AP - October 31, 2001

PATNA, India (AP) -- Nearly 150 suspected Maoist rebels raided a police station in eastern India on Wednesday and killed 13 policemen, a police officer said.

The assailants escaped with a dozen rifles and sten guns from the police station, the officer said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Five attackers were wounded by heavily outnumbered police in Topchari, nearly 185 miles southeast of Patna, the capital of Bihar state, the officer said.

Police blamed the outlawed Maoist Communist Center for the attack. No group claimed responsibility.

On Oct. 20, six policemen were killed by another communist group, the Peoples' War Group, in a land mine explosion in Bihar state.

Several Maoist groups are fighting to establish a Maoist-Leninist state in Jharkhand and the contiguous states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.

The fighters prey on rich landowners, accusing them of exploiting landless farm workers. The rebels also attack police and administration officials, accusing them of working with landowners to deny agricultural workers their rights.

MOSCOW, Oct 30, 2001 -- (RFE/RL) Some 1,500 people, mainly activists of the opposition Conservative Christian Party (KKhP), took part on 28 October in an authorized march from downtown Minsk to the Kurapaty wooded suburb where the Stalin-era NKVD conducted mass executions of "enemies of the people," Belapan reported.

The recent reconstruction of the Minsk beltway is seen by many public and opposition activists in Minsk as a direct threat to the neighboring Kurapaty memorial. They propose that the authorities build a road bypassing Kurapaty. "If the authorities lack money to construct a road bypassing Kurapaty, we will collect people's donations and build the bypass," KKhP acting Chairman Yuras Belenki told the demonstrators. The KKhP is led from abroad by Zyanon Paznyak, who was given political asylum in the United States in 1996. It was Paznyak who in 1988 broke the news about the existence of the Kurapaty massacre site to the Belarusian public.

According to Paznyak, more than 200,000 victims of the NKVD are buried at Kurapaty.

MOSCOW (AP) -- About 300 young people stormed a Moscow market Tuesday night, attacking vendors from the Caucasus and killing two of them, Russian news reports said.

Police managed to capture only 10 or the young attackers, according to the Interfax news agency and two television stations who quoted city police.

Television outlets NTV and RTR said one vendor was killed during the raid and another died in the hospital. At least two other people were hospitalized in serious condition.

It was unclear what prompted the attack, which occurred at a market just outside a subway station in south Moscow, although it appeared racially motivated.

Interfax said it was organized by members of the ultranationalist Russian National Unity Party. RTR said some of the attackers chanted slogans supporting Moscow's Lokomotiv soccer team, which beat Real Madrid in a match in the Russian capital Tuesday night.

The arrested youths were shown on Russian television, dressed in black and many with shaved heads.

The Russian capital sees occasional racist attacks on people from the Caucasus region, which includes breakaway Chechnya, but deaths have been rare.

Ex-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's trial on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity has been scheduled to begin on 12 February next year, the UN war crimes tribunal has announced.

The trial - the biggest in the tribunal's history - will relate to events in Kosovo, and will involve months of testimony from more than 220 witnesses.

Full story here.

HYDERABAD, India (AP) -- Maoist guerrillas of two different groups blew up a railroad station and a telephone exchange in the southern Andhra Pradesh state, police said.

Armed rebels of the outlawed Peoples' War Group burst into Koneru railroad station, asked the staff on duty to evacuate and then blasted it with explosives Sunday night, said Sujat Ali, the police spokesman.

There were no casualties, Ali said. Koneru is 500 miles northeast of the state capital Hyderabad.

The Peoples' War Group, which took responsibility, left behind a note that said the attack was in retaliation for police atrocities in the area.

The rebels mostly target rich landowners and police, who they say are in collusion to exploit landless farmers and rural laborers. More than 6,000 people have died in rebel attacks in the last two decades.

In a separate incident, rebels of Janshakti, another Maoist group in the state, attacked a telephone exchange at Gambhirraopet village, 120 miles north of Hyderabad.

The rebels left a note saying they had blasted the 100-line rural exchange in protest of police atrocities and to express solidarity with striking employees of the Road Transport Corporation, who are fighting for a wage revision.

