dpa

LONDON, May 31, 2001 -- (dpa) A government scientific expert warned British farmers on Wednesday they could expect more cases of foot and mouth disease and urged continued vigilance.

The warning from the government's chief scientific advisor, David King, came as farmers expressed concern at new clusters of cases in Yorkshire and neighboring Lancashire in the north of England in recent days.

"This is probably the most infectious animal disease there is," King said.

Chief veterinary officer Jim Scudamore said the cluster of disease in Settle in Yorkshire had been caused by sheep carrying the virus for more than four weeks.

There have also been cases in Cheshire and southern Scotland.

The total number of confirmed foot and mouth cases - sites where the disease has been found - has reached 1,665, although some farmers believe the number is almost double that and that the government is deliberately downplaying the figures ahead of the June 7 election.

A total of 3,095,000 animals have been slaughtered. Disposal of the carcasses has brought considerable environmental problems. Dioxins have been found in the milk of cows grazing near open incineration pits, and there are fears of water contamination near sites where carcasses have been buried.

The first cases of foot-and-mouth were confirmed on 20 February.

Editor's commentary: Why bother with vaccine when you can kill them all is Labour's policy on foot and mouth disease. Slaughtering 6 million animals is a crime, a serious crime that someone will have to be punished one day. "Sorry folks, we have to kill all these animals because I have spent all tax payers money on social services and nothing has left for vaccine" - Tony Blair. I guess that Britons will have to pray that plague never returns to Great Britain or otherwise they will all face incineration pits. "Sorry folks, there is no money for plague vaccine so all of you who live in plague infected areas will have to be slaughtered and your carcasses incinerated." -Tony Blair, your beloved PM. The saddest thing is that Labour continues to present itself as environmental party with great environmental record.

MOSCOW, May 31, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Russia's Academy of Sciences has ordered Russian scientists to report to state authorities on their contacts with foreign officials, according to a copy of the directive obtained by AFP Wednesday.

One directive orders the heads of laboratories and research groups throughout Russia to inform the academy's "foreign department" by June 1 of any agreements and international cooperation deals they may have entered into.

Science officials are required to inform the department of any visit by a foreigner to their laboratories and of any application for financial aid from foreign organizations. They are also to present a report after any scientific mission abroad, and to provide a copy to the authorities of any article sent abroad for publication.

Presenting the documents to journalists at a press conference, human rights campaigner and parliamentary deputy Sergei Kovalyov said the directives showed that Russia, "a country where the KGB has taken power," was becoming "a police state."

A directive dated May 24 was headed "The Academy of Sciences action plan to avoid any harm to the Russian state in the sphere of economic and scientific cooperation."

It orders "specialist departments" and the heads of research institutes to "carry out an analysis of international agreements signed by scientific bodies in order to ... prevent the transmission abroad of information concerning national security."

It also calls for "strengthening controls on articles being prepared and the exchange of information with foreign countries" in order "not to permit the publication abroad of unauthorized information."

The directive moreover calls for "organizational and technical measures to ensure the security of limited-access information when (Russian) scientists link up with international computer networks, particularly the Internet."

Since President Vladimir Putin, a former intelligence agent, came to power at the start of last year, Russian authorities have stepped up their accusations of espionage against foreign residents, but also against Russian scientists.

MOSCOW, May 31, 2001 -- (Reuters) Russian gas giant Gazprom on Wednesday replaced its veteran chief executive with an ally of President Vladimir Putin, in a move seen as increasing his influence over key business posts and boosting economic reform.

An official from German shareholder Ruhrgas, which controls a board seat, said Deputy Energy Minister Alexei Miller, a native of Putin's home town, St Petersburg, had been appointed to replace Rem Vyakhirev as Gazprom's chief executive.

Shares in Gazprom, the world's largest producer of gas, surged on the news, at one point climbing five percent in Moscow. They later gave up some of their initial gains to end up 2.48 percent at 12 rubles.

There are 11 places on Gazprom's board and the government's 38.37 percent share in the company gives it the right to select five of them. Management controls four, while Ruhrgas and Fyodorov have one each.

Boris Nemtsov, leader of the liberal Union of Right-Wing Forces party, said the appointment of the relatively inexperienced Miller to Gazprom showed the Kremlin saw the company more as a political tool rather than as a business.

"From a business point of view, it is dreadful that the appointment to the highest post in such a company is driven by political reasons," the Interfax news agency quoted Nemtsov as saying.

"Vyakhirev's dismissal is the most important event in Russia's economy for a while. It is more important than a change of government."

Sergei Ivanenko, parliamentary deputy of the liberal Yabloko party, agreed that Putin was Wednesday's big winner.

"The appointment of a new head of Gazprom shows a firming of the line of control of presidential power over all spheres of life in the country," he said.

PUTIN PEP-TALK

Putin has rapidly increased the Kremlin's control since he came to power after an election in March, removing the wide powers once enjoyed by regional governors and consolidating pro-presidential parties in the government.

Miller is little known, but his appointment was a sign Putin was asserting control over a company which provides eight percent of Russia's gross domestic product, has 23 percent of the world's gas reserves and a quarter of world production.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Kremlin's administration and state-appointed chairman of Gazprom's board, told RTR television that the state had to play a key role in reforming the company.

"The state cannot remain outside the zone of control over the processes taking place in the company," he said.

Putin immediately told Miller that he wanted to rejig the gas company's role in Russia's economy.

"You must understand that a situation when a major part of the economy develops due to the gas sector, cannot continue forever, because we will send the sector up a dead end," Interfax news agency quoted Putin as saying.

"Changes must be outlined and the situation altered."

Vyakhirev, in charge since 1992, had been opposed to a reform of Gazprom. But Putin has set a restructuring of Russia's massive natural monopolies, including Gazprom, as one of his priorities.

Vyakhirev was accused by some minority shareholders of stripping the company's assets and practicing nepotism, allegations he and the company have strongly denied.

A NEW DEPARTURE

It was unclear when Miller's appointment would take effect, though Vyakhirev's contract was to expire on Thursday. He is expected to stay on at Gazprom in the role of chairman.

Analysts broadly welcomed Miller's appointment as a sign of Putin's commitment to reforms, but said they did not expect a rapid overhaul of the company.

"I wouldn't expect big changes at Gazprom or quick progress on restructuring...Putin is not a person who changes things sharply and quickly," said Deutsche Bank oil and gas analyst Leonid Mirzoyan.

Vyakhirev began his career in the Soviet-era gas ministry, and took over Gazprom when his mentor and predecessor, Viktor Chernomyrdin, was named prime minister in 1992.

After the sharp share rise on the news, analysts attributed the later dip to concerns about whether Putin's ally would be able to carry out reforms.

The company's American Depositary Receipts, which let foreigners hold shares indirectly, rose 10.1 percent to $8.75 in London trading.

A mother whose daughter is waiting for a bone marrow transplant challenged Prime Minister Tony Blair on live television to do more to help find donors.

Carol Maddocks put Mr Blair on the spot during a special edition of BBC One's Question Time programme, asking why the government did not put more funding into donor registers.

A furious farmer told Mr Blair that he was only interested in the urban vote, asking if the prime minister would accept its handling of the foot-and-mouth crisis was a "shambles".

Mr Blair said the culling of animals had been the only solution.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: Too bad that polls do not include opinion of these people. That's why Labour lead is so big but it seems that reality is entirely different. What is even worse is recent video posted on Labour's web site called Leadership. View it here. It seems that Tony Blair sees himself as the leader of kids and senile old men rather than leader of adults (voters). Video is so pathetic and reminds me of similar Ceausescu's propaganda clips. When you are out of fresh ideas and you want to cover up your failures then just play on "I love kids" card. There are several more issues that will hurt Labour. First one is that most of their plans will realize in 2010 although Labour may not win reelection again. What good is that to the most of pensioners who will probably be dead by that time? Most of younger and middle aged people don't even think about pensions. They are aware of embezzlement of funds around the world as well that due to the fast aging of population it might be impossible to provide those funds at all. There are more and more pensioners every day while funds are getting smaller every day. While pensions were attractive long time ago when typical average age was under 50 and 40 years and you were able to buy much more for your pension, in today's world people must rely more on other sources of income that are not covered under Labour's plan. Second issue is immigration. Although Labour blames Conservatives for their immigration policies, truth is that under Labour rule Great Britain was sanctioned by UN and Kofi Annan himself because of their harsh immigration policies. Things written in Labour's manifesto are bunch of lies because most of asylum seekers were returned without even being heard by British authorities which is serious violation of human rights. Third issue is following statement from their manifesto: Be the first country to introduce greenhouse gas trading to cut pollution. Unfortunately, no costs were stated although everyone knows that would cost billions of pounds not to mention 180 billion pounds for reform of transportation. U.S. recently rejected Kyoto agreement because of high costs and unequal participation of developed and underdeveloped countries. China would have to spend much less than others although it is one of the worst polluters in the world. This huge irrational spending would only hurt Great Britain while not offering any significant gains. Labour program is 100 years old based on 19th century economics and society standards from that time. Labour manifesto intro:

This general election is in many ways even more important than the last. Since May 1997 we have laid the foundations of a Britain whose economy is stronger, where investment is now pouring into public services, where social division is being slowly healed and where influence abroad is being regained.

