Millennium Bridge that had to be closed immediately after its opening. Too bad Blair never learned that popular song for children "London Bridge is Falling Down". It mentions how not to build bridges. Millions of pounds were wasted on that bridge and for what?

Central issue here is investment (spending) on schools, hospitals and police. The problem we have here is Blair's vision on how to improve healthcare, education and reduce crime. Blair's vision is quantity rather than quality. Blair thinks that hiring more nurses and doctors would help improve Britons health rather than reorganization of existing resources and investments in pharmacy, employing doctors who know their job rather than employing thousands of college dropouts, getting more advanced medical instruments, various diagnosis scanners etc. One early cancer diagnosis scanner can save more lives than 10,000 extra nurses who can only smile at you and watch you die. The same applies to education with more laboratories for student to experiment, employing qualified teachers rather than thousands of half literate dropouts, pay for better written books etc. Point is that Labour and Blair want to hire more people just like labor unions want to force capitalists to employ more workers regardless of consequences and possibilities. Raising wages and employing new workers cuts profits and jeopardize profitability of company and economy in general. While no one wants any kind of exploitation it is true that no one wants to overburden economy and make total collapse. In this case we are talking about British government and British economy. Labour Party still have the same program that was good for 1829, 1878 or 1906 but certainly not for 21st century. Longer paid vacations, prolonged maternity leaves, paid sick days further burden economy as well. You sure did remember Blair's crazy wife who demanded that he abandons his PM post to be with her at home after she gave a birth to their baby. Labour is simply destructive and their only goal is selfishness and carelessness for longer terms and state as institution. This ultimately leads to communism where group of communist leaders take all the power while population is exposed to propaganda lies and blatantly exploited by this ruling minority. Labour Party should stick to unions and workers rights not politics because simply they are not qualified to govern and rule.

The worst thing here is that Blair wants to employ more police officers which is supposed to reduce crime!? What a nonsense! Does anyone know of any example anywhere in the world that hiring more police officers reduced crime? We don't which leaves two things why Blair wants more police officers employed. First is the same as why Milosevic employed more than 100,000 police officers in Serbia and that is to hold his power not by popular vote but by brute force not to mention that Milosevic and his party were all the time behind Serbian mafia. Crime flourished in Serbia during his rule despite a fact that there were more police officers that Serbia needed. Second is similar to hiring more nurses and doctors and that is simply to give more jobs to his supporters. If you want to be tough on crime then you have to start cracking on crime lords not by chasing drunk drivers and soccer hooligans. How did Chicago get rid of Al Capone? The answer is Eliot Ness and his incorruptible men who did their job outstandingly not by hiring more police officers who ended up on Capone's payroll list. How did Cleveland get rid of gambling and organized crime? By hiring more police officers or by inviting legendary Eliot Ness to crack on crime lords there as well as on corrupted politicians. Britain doesn't need more police officers to reduce crime but someone like Eliot Ness to does his job outstandingly and arrest crime lords not some small fish that would go into some stupid statistics and ended up being manipulated by corrupted politicians. Decision is clear, vote for those who offer realistic solutions and who know their job not for someone who is not proficient in politics and promises things that are not possible to accomplish. Expertise in workers rights is not good enough for managing state affairs. Economy in Great Britain is good thanks to Conservatives and their legendary leader Margaret Thatcher not because of Labour Party and anarchy they have spread in '70s. Four years of spending is enough and it is time to go back to create more money and provide better jobs by investing in small businesses rather than social services. Small businesses produce money and services while social services are like a black hole. You never see your money ever again and quality of their services is something that compares with life in sewers. This is not a call for boycott but for vote, vote for other party that makes a difference, Conservative Party.

WORMINGFORD, England (AP) -- ``What? That lot? They don't understand the countryside,'' exclaimed Phyllida Tufnell, between baking meringues at home and arranging bric-a-brac for a church fete.

``Fox got my best bantam this morning, but what do they care?''

``They,'' in Tufnell's book, are Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Labor Party, poised for easy re-election next week but probably with little help from country folk.

In this tiny hamlet northeast of London, among the sloping fields where John Constable painted ``The Hay Wain,'' his famous study of rural life, Labor stands accused of being too focused on the urban electorate and of neglecting pressing rural problems.

There's ex-farmer John Jackson, angry because he feels the government took too long to crack down on the foot-and-mouth disease that has forced the slaughter of more than 3 million sheep and cattle.

There's churchwarden Gordon Brown, fearful the party will take Britain into a single European currency, meaning the end of the pound and the penny.

And there's Tufnell, whose family have lived at stately Wormingford Hall for two centuries. She won't vote Labor because it has promised to outlaw the ancient sport of fox-hunting with hounds.

There is little chance this dissatisfaction will translate into election victory for the Conservatives on June 7; opinion polls give Labor a double-digit lead.

But it could cost Labor some of the parliamentary seats it picked up with countryside votes in the 1997 election, said Sean Beer, a senior lecturer in agriculture at Bournemouth University.

Agriculture and fishing combined represent only 1.2 percent of jobs and less than 1.5 percent of gross domestic product; 89 percent of Britons live in urban areas.

Conservative Party leader William Hague accuses Labor of treating rural communities with ``indifference, neglect and contempt.''

``No government for the past 150 years has done more to create two nations in Britain by pitting urban against rural, town against country,'' Hague said in a speech.

That viewpoint has been expressed in the loftiest circles. A few months ago, Prince Edward's wife, the former Sophie Rhys-Jones, indiscreetly told an undercover reporter: ``Our prime minister doesn't understand the countryside,'' and ``his wife is even worse, she hates the countryside.''

The Countryside Alliance, an umbrella body of rural groups, says average farm incomes have been cut in half in recent years to less than $8,000, and 40,000 agricultural jobs have been lost since 1999.

The government says the livestock crisis is under control. But Conservatives accuse officials of covering up details of a rash of new cases.

Meanwhile, more than 4,000 rural stores have gone out of business in recent years, and about 100 country post offices close each year, government data shows. In the past 20 years, 450 rural schools have shut down.

The Tories are promising to cut gasoline and diesel prices by 32 cents per gallon, or almost 8 percent, to help car-dependent country dwellers, and are offering interest-free loans to rural businesses hit by the foot-and-mouth epidemic.

Along with Labor, they have also promised to use Britain's membership in the 15-nation European Union to negotiate a better deal for British farmers and products.

``Half the farmers around here have left the land,'' said Jackson, who gave up a money-losing farm in 1997 and now works as a handyman-gardener.

Labor's candidate for the district around Wormingford, Philip Hawkins, said he is campaigning mainly in the towns, ``because that is where our strength lies.''

But he added one of his major concerns was rural poverty. ``It is very real,'' he said. ``Many people have no housing, no access to transport. But I think we are addressing that.''