On Friday, the Janshakti rebels abducted a relative of India's junior interior minister and demanded a large ransom for his release. The minister's relative was released Monday after prolonged negotiation between representatives of police and the rebel group.

KIEV, Oct 26, 2001 -- (dpa) Ukrainian Communists upset with a land reform bill disrupted parliament Thursday by grabbing an urn full of ballots cast in support of the measure and attempting to destroy them, the Interfax news agency reported.

The incident took place at 2.30 p.m. after Members of Parliament supporting the bill voted to count paper ballots held in an urn near the speaker's lectern. The votes had been cast earlier in the day.

Fifteen Communist Members of Parliament responded to the motion by grabbing the urn and dumping its contents onto the floor, parliament rules committee chairman Volodymyr Zaets later told journalists.

Parliamentary sergeants at arms only partially prevented the Communists' attempt to tear the ballots to bits, Zaets said.

Ukrainian Communist leader Petro Symonenko, fearing further enrichment of business magnates at the expense of farm workers, opposes laws which would make Ukraine's mostly government-owned farm land private property.

Symonenko's party represents around one in four Ukrainians, but is by far the best-organized political group in the country, political observers said.

A group of center-right Members of Parliament numbering 231 in the 450 house supports the measure, which needs 226 votes to become law.

Though possessing more black earth loam than any country in the world, Ukrainian agriculture has contracted every year for the last decade.

Ukrainian's parliament regularly sees small groups in opposition to bills unplugging microphones, and sometimes even resorting to fisticuffs, in order to stymie bills they oppose.

The Communist assault on the urn however was the first time the Ukrainian house had seen an outright attempt to destroy the physical results of a vote already cast.

Parliament will attempt to vote on the bill later this week, Zaets said.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iranian police have confiscated more than 1,000 satellite dishes in two days as part of an apparent crackdown to bar access to several U.S.-based channels run by Iranian opposition groups.

An unidentified Tehran police source said the dishes had been confiscated Thursday and Friday, the state-owned daily Iran reported on Saturday. Some 150,000 illegal dishes were expected to be confiscated.

In 1995, the then hard-line parliament banned satellite dishes in an effort to purge Iran of Western influences, but the ban wasn't strictly enforced and rooftops and balconies were soon littered with dishes.

Security officials refused to say why the latest crackdown was launched, but the Farsi-language Iran newspaper said the crackdown was directed at recent street violence in Iran. The violence has apparently been flamed by footage of soccer fans shown throwing stones at shop windows and banks after recent matches involving Iran. Such images have been beamed into Iran from several U.S.-based channels run by Iranian dissidents.

The Farsi-language television programs also feature popular Iranian music singers frowned on by local authorities.

``I don't think this measure is a proper way of confronting the dishes. I think its consequences will be more negative than positive,'' reformist lawmaker Sohrab Bohluli Qashqaie told The Associated Press.

Residents hide their dishes with tarpaulins, or try to disguise them to resemble air conditioning units or water coolers. Hearing of the latest crackdown, some owners have been bringing their dishes inside.

The reformist daily newspaper Nowruz, close to the Islamic Iran Participation Front, called the crackdown an ``act which has been proved fruitless time and again.'' The front is the largest pro-reform party in Iran.

Montenegro is set to press ahead with a referendum on independence from the rest of Yugoslavia after talks in Belgrade broke up without agreement.

Mr Djukanovic - who does not recognise the authority of the federal government - said the referendum would be held next spring.

Full story here.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Iraq's citizens face arbitrary execution, religious persecution, torture and forced relocation, a U.N. human rights investigator said Monday.

Andreas Mavrommatis of Cyprus said in a report that he has also ``received information suggesting that persons who had allegedly insulted the president of Iraq have had their tongues amputated without trial.''

The 15-page report to the General Assembly noted that the Iraqi government dismissed most previous allegations of human rights violations, claiming they were based on information provided by hostile sources. Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri said, ``I cannot comment because I have to read the whole report.''

Mavrommatis also cited the harassment of families of Iraqi refugees living abroad in order to get them to stop anti-government activity.

He said that according to the April 12 issue of the Iraqi newspaper Az-zawrah, an official decree allows the arrest of a woman with a family member living abroad who is wanted by authorities in order to apply pressure on the expatriate. Iraq's U.N. Mission in Geneva stressed that the paper was not official but made no reference to the decree, he said.