Why not investing in small businesses instead of wasting money on government funds? What kind of crap is "pouring investments into public services"? Social divisions are narrowed by small businesses not by public transportation and lousy government jobs. What influence has been regained abroad except to communist countries like China or criminal countries like Russia? You can imagine from here where their manifesto is ending. Retail price £2.50!?

BEIJING, May 29, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Former Russian president Boris Yeltsin was Tuesday relaxing at an exclusive Yellow Sea villa used by Mao Zedong and hired out for 120,000 yuan (15,000 dollars) per night, a hotel official told AFP.

The ailing ex-president, accompanied by an 18-strong delegation which includes at least six doctors, arrived at the villa in the northeastern resort city of Dalian and he was expected to stay 10 days, said the official.

Russian media reports said Yeltsin, who landed in Beijing Monday and met a beaming Chinese President Jiang Zemin, had come to China to try traditional Chinese medicine for his many ailments.

Yeltsin had reserved two villas at the exclusive Bangchuidao Guesthouse, a favorite resort of top Chinese communist party cadres which looked onto Dalian's most beautiful private beach, a hotel manager said.

She said Yeltsin, his wife Naina and daughter Tatyana were booked into Villa Number Four where the founder of Communist China Mao Zedong stayed on several occasions after the construction of the hotel in 1951.

The remaining members of the Russian delegation would share Villa Number Four and Villa Number Five, which at 9,700 dollars per night was slightly cheaper.

"The road giving access to the hotel will be blocked off throughout his entire stay," said the manager, adding that the two villas had been booked until June 9.

She added that the Chinese foreign ministry would be picking up the tab for Yeltsin's stay, which was his first holiday outside Russia since he stepped down from the presidency at the end of 1999.

As well as a pebble beach, the hotel also had a swimming pool, a cinema and a series of boats for cruises on the high seas.

The hotel manager said the hotel did not have any medical facilities and she refused to comment on any treatment the 70-year-old Yeltsin might be having during his stay in Dalian.

Dalian is situated on the end of Liaodong peninsula near Lushun, formerly known as Port Arthur. It was around here that the Russian navy suffered a series of crushing defeats by the Japanese in 1904-5.

Yeltsin has rarely been seen in public since he stepped down from the presidency, and his last known trip abroad was to Germany last year to promote a book.

He last left hospital in March after being treated for a reported case of the flu.

He was hospitalized more than 10 times during his two terms as president and underwent a quintuple heart by-pass.

Yeltsin stepped down as head of state on December 31, 1999, handing the presidency over to former KGB officer Vladimir Putin, who was later confirmed in the post in elections.

Editor's commentary: Russian pensioners sure live good out of their pensions! Maybe it's time for Tony Blair to consider Russian pension system although we are certain that some pensioners in Russia are more equal than others.

Tony Blair is renewing Labour's claim to be the party of economic competence by appealing for voters to look beyond dry statistics to the effects of government policies on people's lives. After a Bank Holiday weekend dominated by Europe and race he will attempt to take control of the election agenda with the launch of Labour's business manifesto.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: Clinton is gone for good and his "Third way" is abandoned for good. Blair followed blindly Clinton and his silly ideas and now he is left alone to fight lost cause. Who is going to support "Third way" now when Republicans and Bush are leading U.S.? Blair obviously wants to isolate Britain similar to what Milosevic did to Serbia. Without Washington support he can only count on Putin and Beijing communists to help Britain's economy. Conservatives are long time allies to the Republicans and it is certain that Britain would get huge support from Washington. Alienating Britain from U.S. is like committing suicide. We look forward for their business manifesto but you can bet that will be similar crap as Labour manifesto. Tony Blair still thinks that Clinton is president of U.S.:

Mr Blair will say: "The single most important change there's been in politics in recent years is that New Labour has replaced the Conservative Party as the party for business, for stability, for economic competence.

"And that's important not because of the arid economic figures but what that actually means for people's lives and their living standards.

"Business can't afford a return to the Tories and nor can Britain's families."

They all know what is going on across Atlantic so this kind of crap is really pointless.

Party leader William Hague challenged Mr Blair to reveal the true cost of joining the euro - saying it could be as much as £36bn or the equivalent of 36 new Millennium Domes - and accused Labour of planning to rig any euro referendum.

That money will not go out of his pocket but from taxes paid by Britons so why bother Mr. Blair with this. The only thing Labour party is doing now is to spread lies and publish phony polls indicating their false lead. Check out BBC facts on small business published on May 18th:

SMALL BUSINESS BURDENS

The burden of tax and regulation weighs heavily on Britain's small businesses and the country's four million self-employed people.

Small firms say they don't have the time or resources to deal with the paperwork generated by VAT, Health and Safety legislation, building and other regulations imposed by Whitehall and, increasingly, Europe-wide through Brussels.

They say they also have difficulty complying with employment laws and tax regulations designed for much larger enterprises.

Labour has allowed small businesses to opt out of stakeholder pensions, the working time directive and - for companies with less than 20 employees - union recognition.

But the payment of welfare benefits through the tax system continues to hurt small companies.

More than 90% of government revenue is collected by the business community, chiefly through the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) and VAT systems.

It is obvious that small business suffers greatly under Labour and the only thing Labour cares is tax revenues.

Oldham is reeling after a second night of street violence in which gangs of youths clashed with police. Fresh violence erupted in flashpoints across the town, petrol bombs were thrown and buildings attacked.

The rioting was not as bad as Saturday's trouble, in which up to 500 Asian youths battled against lines of riot police. But the town is still counting the cost on Monday morning, after an Asian supermarket was set on fire, the offices of a local newspaper were firebombed, and barricades of furniture and tyres were set alight.

Pub attacked

A group of riot police narrowly escaped injury when a speeding car drove at their lines. The seven officers were forced to dive for cover as the car sped off.

Earlier on Sunday night trouble flared when a pub in Oldham town centre was attacked. The Jolly Carter was reportedly bombarded with bricks by up to 40 people who had been fighting outside. Elsewhere in the town about 30 white people chanted racist songs as they walked from pub to pub before being dispersed by police.

Full story here. Video clip here.

Editor's commentary: Drink beer, chant racist songs, drive your car, run down police officers, start riots...

TV viewers have been invited to meet the "real Tony Blair" in an election broadcast which shows him drinking beer in a local pub.

And he talks of how everyone wants a decent job, a stable economy, a good start in life for their children and for their parents to be looked after. "It's not rocket science as to what people want or need."

Labour hopes the operation will help dispel accusations that Mr Blair is not meeting "real people" on the campaign trail.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: Get drunk, drive your car, run people down is the message Tony Blair sends to Britons. Alcohol is good for you! While I agree with him that "what people want" is not a rocket science, the real question here is how he will provide "what people want". That is more complicated than rocket science and brain surgery combined. That is the essence of politics and there are no formulas that work 100%. About meeting "real people" I suggest he sticks with Mr. Prescott. He is truly "(fist) in your face" and very personal with voters. If he is not enough I suggest he invites WWF superstar Rock aka "people's champion".

Labour is to set out its plans to seize the assets of crime barons as the election agenda moves away from Europe on Sunday.
The Home Secretary Jack Straw will promise to press ahead with plans allowing police to seize assets even before criminals are convicted.

Under Labour's proposals for the seizure of criminal assets, police would only need to have reasonable grounds for believing money was gained from crime or about to be used in it.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: And who determines who is criminal and who is not? Labour party? This is identical with what happened to Gusinsky in Russia which is blatant attempt of one small group of people to control everything while other would be at their mercy. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. If all your assets are confiscated by Labour party then how will you pay your attorneys to defend you? This is brutal Stalinist way of running the state, similar to Stalinist purges from 1930s where everyone was guilty and can't prove innocence unless Stalin says so. Another jewel from Tony Blair himself this week was:

Tony Blair, speaking in Wimbledon, South London on Tuesday evening, hit back by saying that the Thatcher era was over.

He added: "They were indifferent to social division. If you were unemployed it was tough luck. That wasn't the right way to run the country. We were wasting the talent of literally millions of people."