Reporting on religious persecution, he singled out the death of a leading Muslim Shiite scholar, Ayatollah Hussein Bahr Al-Aloom, on June 22.

According to allegations Mavrommatis received, Al-Aloom refused to publicly express approval of the appointment of Qusai Saddam Hussein, son of the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, to the regional leadership of the ruling Ba'ath Party. He said he was informed that the ayatollah was found dead in his library in Najaf and the body was buried without an autopsy.

Iraq's U.N. Mission in Geneva replied to the allegations stating the ayatollah died of cardiac arrest, he said.

The human rights investigator said he also continues to receive information about human rights violations against minorities and the mass relocation of non-Arabs.

Mavrommatis called on the Iraqi government to examine all allegations of human rights violations and continue its dialogue with the United Nations ``in a spirit of compromise.''

He urged the government to lift restrictions on the exercise of religious freedom, to revise laws on the death penalty and consider a moratorium on executions, to investigate the fate of missing persons, and to ensure that no person is relocated against his will.

Mavrommatis also called on the Iraqi government to allow him to visit the country. He has not been permitted to go to Iraq since he took office at the beginning of last year. His predecessor also was barred from the country.

The chief UN war crimes prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, has strongly criticised the Yugoslav Government for its failure to co-operate with the Hague tribunal.

She said there had been no movement forward on Yugoslavia's co-operation with The Hague.

Mrs Del Ponte wants access to documents, archives and witnesses, but she said there had been no serious progress.

But she strongly criticised the Yugoslav Federal Government for - as she put it - blocking co-operation for political reasons not connected with the tribunal.

The party of Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica opposes co-operation with the tribunal on principle, and it was noticeable that Mrs Del Ponte's schedule did not include a meeting with the president.

Full story here.

PODGORICA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- A former Yugoslav army general charged with destroying much of the ancient port town of Dubrovnik during the Croatian war boarded a flight to The Netherlands on Sunday to answer to the U.N. war crimes court.

Retired Gen. Pavle Strugar, 68, and three other former Yugoslav army and naval officers are indicted on charges of suspected murder, plunder and the destruction of nearly 70 percent of Dubrovnik in an attempt to incorporate the 17th century town into Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic.

The artillery siege began after Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, setting off a decade of wars in the Balkans.

Strugar, who would be the first Yugoslav citizen to voluntarily surrender to the Netherlands-based court, left for The Hague from the Montenegrin capital of Podgorica.

Before leaving on a private aircraft, Strugar told Montenegrin state television he was convinced he would prove his innocence in The Hague court.

``I am also convinced that it is as honorable court as it could be here in Yugoslavia. I was soldier for 42 years. I always have been working in dignified and human manner, toward people and my country,'' he said.

``I have been dignified and human in a war, too. I am not a criminal. I expect fair trial where I will prove my innocence,'' he said.

Strugar, who has kidney problems and is in general ill health, boarded a Pelikan Blue Airlines flight.

Strugar's lawyer Goran Rodic said that Strugar's first tribunal session will depend on his health, but if possible, ``his first appearance is expected in 7 to 10 days.''

Strugar's surrender comes a day before the scheduled visit of The Hague chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte to Yugoslavia.

Del Ponte is expected to arrive in the capital Belgrade on Monday and travel to Podgorica on Tuesday. She is likely to demand authorities extradite the other suspects.

Strugar, 68, said earlier this month he was ready to surrender. He was later hospitalized with kidney problems and has so far spent 20 days in the hospital in Podgorica.

The Montenegrin government has said it would ask the court to allow Strugar to remain free during the trial because of his ill health.

Adm. Miodrag Jokic, 66, Adm. Milan Zec, 58, and Capt. Vladimir Kovacevic, 40, were named by the court as the other suspects along with Strugar. They are believed to be hiding in Serbia.

Strugar recently moved to Podgorica, the capital of the smaller Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, from Belgrade, where he lived after retiring from the Yugoslav army in August 1993.

During the siege that lasted until early December 1991, at least 43 civilians were killed and 563 buildings destroyed or damaged in the Old Town, formerly a U.N. World Heritage Site, the indictment said.

WASHINGTON, Oct 19, 2001 -- (dpa) The former weapons inspector for Iraq, Richard Butler, wrote in the Thursday edition of the New York Times that Iraq and Russia cannot be ruled out as the source of the anthrax that has been mailed to media outlets and government officials.

In a piece published on the opinion page, Butler said Iraq was a possibility because of President Saddam Hussein's persistence at developing biological weapons, including anthrax, and his reluctance to allow weapon inspectors access to facilities suspected of producing anthrax.

Butler headed the United Nations inspection team that shut down its work because Iraq would not grant it access to certain sites.

In his opinion piece, Butler referred to media reports suggesting that one of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks on the U.S., Mohamed Atta, and other members of the al-Qaeda terrorist network have met with or had contact with Iraqi intelligence officials. It's possible the Iraqis used those occasions to provide the group with anthrax, Butler said.

He also said that the whereabouts of anthrax and other biological weapons covertly produced in Russia during the Cold War are unknown, and it's possible that criminal organizations could be peddling the substances.

An associate of the late paramilitary leader, Arkan, has been shot and killed in Belgrade, the latest in a long line of gangland killings in Serbia.

Slavko Mijovic was shot in a Belgrade cafe shortly after midnight on Thursday by an unknown attacker, who fired around thirty shots from an automatic rifle.

Serbia's mafia appear to have adapted to the new government and for now it is business as usual.

Full story here.

Yugoslavia's problems with restless provinces show no sign of abating, with the northern region of Vojvodina now joining Kosovo and Montenegro on Belgrade's list of urgent headaches.

Matters appeared to have come to a head last week when the provincial assembly sacked one of Vojvodina's deputy prime ministers, Rade Marinkov, who belongs to Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia.

Alongside Mr Marinkov's dismissal, the provincial parliament also voted to upgrade Novi Sad's status to make it Vojvodina's capital rather than its previous lower status as the seat of the provincial administration.

The political momentum was further accelerated when Nenad Canak, speaker of the Vojvodina assembly, stormed into the main building of Novi Sad's public service TV and radio to protest against Belgrade's decision to appoint a new director.

Full story here.

The trial of Poland's last Communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, has got underway in Warsaw, after months of delay.

General Jaruzelski is accused of having given orders to shoot at striking shipyard workers in 1970, when he served as defence minister.

Forty-four people were killed and several hundred injured in the suppression of protests. General Jaruzelski and his six co-defendants have denied the charges.

Full story here.

The association of Serbian trade unions has begun a general strike over a controversial new labour law which freezes salaries at state-owned companies.

The authorities have rejected the demand but say they are still open for talks. The unions have called for street protests on Wednesday to press their demands.

Full story here.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Members of Yugoslavia's richest family, whose businesses flourished under former leader Slobodan Milosevic, have fled the country fearing for their lives, the family-run conglomerate said Monday.

The Karic Brothers, the biggest private company in Yugoslavia's dominant republic of Serbia, is run by three brothers by that name. It has interests in construction, cellphone network, media, banking, and trade.

Bogoljub Karic, head of the company, told the private Beta news agency he and his family left Yugoslavia to save their lives. He did not say where the family fled.

The Karic family ``has placed itself under the police protection of a foreign state,'' the company said in a statement released Monday.

On Sunday ``snipers with infrared aiming devices'' were seen near Bogoljub Karic's house in Belgrade, the statement said.

Yugoslavia's Interior Minister Zoran Zivkovic said he had no information on any death threats against the Karic family. Serbian police denied there were any snipers near Karic's house on Sunday.

Officials are investigating Karic's Astra Bank over allegations it channeled millions of dollars into the family's private funds to build a large villa next to Milosevic's house.

The Karic brothers were recently ordered to pay about $30 million in extra taxes imposed on companies given special treatment during Milosevic's 13-year rule.

The family has denied allegations that most of its wealth came from illegal deals such as smuggling of oil, cigarettes and arms.

PODGORICA, Oct 15, 2001 -- (dpa) Montengrin businesses began listing prices of goods and services in German marks and euros Monday, in the first phase of transition that would lead to the introduction of the euro as the official domestic currency.