Lady Thatcher's views aside, Labour is hoping to focus on education on Wednesday, with the publication of its education manifesto, Realising the Talents of All.

BBC - Wednesday, 23 May

Sounds familiar? You bet! That is the same thing Karl Marx wrote in his manifesto in the mid 19th century. Era of Marxism is over Tony, for your information. Capitalism changed for the past 150 years where more and more people every day open their own small businesses and give up government and factory work for good. Thatcherism is nothing but British version of Reaganism that helped boost economy and let everyone to start his/her own business and create lots of new good paid jobs around America. Business for all is the name of that manifesto and that manifesto has been proven sucesfull so far. Even Clinton didn't dare to change it. Labour lies are 200 years outdated for hardcore communists and those who have IQ under 50. Liberal democrats are similar morons. Their latest statement is:

In their weekend campaigning, the Liberal Democrats said no student in the UK would pay tuition fees if their party was elected.

At a rally of Lib Dem students in London, Simon Hughes told them: "In Scotland already, as a result of Liberal Democrat policy, tuition fees have gone."

BBC - Saturday, 26 May, 2001

Quality of Scottish universities is so low that they probably had to do this in order to have someone to attend their universities. Oxford and Cambridge are not in Scotland as I recall. It is a policy that outstanding and talented (Talents for All) do not pay any fees. They receive free scholarship while others, not so talented, pay their fees. Seems fair doesn't it? By not paying fees at all there is a good question here on who THE HELL is going to pay teachers' salaries and maintenance of those universities? The only possible answer is Great Britain tax payers whether they like it or not, whether some of them would never go to study at all and even those who would are going to pay much more through various taxes than if they would have to pay for their education themselves. "Not so talented" who attend universities are usually rich kids whose parents pay big money for their futile education and thus finance universities while talented kids study for free and get their deserved diplomas. We all know very well how this worked in communist countries from Eastern Europe where education and health care were free for all. It collapsed and it was never truly free. In order to pay all those costs, communist governments imposed monumental taxes that resulted in average monthly salaries equal to 100 British pounds. Would you like to have 2,000 pounds a month and pay what you want or to have supposedly free education and health care and get 100 pounds a month? Quality of education and health care in those days was horrible and you had to pay for the books and medicine. Funds were embezzled and money used to save companies that delivered only losses and wasted resources. Thanks to that, Moscow's communist bloc collapsed during Thatcher era (what a coincidence) leaving all those states bankrupt. Present Labour goals are nothing else than old Labour goals to establish communism in Great Britain and rip off Britons as Stalin (owner of "Road Brigand" and "Bank Robber" diplomas, multiple winner of "Butcher of the Year" and "Criminal of the Year" award) did to Russians, Castro to Cubans, Mao to Chinese, etc. When economy is good then you don't need social welfare, then it is time to do something for yourself like starting your own business not waiting in the line for your government measly check. What Britons might expect from another four year of Labour rule is exactly like what happened to that new London Bridge that had to be closed after its opening and because there is no money for costly repairs, in the next couple of years it will be either demolished or sold to some rich foreigner ending in Arizona desert or Sahara or Brunei. You can't promote 200 year old ideas that were proven wrong long time ago and then talk about bright future ahead.

BUJANOVAC, May 25, 2001 -- (Reuters) Belgrade admitted on Friday its forces had killed a prominent ethnic Albanian guerrilla commander in a shootout during Thursday's otherwise peaceful operation to reoccupy a buffer zone around Kosovo.

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic expressed his sorrow over the death of Ridvan Cazimi, also known as Commander Lleshi, a moderate who headed the guerrilla team with whom he negotiated Wednesday's handover in southern Serbia.

"I am sincerely sorry that all this happened," Covic told a news conference. "Lleshi contributed a lot to a peaceful solution in southern Serbia."

The Serbian government initially denied allegations by local Albanians that Lleshi was shot by a Serbian sniper, blaming infighting between rival guerrilla groups who had controlled the Presevo Valley area of southern Serbia for 16 months until it was re-occupied by Yugoslav forces, with NATO's approval.

"There was no assassination attempt or ambush. The man was killed in an exchange of fire," Covic added.

He said a gun battle broke out between guerrillas and Yugoslav forces at around noon on Thursday. Lleshi, who was with two colleagues, took cover next to his jeep, but was hit by a single bullet when he stood up, the minister added.

In Belgrade, Serbian police chief Sreten Lukic told a news conference: "An unplanned close encounter between the Yugoslav Army and the so-called UCPMB (guerrillas) took place in the area between Veliki Trnovac and Mali Trnovac. Fire was opened and commander Lleshi was shot."

According to a U.S. spokesman in the Kosovo capital Pristina, Lleshi's deputy, who was with the commander at the time, told an official of the NATO-backed KFOR peacekeeping mission in Kosovo they had encountered three snipers who fired on them, hitting Lleshi in the head.

ANGER OVER COMMANDER'S DEATH

News of Lleshi's death created serious tension in his home village of Veliki Trnovac. An angry crowd of 200-300 ethnic Albanians surrounded and hammered on a car carrying the KFOR official and the two guerrillas when it arrived there on Thursday, the U.S. spokesman said.

Earlier the car carrying the official, Shawn Sullivan, the guerrillas and U.S. diplomats from Belgrade, came under fire as they headed to investigate Lleshi's shooting.

The shooting was the only incident in the otherwise peaceful "Operation Bravo", in which some 4,000 Yugoslav troops and special paramilitary police took back the last piece of a buffer zone around Kosovo.

The guerrillas, who had mounted an insurgency from the area for 16 months saying they were protecting the region's sizeable ethnic Albanian minority, agreed to disband earlier in the week after Covic promised the community more autonomy.

Covic said on Thursday the operation to reoccupy the zone had not been completed as Yugoslav forces were having to move slowly because of land-mines.

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic ordered the destruction of material that could have implicated him in war crimes, say Serbian police.

"Milosevic ordered former Interior Minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic to take measures in order to eliminate all the traces which could lead to any evidence of crimes committed," said Dragan Karleusa, a top official at the Serbian interior ministry.

In particular, he said, Mr Milosevic had ordered the removal of evidence which would indicate the existence of civilian victims of the Serb repression of Kosovo Albanians in 1999.

Full story here.

PODGORICA - The basketball team Buducnost of Podgorica has become the Yugoslav champion for the third time in a row.
In the 5th match of the play-off finals on Wednesday, Buducnost beat Partizan of Belgrade 103-75 (21-20, 30-9, 24-19, 28-27).

Editor's commentary: Partizan players are probably very anxious to see Montengro leave FRY because then they would have a chance of wining Serbian championship.

MOSCOW, May 22, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, founder of the Gazprom gas monopoly, on Tuesday denounced accusations by a German daily of improper share dealings, saying they were entirely false.

The daily Frankfurter Rundschau alleged that Gazprom bosses had used a web of shadow companies to siphon money and assets to a network of family and friends. Chernomyrdin's son was allegedly among those who benefited.

"Only people who are ill-disposed towards Russia and Ukraine are capable of such provocations," said Chernomyrdin, who was recently appointed Russian ambassador to Ukraine, cited by Interfax news agency.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Hindus will be required to wear an identity label on their clothing in Islamic Afghanistan to distinguish them from Muslims, a Taliban minister said Tuesday.

The hardline Taliban regime that controls 95 percent of this poor Central Asian state plans to enforce the edict soon, Mohammed Wali, religious police minister, told The Associated Press. An exact date was not set, he said.

The law will also make it mandatory for Hindu women to veil themselves -- just like Muslim women of Afghanistan, Wali said.

The edict prompted an angry statement from Hindu-dominated India.

``We absolutely deplore such orders which patently discriminate against minorities,'' Press Trust of India quoted an unnamed Indian foreign ministry official as saying. ``It is further evidence of the backward and unacceptable ideological underpinning of the Taliban.''

The decision could further isolate the orthodox Islamic militia, already under fire from the West for alleged discriminatory policies toward ethnic and religious minorities, human rights abuses and poor treatment of women.

But Wali said the decision is in line with Islam. ``Religious minorities living in an Islamic state must be identified,'' he said.

The Taliban have not yet decided what sort of an identity label Hindus will have to wear.

There are at least 5,000 Hindus living in Kabul. Thousands of other Hindus live in other Afghan cities, but there are no reliable figures on exactly how many.

The new law will be meant for only Hindus because there are no Christians or Jews in Afghanistan and Sikhs can be easily recognized by their turbans, Wali said. However, at least one Jew is known to live in the Afghan capital of Kabul and there may also be some Christians.

It was unclear whether foreigners living in Afghanistan would be required to wear the identity label.

Anar, an Afghan Hindu in Kabul who uses just one name, said he does not want to wear a label identifying him as Hindu.

``It will make us vulnerable and degrade our position in the society,'' he said.

But Munawaar Hasan, general secretary of a major Islamic political party in neighboring Pakistan called Jamaat-e-Islami, or Islamic Party, said the move seems aimed to give protection to Hindus.

``The Taliban should win praise for this step,'' he said. ``Providing protection to religious minorities is a must in any Islamic country and this step seems in line with this concept.''

The Taliban follow a harsh version of Islam that bars women from most jobs and education, and makes it mandatory for men to wear beards and pray five times a day. All forms of light entertainment, including television and music, are outlawed.

The Taliban drew worldwide criticism when in March they destroyed two ancient statues of Buddha in central Bamiyan, calling it their religious duty.

Most of the Islamic world, including pro-Taliban Pakistan, differ with the Taliban regime's narrow interpretation of Islam and say that it is tarnishing Islam's image.

The Taliban face U.N. sanctions for giving protection to Saudi billionaire Osama bin Laden, wanted by Washington for allegedly running a global terrorist network. The Taliban deny the charge and say the United States has no evidence against him for terrorism.

Note: Taliban is supported by Russian government.

BEIJING, May 21, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A 34-year-old woman in southeast China's Fujian province was beaten to death by birth-control officials who wanted to sterilize her against her will, her relatives said on Saturday.

Sun Zhonghua, from a farming family in Xiapu county near the provincial capital of Fuzhou, was taken away by birth-control officials from her home by daybreak on Wednesday, a relative told AFP by telephone.

The officials told Sun, the mother of two boys aged 12 and 13, that she was to be taken to the birth-control clinic for sterilization, a procedure they had previously been pressing her to submit herself to.

She refused vehemently, showing documents obtained from a local hospital in April that the planned operation was not advisable because of a medical condition.

Despite her and her relatives' protests, she was forced into a waiting car and driven away.

In the afternoon of the same day, officials informed Sun's relatives that she had died after jumping from the fourth floor of the building housing the local birth-control administration.

Family members who were allowed to see her body discovered large bruises to her head and different parts of her body.

"There is no way she could have received those injuries from jumping to her death," said the relative.

During the anxious hours on Wednesday while Sun's relatives were waiting for news about her, they went to the police to report the birth-control officials' violent manner when taking her from her home.

But they were given the rounds by a string of police officials, who appeared unwilling to get involved in the case.

"We tried to report the incident, but there was no one to report to," said the relative.

Already being the mother of two, Sun understood that she had to conform with national population policies and had no plans of giving birth to more children, her family said.

She had gone to the hospital every year since 1992 to make sure she was not pregnant, they said.

China's controversial "one child" policy continues to result in serious human rights violations 20 years after it became law.

In the early years, the world was shocked by mass campaigns to round up women and sterilize them almost like cattle.

Such public campaigns are rare now, but the policy is being enforced in ways that many human rights groups say are equally unjust.

Pressure on China's army of family planning workers to meet the birth quota in their jurisdiction have led to widespread excesses.

Family planning workers and local officials resort to beating people, locking them up illegally, confiscating livestock and destroying their homes.

Despite the harsh measures, births are still growing at an annual rate of 10 million and the government has vowed to continue the policy to cap the population at 1.6 billion by the year 2050.

China's population now stands at nearly 1.3 billion, the largest in the world. Beijing credits the policy for helping the country avoid 300 million births.

MINSK, May 21, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Some 40 opposition activists have been detained after a series of unsanctioned rallies in protest against the disappearance of dissidents and plans to reunite Russia and Belarus, opposition leaders told AFP.

Police seized some ten people on Friday while dispersing a 200-strong crowd which brandished portraits of disappeared dissidents and chanted "No to Belarus' destruction".

In a separate incident, 30 people were detained as they were handing out leaflets calling on delegates from all over the small isolated state "not to give up Belarus' sovereignty".

"Policemen were acting with unwarranted force, one of our activists even had his arm broken," said Yuri Belenky, leader of an opposition Conservative-Christian Party.

"The current regime is very afraid of the opposition and brutally suppresses it, but that is merely evidence of its weakness," Belenky added.

Belarus's Soviet-style President Alexander Lukashenko had summoned delegates of a so-called national assembly to gather in Minsk, in a bid to win popular support for his policies, but the opposition vowed to protest against what they called an unconstitutional gathering.

A plan to reunite the former Soviet republics of Russia and Belarus into a single economic and political entity has met with sharp criticism from the opposition which claims such a union would destroy Belarus' sovereignty.

Russia and Belarus signed a formal union treaty on December 8, 1999. However, significant economic disparity between the two countries has prevented any real union between them so far.

Lukashenko, sometimes dubbed the "last dictator in Europe," has repeatedly been criticized by international organizations for his strong-arm tactics in dealing with dissent.

Opposition leaders and human rights groups have repeatedly charged him with rights violations and electoral fraud.

Several prominent dissidents have disappeared without trace, including Viktor Gonchar who organized dissident presidential elections in 1999 to protest against Lukashenko's leadership, and Yuri Zakharenko, a former interior minister who also vanished in 1999.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's ``Iron Lady'' Margaret Thatcher launched a savage attack on Prime Minister Tony Blair on Tuesday, accusing him of being soft on Europe and declaring he was a socialist at heart.

The former Conservative Prime Minister, who won three terms of power, went into battle for the June 7 general election as opinion polls suggested Blair's Labour Party would triumph by a landslide and that the Conservatives faced a second battering in four years.

``If you have a very powerful Labour government, a very large majority, it will be a socialist victory,'' Thatcher told the Daily Mail in an interview.

She accused Blair of having stolen many of her policies to win power in 1997 but said he had reversed them since then by stealth.

``There's a residue of socialism in him, that somehow he believes that government knows best... it's perhaps in his bloodstream,'' Thatcher said.

Warmly backing Conservative leader William Hague in his uphill struggle to overturn Blair's huge opinion poll leads of around 20 points, Thatcher lashed out at Labour on Europe and euro.

She denounced Blair's policy toward Europe as ``devastating'' and said: ``The thought that we might be absorbed into Europe is to me utterly repugnant, and I'll fight against it as long as I have the breath to do so.''

BLAIR FAVORS EU ENGAGEMENT

Blair favors greater engagement with the European Union and says he supports entry into the euro and will put the issue to a referendum if he is satisfied it is in Britain's economic interests. Hague has ruled out membership of the euro for at least five years.

Thatcher, dubbed the ``Iron Lady'' during the Cold War years, signaled she remained implacably opposed to the European single currency. ``If you have a single currency you give up your independence. You give up your sovereignty. That we must never do,'' she said.

Her intervention promised to put some much-needed spark into a two-week-old campaign that has had few highlights -- apart from endless television replays of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott punching an egg-throwing protester last week.

It also gave Hague a welcome fillip as he prepared to step up his own assaults on Blair over the euro.

Hague told the Guardian on Tuesday that the pound's entry into the euro zone could wreck the single currency project as well as being bad for Britain.

Citing differences between the British and EU economies, Hague said: ``When continental politicians ask, 'Is Britain going to join the euro?' I say, 'Are you sure you want the pound to join the euro? because the elephant gets into the rowing boat when the pound gets in there.''

Many analysts have warned that the lackluster campaign and Labour's sky-high opinion poll ratings could prompt large numbers of Britons not to bother voting on June 7 and result in the lowest turnout at a general election since World Ware One.

Editor's commentary: Not everything is lost for Conservative leader. If he manages to convince 17% more of Britons that he is not a dork then he may have some chance on June 7th. Blair did similar thing convincing 50+% Britons that he is not an anarchist in 1997 although we still doubt that he is not. He looks a lot like Johnny Rotten and admits being punk years ago. Punk's not dead or is it?

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- In the only scheduled debate before Peru's presidential runoff vote next month, front-runner Alejandro Toledo focused on former President Alan Garcia's disastrous term in office and Garcia accused Toledo of using cocaine.

The televised exchange offered Peruvians a chance to see how Toledo, widely viewed as erratic and prone to contradict himself, measured up against Garcia, who is considered one of Latin America's great orators but whose 1985-90 term ended with the country in economic ruin.

Opinion polls show deep dissatisfaction with both candidates: More than 30 percent of the country's nearly 15 million voters say they plan to cast spoiled or blank ballots as a protest in the June 3 runoff election.

Polls also predict Toledo, 55, will win with about 60 percent of the vote. He got the most votes in the first round of elections April 8, but fell short of the 50 percent mark, forcing the runoff with second-place candidate Garcia, 51.

The debate started with both candidates sticking to the central issue on the minds of Peruvians -- a turnaround for the country's moribund economy -- but soon heated up into an exchange of personal attacks.