Double denomination price tags are mandatory until March 31 next year, when Montenegro is set to fully embrace the euro. The "Euroland" countries will introduce the single currency on January 1.

The small Yugoslav republic adopted the D-mark as its official currency in 1999, rejecting the then unstable dinar.

Trade Minister Ivan Raicevic told Monday's newspapers that the rate is fixed at 1.955 marks for one euro, but economists anticipate a mild growth of prices, which will probably be rounded up at two marks to one euro.

Montenegrins will be able to convert up to 10,000 marks (4,650 dollars) in cash at banks and will need to open an account for more. No controls of the origin of money brought for the conversion are planned.

MOSCOW, Oct 12, 2001 -- (dpa) A group of drunken Russian sailors took an officer hostage in a submarine at a naval base in the Far Eastern region of Kamchatka, news agencies in Moscow reported Friday.

The four servicemen had been left to guard the vessel overnight and began drinking in the officer's absence, the Interfax news agency reported.

They later attacked the officer and disarmed and beat him before announcing to the mainland that they were holding him hostage.

"Only when the sailors sobered up in the morning and saw that the boat would be imminently stormed did they surrender," a spokesman for the fleet said in Petropavlovsk.

KODORI GORGE, Oct 12, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Fighting in Georgia's breakaway republic of Abkhazia escalated Friday as hundreds of Georgian and Chechen militants launched a major offensive aimed at taking the Abkhaz "capital" Sukhumi.

Moscow warned that the region could descend into chaos if Russian peacekeepers were withdrawn from the region in line with Tbilisi's demand voiced by the Georgian parliament late Thursday.

"We are fighting on Sukhumi's perimeter from the Kodori Gorge side," the commander of a Georgian partisan group who identified himself only as Badri told AFP, referring to the region that straddles the unofficial border between government-held territory and the separatist republic.

"The Abkhaz are not reporting their losses, but they are serious, no fewer than 100 of them have been killed," he said, adding that Georgian and Chechen guerrillas engaged in fierce warfare with the Abkhaz troops since last week had so far lost three killed and 16 wounded.

The Abkhaz attempted to counter-attack in order to confine the guerrilla groups to the mountainous Gulripshsky region but their defense lines were overrun and rebels managed to advance halfway to Sukhumi, stopping barely 15 kilometers (nine miles) away, the guerrilla commander said.

No fewer than 500 guerrillas were taking part in the attack on Sukhumi, with reinforcements on the way, he added.

Abkhaz officials said their defense lines were still in place but admitted that the situation was serious.

"I think we all have a major war ahead of us," Abkhazia's deputy defense spokesman Garry Kupalba said.

Abkhaz leaders did not rule out calling for Russian military aid in the event that Georgian troops entered the republic, "as that would mean war," Abkhaz envoy Igor Akhba said in Moscow.

Fighting in the Kodori Gorge has raged unabated, with Abkhaz attack helicopters bombing Chechen and Georgian positions late Thursday and Tbilisi sending reinforcements to the area.

However, the Georgian troops did not join in the fighting, stopping short of the war zone, senior Georgian official Koba Kobaladze said.

He said the Georgian military aimed only to defend Georgian villages in the Kodori Gorge.

Abkhaz officials late Thursday reported that Russian peacekeepers in the area came under guerrilla fire, but this was denied by the Russian defense ministry in Moscow.

Abkhazia claimed de-facto independence from Georgia in 1993 after a war in the early 1990s in which the separatists were supported by Moscow.

After the end of the war, Russia sent peacekeepers to Abkhazia and to a security zone in Georgia along its "border" with the separatist region.

The Georgian parliament voted Thursday for the "immediate withdrawal" of Russian peacekeeping troops from conflict areas in Abkhazia.

But a Kremlin spokesman quoted by Interfax warned that if the peacekeepers left, Abkhazia would "turn into a zone of chaos and pose a threat for the entire region."

The UN Secretary General's envoy to the region, Dieter Boden, supported Russia's view, saying that in case of Russian pull-out, UN military observers would be left without security guarantees and would be unable to do their duty.

Analysts said that while Georgia's demands were understandable, with more than 1,700 Georgians killed as a result of shoot-outs and terrorist acts in the region since 1994, a Russian withdrawal would only make matters worse.