Toledo said Garcia is remembered for leaving office amid rampant corruption, surging rebel violence, food shortages and hyperinflation.

Garcia returned to Peru in January after charges that he collected kickbacks totaling several million dollars expired following nearly nine years in exile.

``Mr. Garcia, it is inconceivable that you speak of human rights, the struggle against corruption, against narcotics trafficking, when you have unresolved charges,'' Toledo said. ``Money was robbed.''

Garcia fired back, repeating allegations that Toledo tested positive for cocaine use after an extramarital hotel rendezvous with three women in 1998.

``Nobody has shown me to be a consumer of cocaine,'' Garcia said. ``A cocaine consumer cannot be the leader of a country. I think that the struggle against corruption begins at home.''

Toledo has said he was drugged and kidnapped by agents of former President Alberto Fujimori and possibly filmed in a sexually compromising situation.

Public opinion analyst Giovana Penaflor called the debate ``practically a tie'' and said it was unlikely to have a dramatic effect on the outcome of the vote.

Garcia promised to cut utility rates and create a government agrarian bank to stimulate agricultural production. He pledged to create more than a million new jobs and spark economic growth of 5 percent, with inflation of no more than 4 percent.

Toledo, a one-time shoeshine boy who became a World Bank economist said he would deliver economic growth of 6 to 7 percent by the end of a five-year term. He pledged to double teachers' salaries and to seek international aid to supply Internet access for poor school children.

The election is Peru's first since the ouster of Fujimori, Peru's iron-fisted ruler for more than a decade. Congress removed him in November after he fled to Japan amid mounting corruption scandals involving his fugitive former intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos.

Editor's commentary: The answer is clear: BOYCOTT!

MOSCOW, May 17, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Over a million crimes were committed in Russia this year, raising concerns that the wave of violence could significantly exceed last year's figures, Russian interior ministry officials warned Wednesday.

The number of grave offenses is on the rise, with murders and murder attempts rising by over 14 percent, and rapes up by 2.4 percent compared to last year's figures, officials quoted by the AVN military news agency said.

A total of nearly three million crimes was registered in Russia last year, according to official figures.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was under intense pressure on Wednesday night after he was involved in a punch-up during a campaign visit and effectively destroyed Labour's manifesto launch.

The man once branded Thumper to Tony Blair's Bambi was pictured apparently hitting a protester outside a campaign meeting after an egg was thrown at him. A scuffle then broke out and Mr Prescott was wrestled onto his back before a man was arrested and taken away by police.

The violent eruption brought to a close what was a disastrous day for Mr Blair and his campaign. The prime minister had already been confronted by a voter furious at his record on the health service.

Full story here. Photo story here.

Tony Blair has launched Labour's election manifesto with a pledge to deliver economic stability and public service reform. The 44-page document - Ambitions for Britain - sets out the party's policy goals not just for the next parliament but right up until 2010 and includes the pledge not to raise the basic or higher rates of income tax. Speaking in Birmingham, Mr Blair said Labour was asking the British people to allow it to get on with the job of delivering "real and radical" change.

It commits the party to spending billions of pounds on education, health, police and transport in the first three years of the next parliament.

But shadow chancellor Michael Portillo said Mr Blair couldn't be believed.

"The fact is he has been given four years and he has failed to deliver. All his actions say he does the opposite of what he says. During the past four years all he has done has been to centralise and make Britain more bureaucratic."

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: What Mr. Blair wants is that Britons commit suicide and destroy Great Britain. We suggest someone take him to his psychiatrist before elections. Mr. Blair is obviously suffering from similar syndrome as Bill Clinton. He failed to do anything productive in his four year presidency and then wanted to compensate that in the next four years. We all know how this ended in U.S. so there is no reason for Britons to have Hillary healthcare plan while watching their country goes bankrupt. It is much better to raise living standard and let people buy more cars and afford better dentists than to let them depend on lousy government healthcare and lousy doctors while embezzlements of those funds goes on and on and everything ends up in some huge Blairgate scandal. It is time for Conservatives to prevent this mentally unstable person from having majority in parliament. Unfortunately, we don't know the name of their leader, I believe is something similar to the Hague tribunal. Some Britons may mix that up and think that they are all charged with war crimes. Vikings didn't do it, Napoleon didn't do it, Hitler didn't do it but socialist PM has historic chance to do it. Bankrupt Great Britain and make total collapse Tony, that's the way to go comrade.

BELGRADE, May 15, 2001 -- (Reuters) Workers of Serbia's largest coal mine, which played a key role in toppling hardline leader Slobodan Milosevic, on Monday blasted his reformist successors and threatened to strike over pay and working conditions.

The trade union of Kolubara mine, which claims to represent some 17,000 workers, said the government they helped bring to power was asking workers for patience while ruling by decree just like the old guard ousted last October.

"We all protested against the former authorities who ruled by decrees, and now our authorities, for whom we fought, are doing the same, said Dragan Vucetic, president of the trade union of Kolubara, located 60 kilometers(40 miles) south of Belgrade.

Vucetic was addressing reporters during talks with the government and the mine's management in a bid to resolve the workers' demands and stave off a strike in Kolubara, which feeds a giant plant producing half of Serbia's power.

Mine workers were unhappy with a government decree that froze salaries in public sector firms for several months until productivity showed if there was room for wage hikes.

Vucetic said some workers' demands had been resolved, but the talks were stalled over the value of lunch coupons and payment of holiday bonuses.

"Unfortunately the talks with representatives of the government and the management are very difficult," Vucetic said.

"If they do not fulfil these demands we will stop," he added, saying that the effect of a halt would be felt in some 20 days.

Kolubara miners put down their tools last September vowing not to resume work until Milosevic conceded defeat in presidential elections. Their decision was widely seen as a pivotal moment in the struggle to force him out.

BELGRADE - Serbian Deputy Premier Vuk Obradovic sent a letter to Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica in which he said that the person most exposed in statements about his alleged love affair "staged a similar scandal implicating the PTT assistant director," and that "one of the planners of the action is Milan Panic" (US businessman of Serbian descent.)

"Everything that in the past few fays has been said confirms that there has been no love affair. Statements made about it, according to the prevailing opinion, are mere nonesense," said Obradovic's letter, whose copy was sent to Tanjug.

Editor's commentary: Milan Panic is infamous about his sexual harassments law suits. Several women collected millions of dollars in various law suits against Mr. Panic in U.S. It is completely ridiculous that this kind of a man wants to discredit his enemies by accusing them of immorality. All this started after DOS refused to return Galenika factory to Milan Panic taken by Milosevic himself. Leaders of DOS accused Mr. Panic of not investing a dime and yet claiming his ownership because of a deal with Milosevic long time ago. Obradovic and Covic, both favored by U.S. administration, were especially against Mr. Panic's takeover. All of them were once members of "Alliance for Changes". While Covic is under constant death threats from some unknown Serbian terrorist groups, Vuk Obradovic is under fire because of sexual harassment charges brought to public by several women from his party. This case is under investigation but Mr. Obradovic was forced to resign from his post of Serbian vice president although not a single charge has been examined or proven in the court of law. Detectives hired by Obradovic found listening devices and other surveillance equiopmnet in his office. Equipment is believed to be installed by one of his party members who recently traveled to Moscow and blackmailed Mr. Obradovic. Surveillance equipment found is not domestic and not used by SDB. It is believed that this equipment is from Russia used by FSB. Milan Panic is owner of various pharmaceutical factories in Russia and China similar to Karic brothers.

The last communist leader of Poland, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, has gone on trial in Warsaw charged with ordering troops to fire on striking shipyard workers in 1970. Forty-four protesters died, and 1,000 were injured - 200 of them seriously. The 77-year-old general, who denies the charges, appeared in court in his trademark sunglasses, using a stick to help him walk.

Full story here.

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's Silvio Berlusconi and his center-right alliance secured their sweeping general election victory on Tuesday with confirmation of an absolute majority in both houses of parliament.

The strength of the victory may mean that he does not need the support of the volatile, anti-immigrant Northern League party which failed to garner more than four percent of the vote, undermining its electoral bargaining power.

With the League under four percent -- it polled just 3.9 percent against 10.1 percent in the last general election -- it cannot claim any of the 155 seats allotted by proportional representation in the lower house Chamber of Deputies.

Berlusconi's bloc -- his Forza Italia party, the far-right National Alliance and the League -- won absolute majorities of 177 seats in the 324-seat upper house Senate and 368 seats in the 630-seat lower house, final official figures released on Tuesday showed.

The stunning victory makes it possible that Berlusconi will be able to free himself completely of the League, although that ultimately depends on how many Senate seats the League wins.

If the League's Senate seats are too few to be essential to the upper house majority, Berlusconi can sit comfortably.

However, the League said on Monday it expected to end up with 16 or 17 Senate seats, a number that could, theoretically, make or break Berlusconi's upper house advantage -- 163 seats is the threshold for an absolute Senate majority.

Confirmation of the exact division of seats in the Senate was expected later on Tuesday.

If the League and its rabble-rousing leader Umberto Bossi have no stranglehold over Berlusconi's administration, Italy's European Union partners -- worried by Bossi's anti-EU statements -- will breathe a sigh of relief.

Bossi bought down Berlusconi's last government in 1994 when he withdrew his support after just seven months.

Berlusconi's will be Italy's 59th government since World War Two, but the prime minister incumbent said on Monday said he hoped finally to stop the ``revolving door'' process that has been the curse of Italian politics.

DESIRE FOR CHANGE

Speaking publicly for the first time since he voted on Sunday morning, the billionaire media magnate vowed to stay in power for a full five-year legislature.

``Those who have voted have shown their desire for change. We will not let them down and will govern with stability for a full five years,'' he said in a televised address.

``We are proud to be part of the European Union and to have a special relationship with the United States. We will work to reinforce those ties.''

Berlusconi's dramatic victory prompted a cautious reaction from Italy's EU partners, nervous about the policies of his right-wing allies. But there was no threat of sanctions like those the EU imposed on Austria last year.

``I respect Italian democracy and I have confidence in the Italian people,'' said French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine, whose leftist government played a lead role in imposing a diplomatic blackout on Vienna last year.

``But given what this country represents in Europe we will be very attentive to the way in which the government will be made up and to its policies. Attentive, and if needs be, vigilant.''

With a message of free enterprise and an end to bureaucracy, Berlusconi won a campaign more like a U.S. presidential race than a traditional Italian parliamentary election, focusing heavily on the personalities of the tycoon and his center-left opponent Francesco Rutelli.

The results suggested most Italians had shrugged off concerns over the potential conflict in Berlusconi's position as head of a multi-billion-dollar business empire and leader of the world's sixth-biggest economy.

European media, led by Britain's The Economist, had denounced him as unfit to rule Italy because of his business interests and past trials for bribery and illegal party financing, on which he was acquitted on appeal.

He still faces two trials for bribery and false accounting, charges he denies.

Financial markets, however, were more interested in whether Berlusconi would command a stable majority.

Rutelli, meanwhile, was weighing up his political future at the end of a long, hard campaign.

After conceding defeat to Berlusconi, he called a meeting of center-left leaders for 3 p.m. on Tuesday to discuss what to do next.

KIEV, May 15, 2001 -- (Reuters) Ukraine's Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that prosecutors had acted illegally when they imprisoned a leading opposition politician ahead of her trial on corruption charges in a case that has prompted street protests. Yulia Tymoshenko, a former deputy prime minister and outspoken critic of President Leonid Kuchma, was held for six weeks in a grim remand jail before she was released on March 27 pending a Supreme Court decision.

Investigating prosecutors accuse Tymoshenko of paying millions of dollars in bribes, smuggling, and forgery during her time as head of a gas trading company in the mid-1990s. She denies the charges and says they are politically motivated.

The Supreme Court ruling followed an appeal in a lower court by prosecutors seeking to re-arrest Tymoshenko. She accuses Kuchma of abuse of power and involvement in the murder of a journalist last year, allegations Kuchma denies.

Hundreds of Tymoshenko's Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) party activists took to the streets after her arrest and she has become one of the leading lights in opposition attempts to remove Kuchma over the death of reporter Georgiy Gongadze.

"(We) have decided to overturn the decision of the Kiev city court of March 30, 2001 which had overturned the (lower) Pechersky district's ruling of 27 March," said judge Stanislav Mishchenko. He said Tymoshenko's detention had broken Ukrainian law, but gave no details and said the full ruling would be published in five days' time.

Tymoshenko must still comply with travel restrictions which prevent her leaving the country until her trial. No date for the hearing has been set yet.

The campaign against Kuchma has lost steam in recent weeks, with the numbers attending demonstrations of students, pensioners, nationalists and socialists dwindling rapidly.

A handful of protesters set up a small tent camp outside parliament on Tuesday.

BRATISLAVA, May 11, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Russia slammed plans to expand the NATO military alliance as a "grave mistake" Friday and rebutted charges it is promoting crime in eastern Europe in order to destabilize the region and revive its influence.

Moscow's reaction came after a suggestion, slipped by error into an official document at a summit of ex-communist state leaders, that Moscow was colluding with authoritarian and criminal regimes in the region.

"It is deplorable if the image of an enemy is being created in such a way with the aim of proving the necessity for NATO enlargement," said a statement issued by Moscow's embassy in Bratislava.

Russia responded angrily after a U.S.-backed document, which let slip an embarrassing mistake, warned that President Vladimir Putin was seeking to back organized crime in ex-communist countries.

The document, distributed to everyone at the summit by the Slovak organizers, was drawn up by the U.S.-Slovakia Action Commission, comprising experts from two U.S. and Slovak think tanks.

"There are strong indications that the Putin regime .. is seeking to rebuild a broad sphere of influence in parts of central and southeastern Europe by forging closer alliances with unstable, authoritarian, anti-American or criminally-connected governments and political forces," it said.

"Although the Kremlin is unable to block or veto further NATO enlargement, the Putin presidency seems to be primarily interested in disqualifying the major contenders..

"Moscow has endeavored to subvert their political and economic institutions, to consolidate links with anti-reformist interests groups, to exploit any significant ethnic and religious differences, and to promote organized criminality."

The last phrase was followed by an apparent editor's comment, in brackets: "This last statement about promoting criminality is a bit strong and should be toned down!"

Moscow's embassy said the statement "can scarcely be taken for a serious political analysis. Insinuations of this kind are very similar to the vocabulary of the Cold War."

And it concluded: "We estimate NATO's enlargement plans as a grave mistake, provoking negative changes of military-strategic landscape and division lines in Europe.

"Without a democratic Russia Europe cannot be whole and free."

There was no immediate comment from the authors of the U.S.-Slovakia Action Commission document, compiled by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Slovak Foreign Policy Association.

BEIJING, May 10, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Chinese computer hackers incensed over the U.S. spy plane incident have conceded defeat in a cyber war with American hackers, calling for a "ceasefire" and increased Internet security on Chinese websites.

"By the end of May 9, more than 1,100 of our nation's websites were defaced to differing degrees, with 72 percent of the websites belonging to the government or educational institutes," the Beijing-based Chinabyte said.

"From now on our work should be concentrated on raising the security awareness of our webpage workers and installing firewalls and other Internet security products," the website, run by the leading People's Daily, said.

According to the ad hoc group of Chinese hackers, the Honker's (Hongke, or Red Hacker's) Union, more than 1,000 U.S. websites were attacked during the cyber war that stretched from May 1 to May 9.

"Although Chinese hackers have reported over 1,000 attacks on American websites by the end of May 9, they have called for an end to the cyber war with the U.S. and announced a ceasefire," a Honker statement on the Sina.com website said.

"Beginning from now any subsequent hacker attacks are unrelated to the Honker's Union," it said.

The union exhorted Chinese software engineers to develop security products and wean China from its dependence on American-made software that are easily hacked by U.S. computer engineers.

The online hacking by the "Sixth Network War of National Defense," has reflected growing Chinese nationalism in the face of perceived American aggression stemming from increased U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan and the recent collision between a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet.

Despite the persistence and advanced level of cyber attacks by U.S. hackers, some U.S. websites reported that Chinese counterparts had done more damage than expected.

"Pro-China hackers have destroyed all data on Web servers to which they were able to gain access and deface," iDefense said.

The firm said the Chinese hackers apparently violated a code of hacker etiquette in which a page may be defaced but data on servers is not altered.

"While not all servers were wiped, many (website administrators) have reported this destructive behavior," iDefense said. "Wiping a server's operating system is extremely destructive and unusual for defacements."

BELGRADE, May 10, 2001 -- (Reuters) Serbian police said on Wednesday they had set up a task force to look into the reported discovery of a Kosovo truck with 50 corpses dumped in the river Danube during NATO's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia.

The case of the mysterious freezer truck has received wide coverage in Belgrade media since a little-known publication in eastern Serbia specializing in crime last month reported on the the find made two years ago.

A local human rights group, saying there were reliable indications that Serbian forces had destroyed evidence of crimes against Kosovo Albanians during the war, earlier this month drew attention to the report and demanded an investigation.

Western governments and human rights groups have charged Serb police and the Yugoslav army, then under the control of Slobodan Milosevic, with widespread atrocities against ethnic Albanians during the 1998-9 Kosovo conflict.

The Red Cross office in Kosovo said earlier this year that some 3,500 Kosovars, mainly ethnic Albanians, were still missing.

In a brief statement, the Serbian interior ministry said, "regarding the discovery of the truck full of unidentified corpses in the municipality of Kladovo", a police task force would investigate the facts and take appropriate legal actions.

In its report, the Timocka Krimi Revija said 50 bodies were found in the truck pulled out of the Danube near the eastern Serbian village of Tekija on 6 April 1999, around two weeks into NATO's air war to halt Belgrade's repression in Kosovo.

The report, picked up by national media, said divers found the bodies of 50 men, women and children in the back of the truck with number plates from the Kosovo town of Pec.

DIVERS SHOCKED BY FIND

Diver Zivadin Djordjevic said he and his colleagues were shocked when they saw what was in the truck.

"The bodies just started sliding out. Many bodies of women, children and elderly men. It was an eerie sight, some of them were naked. We closed the truck and went to the authorities in (the eastern Serbian town of) Kladovo," he was quoted as saying.

The daily Politika said on Wednesday the interior ministry, at the time run by Milosevic allies, had ordered local police to halt their investigation as part of action to cover up the case.

It said two senior police officials appointed when Milosevic, an indicted war criminal, was in power had now been removed as a result of the affair.

"It also looks certain that some ranking officials of the former regime will face court over this issue," said Politika.

Dragan Vitomirovic, a former police officer and a reporter as well as the owner of the Timocka Krimi Revija, last week said local police had been ordered from "upstairs to declare all information regarding the case classified".

Milorad Momcilovic, prosecutor of a district court in eastern Serbia, was quoted as saying the truck had been blown up in a training camp used by special anti-terrorist police units after the bodies were loaded into a another truck.

The UN tribunal in The Hague has indicted Milosevic, ousted last year and arrested last month on abuse of power charges, and four of his close allies on Kosovo war crimes charges. He has denied any wrongdoing.

MOSCOW, May 9, 2001 -- (Reuters) President Vladimir Putin urged his nation and the world to crush political extremism on Tuesday, focusing on fascism the day before Russia celebrates the anniversary of Nazi Germany's capitulation in 1945.

He said racism and intolerance must be rooted out at every level, in a message with powerful resonance in a country where Jewish groups often complain of enduring anti-Semitism and where skinheads marked Adolf Hitler's birthday with violence in April.

Putin quickly condemned the skinhead attacks last month, when they ransacked a Moscow market run by people from Russia's Caucasus region and stabbed a Chechen to death near Red Square.

The anti-fascist message was clear again on Tuesday, after Putin laid flowers at Moscow's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and met war veterans ahead of Russia's May 9 Victory Day holiday.

"The fascist swastika and Nazi ideas still roam around the whole world," Putin said in comments shown on television.

"Toleration of them (creates) a fertile soil for the rebirth of fascism," he said. "And one of the lessons of modern world history...is that we must prevent the resurgence of even local strongholds."

Russia marks the end of World War Two a day later than the Western world's V-E day, May 8, as top Soviet generals signed the capitulation document a day after the other allies.

Putin has often spoken out against racism, which has risen in the turbulent decade since the fall of the Soviet Union. He he has also appeared with leaders from the Jewish and other ethnic minority communities to show his support.

LIBERAL OR HARDLINER?

But liberal critics say his hardline stance on separatism in Chechnya has helped fuel an atmosphere of suspicion and resentment towards people from the Caucasus, which includes Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as southern Russia.

Russian officials blamed Chechens for a series of fatal bomb attacks on apartment blocks in summer 1999, which were followed by the Kremlin's latest bloody crackdown in the region. Chechen leaders denied responsibility, saying Russia planted the bombs to provide a pretext for the clampdown.

In a veiled reference to Chechnya, where Russian troops still die almost daily and Moscow says international Islamic fundamentalists are at work, Putin called for a global effort against terrorism

"Today we should unite for the battle with international dangers, which already genuinely exist. Among them is terrorism, which is, above all, tinged with the colors of nationalism and religious extremism."

Putin said Russia would do everything it could to protect the welfare of its citizens in other countries and the Baltic States in particular, where Russian communities complain of unfair treatment from post-Soviet governments.

"Russia not only remembers its citizens but counts on them, in just the same way they can count on us," he said.

In a shot perhaps aimed across Washington's bows, Putin said no country should try to bully or dominate others, after the United States' plans for a missile defense shield sent a chill through U.S.-Russian relations.

"We insist and will continue to insist on the principles of equality and mutual respect, trust and cooperation," he said.

"The reason a multitude of wars has been unleashed remains the desire for world domination," he said. "Today this ambition still survives, and it is extremely dangerous."

Editor's commentary: A well known fascist and racist Zhirinovsky is a good friend of Putin who gave Zhirinovsky a prestigious award in January. Murder of Galina Starovoitova is still unsolved although Zhirinovsky and his cutthroat cowards are main suspects. Too bad Putin never said anything about what are we supposed to do with those who collaborate with fascists. Remember 1939?

President George W Bush has told Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica that Belgrade must hand Slobodan Milosevic over to the international war crimes tribunal in order to guarantee US aid.

Mr Bush spent about 10 minutes with Mr Kostunica, joining a meeting already in progress with Vice-President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

Full story here.

By JAMES DAO

WASHINGTON, May 7 — Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld will propose on Tuesday a sweeping overhaul of the Pentagon's space programs, sharply increasing the importance of outer space in strategic planning, military officials said today.

The proposal will be the first step toward making space a focus of Pentagon spending and is intended to emphasize the importance the administration places on developing weapon systems for outer space, the officials said.

In his first major policy announcement, Mr. Rumsfeld will call for the establishment of a new Pentagon post for a four-star Air Force general to serve as an advocate for what could become a new space force.

"There is a symbolic importance to making this announcement early," a Pentagon official said. "This demonstrates how important Rumsfeld considers space to our future military operations."

You have to register with NY Times. Full story here.

The head of the United Nations mission in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Jacques Klein, has spoken of a "sickness" in Bosnian Serb society after a crowd of hundreds of nationalists forced the abandonment of a ceremony to mark the reconstruction of a famous mosque in the city of Banja Luka.

Ten people were injured, an Islamic flag was burned and replaced with a Bosnian Serb emblem, several cars were damaged, and buses which ferried in Muslim refugees for the ceremony were overturned and set on fire.

Bosnian Serb police - some of whom exchanged handshakes and jokes with people in the crowd - later evacuated those trapped.

They called the name of Radovan Karadzic, an indicted Bosnian Serb war criminal and raised the three-fingered Serb salute.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: This is democracy in RS that leaders of SDS (Karadzic's party) promote in RS. The same kind of democracy Karadzic promoted by building Omarska concentration camp and bombing Sarajevo. The most important thing here is that these cutthroats have full and unconditional support of Serbian Nazi dictator Kostunica. He will meet with Colin Powell on Wednesday after he gets his reward for a Nazi criminal of the year from some garbage institute in New York.

Serbia expects to raise about 330m Deutschmarks ($150.3m; £104.4m) by selling off the country's most valuable state-owned assets, the government has said. "Within weeks, five or six companies coming from different sectors will be offered for sale via tenders. Total expected privatisation receipts in 2001 are around 330m marks," Privatisation Minister Aleksandar Vlahovic said. The government wants to use the cash raised to pay-off the companies' foreign debts and compensate the pre-1945 owners.

For sale

First on the auction block will be three Serbian cement plants - part of an industry set to have a key role in rebuilding of infrastructure destroyed in bombing by Nato forces in 1999. One of the plants, the Beocin cement factory was promised to French construction group Lafarge last September and negotiations are said to be in the "final phase". Cement plants in Kosjeric and Novi Popovac will also be tendered.

But the key sale will be of Zastava, one of Eastern Europe's largest arms manufacturers and maker of the Yugo car, and the national airline JAT which has a good reputation, modern planes and well-trained pilots.

Also under review is the sale of Serbian Telecom to Telecom Italia in 1997 for $1bn, which some said was too low a price.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: Everything is for sale in Serbia because Nazi dictator and his Moscow masters need more money. Putin needs lots of money for his new tsarist residence in St. Petersburg while Kostunica needs more money for his new villa in Dedinje, possibly to renovate Milosevic's villa and move there soon. This is no surprise to us because Milosevic wanted to do this in 1999 but he was prevented by economic sanctions. Thanks to fools in the West, particularly Hubert Vedrine, this plan will be realized and Serb people once again ripped off.

TUNIS, May 8, 2001 -- (Reuters) Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday invited Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi to visit Moscow, the Libyan news agency Jana reported.

The invitation was handed over by Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who arrived in Tripoli on Sunday and held talks with Gaddafi on ways of "strengthening bilateral links", Jana, monitored in Tunis, reported.

"We give a paramount importance to your visit to Moscow in order to boost the relations between our countries in all fields of cooperation," Jana quoted Putin as saying in his message to Gaddafi. The news agency did not say whether the invitation had been accepted.

Ivanov's trip to Tripoli, which ended on Monday, was part of Russian moves to boost ties with former Soviet allies, which also include countries such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea described by Washington as "rogue states".

Putin has visited Pyongyang and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il is expected to visit Moscow later this year. Senior Russian officials have also visited Iran and Iraq.

Russia supports the complete lifting of UN sanctions imposed on Libya after the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in Scotland. The sanctions were suspended when Libya handed over suspects for trial in 1999.

A Libyan intelligence agent was found guilty of the bombing in January, but Britain and the United States say sanctions can only be lifted once Libya accepts responsibility for the attack and pays compensation.

MOSCOW, May 8, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) As Russia prepares to remember its war dead, nearly three people out of four believe the Soviet Union would have been able to win World War II without the aid of its British and U.S. allies, a poll published Monday indicated.

The poll coincides with the 56th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, celebrated on May 9 in Moscow.

Seventy-one percent of those asked believed Soviet troops would have emerged victorious with or without allied support, up from 62 percent in a similar poll 10 years ago, the VTsIOM opinion research institute reported.

However, two days before Victory Day, when Russia remembers the estimated 20 million who died on the Soviet side, more than half said they would favor putting up a monument to those killed on both sides in the conflict, a similar figure to that recorded in 1991.

Of the massive scale of Soviet losses, 35 percent said they believed the suddenness of Nazi Germany's attack in 1941 explained the heavy toll on the Soviet side.

Nineteen percent attributed it to Germany's military and technical superiority, 11 percent blamed the Soviet command's inefficiency, and eight percent blamed German brutality for the losses.

Twenty-two percent believed the losses were so high at least partly because the Soviet leadership under Stalin's dictatorship regarded the loss of life as no obstacle to ultimate victory.

Victory Day is marked with special solemnity in Russia because of the duration and bitterness of the fighting in the 1941-45 Great Patriotic War, as World War II is known in the former Soviet Union, and because it was fought mainly on home territory.

Editor's commentary: Stalin's propaganda never told them about 13 billion dollars of U.S. aid that overturned Hitler's victory in 1941. Without that money Hitler would listen Lily Marlene on the Red Square in 1941. Some military historians believe that Stalin had only 60,000 troops in December of 1941 left to defend Moscow. Help arrived timely with fresh troops from Siberia equipped with American weapons. It seems that some people don't learn from their mistakes. This year there will be no money from U.S. so let's see if Putin survives in Kremlin until the end of the year. Just be prepared for big surprise in June. Examine this document carefully and pay attention on billions of dollars from U.S. sent to Stalin:

The first three months of the German-Soviet conflict produced cautious rapprochements between the U.S.S.R. and Great Britain and between the U.S.S.R. and the United States. The Anglo-Soviet agreement of July 12, 1941, pledged the signatory powers to assist one another and to abstain from making any separate peace with Germany. On Aug. 25, 1941, British and Soviet forces jointly invaded Iran, to forestall the establishment of a German base there and to divide the country into spheres of occupation for the duration of the war; and late in September--at a conference in Moscow--Soviet, British, and U.S. representatives formulated the monthly quantities of supplies, including aircraft, tanks, and raw materials, that Great Britain and the United States should try to furnish to the Soviet Union.

Copyright © 1994-2001 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

BEIJING, May 6, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Chinese police have arrested more than 10,000 suspected criminals in the first month of a "strike hard" campaign against organized crime, with at least 500 criminal executions being announced during the period, state press reported Sunday.

"Armed police teams, aided by public security bureaus nationwide have recently captured more than 10,000 suspected felons, while wiping out evil forces and violent crime groups and striking at the swollen arrogance of criminals," the leading People's Daily said in a front page article.

The round up of suspected criminals began as early as April 7 in southeastern Fujian province and has spread nationwide, the report said.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin kicked off the campaign to wipe out rising violent and organized crime early last month.

A spate of new executions were also announced Sunday in the state press, bringing to nearly 500 publicly announced executions since the campaign began.

Xinhua news agency reported the April 25 execution of five convicted drug smugglers in southern Guangdong province, while the China Police Daily reported five executions on April 17 in Ningxia province and six other executions on April 24 in Sichuan province.

The additional numbers bring the total publicly announced executions since April 11, as tabulated by AFP, to 496.

The actual number of executions since the launch of "strike hard" is likely to be much higher as many news reports only say "a group" of criminals were put to death.

The London-based rights group Amnesty International condemned the crackdown for its political overtones which "may influence the proceedings and outcome of criminal trials during the campaign."

"Previous anti-crime crackdowns have resulted in a dramatic increase in the number of people sentenced to death and a large number of suspected miscarriages of justice," it said.

At the start of the campaign, China's leaders identified the targets as "gang crime, violent crime and frequently occurring crime," triggering a wave of executions and severe punishments throughout China.

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

Violent crime in China has grown dramatically during over 20 years of economic reforms which have led to widespread layoffs in the inefficient state-owned sectors of the economy and a huge gap between the country's rich and poor.

KIEV, May 3, 2001 -- (RFE/RL) Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko told a rally in Kiev on 1 May that his party is ready to assume responsibility for the future of the country, Interfax reported.

Symonenko noted that it was Communists who initiated the ouster of the "pro-American" government of Viktor Yushchenko.

Symonenko said Yushchenko's cabinet increased Ukraine's economic and financial dependence on the West, canceled privileges to the poor, and increased housing and utility payments.

Full story here.

New York, May 3, 2001 - The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) today named the Ten Worst Enemies of the Press for 2001, focusing attention on individual leaders who are responsible for the world's worst abuses against the media.

Jiang Zemin, President of The People's Republic of China. Jiang Zemin presides over the world's most elaborate system of media control. Twenty-two journalists were jailed for their work in China at the end of last year, more than in any other country. Wary of the Internet's potential power to break the state's information monopoly, Jiang has poured huge resources into policing online content. His campaign to strengthen "ideological conformity" has led to closings or reorganizations at several media outlets that had begun operating with unacceptable editorial independence.

Vladimir Putin, President of Russia. Since taking office last year, Vladimir Putin has presided over an alarming assault on press freedom in Russia. The Kremlin imposed censorship in Chechnya, orchestrated legal harassment against private media outlets, and granted sweeping powers of surveillance to the security services. Despite Putin's professed goal of imposing the rule of law, numerous violent attacks on journalists have been carried out with impunity across Russia. In an ominous and dramatic move this April, the Kremlin-controlled Gazprom corporation took over NTV, the country's only independent national television network. Within days, the Gazprom coup had shut down a prominent Moscow daily and ousted the journalists in charge of the country's most prestigious newsweekly. Despite Gazprom's insistence that the changes were strictly business, the main beneficiary was Putin himself, whose primary critics have now been silenced.

Fidel Castro, President of Cuba. Fidel Castro's government continues its scorched-earth assault on independent Cuban journalists by interrogating and detaining reporters, monitoring and interrupting their telephone calls, restricting their travel, and routinely putting them under house arrest to prevent coverage of certain events. A new tactic of intimidation involves arresting journalists and releasing them hundreds of miles from their homes. Meanwhile, foreign journalists who write critically of Cuba are routinely denied visas, and early this year Castro threatened some international news bureaus with expulsion from Cuba for "transmitting insults and lies." Cuba is the only country in the Western Hemisphere that currently holds a journalist in jail for his work. Bernardo Arévalo Padrón continues to serve a six year sentence for reporting critical of Castro and the Communist Party.

Full story here.

RIGA, May 1, 2001 -- (Reuters) Three Russians who threatened to blow up a Latvian church tower after barricading themselves inside were sentenced to between five and 15 years on Monday, a Latvian court said.

Sergei Solovey, Maksim Zhurkin and Dmitri Gafarov, members of an ultranationalist Russian group, were jailed after being convicted of terrorism and crossing the border illegally.

They were demanding the release of a former KGB officer Mihail Farbtuh, 85, who is serving seven years for his role in deporting Latvians to Siberia in the 1940s.

Full story here.

KIEV, May 1, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Around 1,000 Communists rallied on Tuesday on May Day in the Ukrainian capital to protest against President Leonid Kuchma, whom they accused of reducing the former Soviet country to misery.

To the sound of Soviet anthems, the procession slowly wound its way through the city center, bearing red Communist flags, portraits of Lenin and banners proclaiming: "All power to the workers" and "Out with the Bourgeoisie."

Full story here.