"Armed groups would be able to infiltrate Abkhazia unrestrained, and more Abkhaz men would take up arms and join the partisans," political scientist Irakly Gulordava said, adding that "the toll would increase dramatically."

Tbilisi has consistently accused Moscow of siding with the Abkhaz separatists, while Russia accuses Georgia of allowing Chechen rebels to use its territory as a base and supply route.

BELGRADE, Oct 11, 2001 -- (dpa) Former Serbian secret police officials went on trial before a Belgrade court on Thursday on murder charges in connection with the killings of four opposition officials in a car crash two years ago, local media reported.

Former heads of Serbian and Belgrade security services, Radomir Markovic and Milan Radonjic and two agents, Nenad Ilic and Nenad Bujosevic, are charged for their role in the October 3, 1999 crash.

Serbian Renewal Movement chief Vuk Draskovic, at the time the leader of the fragmented Serbian opposition, was the only person to survive crash which he said was meant to kill him.

His brother-in-law Veselin Boskovic - a senior official in his Serbian Renewal Movement - was killed in the crash near the town of Lazarevac, 40 kilometers southwest of Belgrade along with three official party officials.

The crash occurred when a lorry hit two cars carrying Draskovic's entourage. The truck slammed into the first car carrying Draskovic's bodyguards, and then into the second car, in which he was traveling.

Markovic, who was arrested last February and is already serving a one-year sentence for forging documents, was also linked to the killing of independent journalist and editor Slavko Curuvija in April 1999.

Classified documents leaked to the press one year ago indicated that Markovic had ordered heavy surveillance of Curuvija that was called off minutes before he was killed by two masked gunmen.

Markovic was seen as the henchman of ousted Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic's regime, but, according to local press reports quoting sources among investigators, he provided no links between various crimes and Milosevic.

MOSCOW, Oct 11, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Air traffic controllers in 42 Russian cities went on hunger strike to protest a new labor code that bans their trade union from negotiating contracts for air personnel, the union's president told AFP Thursday.

The traffic controllers, who stopped taking food Wednesday, wanted guarantees that their contracts, negotiated by the trade union, would be extended, Sergei Kovalyov said.

They also protested a 10-percent increase in their meager wages, saying that inflation in the two years since the wages were last raised called for at least a 60-percent increase, Kovalyov added.

However, as the air traffic controllers were continuing to work despite their hunger strike, Russian media voiced concerns that the hunger-weakened personnel could put thousands of air passengers at risk.

"If we keep up the hunger strike for three or four more days, we will not be able to work, and Russia's air traffic will stop," Kovalyov admitted, adding that the union would suspend the strike late Thursday.

"It would be wrong to continue until all our demands are fulfilled. We did this to bring our demands to public attention," Kovalyov said.

However after a return to work, the strike could resume any time if the controllers' wishes were ignored, he warned.

MINSK, Oct 8, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Around 30 officers from the Iraqi army have begun a two-year training course in anti-aircraft defense at the Belarus military academy in Minsk, according to the Saturday edition of German daily Die Welt.

The paper said the officers, from Iraq's anti-aircraft defense force, would learn in particular about S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. They started their course on Thursday, it said.

Die Welt said Iraq's ambassador to Minsk had confirmed the officers had arrived "while the Belarus defense ministry, which wanted to keep the information secret, denied it".

KABUL, Afghanistan (news - web sites) (AP) - Missiles and warplanes streaked through the Afghan night and rocked at least three cities in a U.S.-British attack on Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and his Taliban backers Sunday. Bin Laden and the Taliban's leader both survived, Taliban officials said.

The strike began after nightfall Sunday in Kabul with five blasts followed by the sounds of anti-aircraft fire. Electricity was shut off throughout the city for more than two hours afterward.

The attack also targeted the heart of the Taliban movement, hitting the military headquarters and home of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in the southern city of Kandahar, according to Afghan sources reached by telephone from Islamabad, Pakistan.

Full story here.

ROME (AP) -- Afghanistan's former king said Sunday he recognized the ``legitimate right'' of the United States to pursue those responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks but urged that innocents be spared in the U.S. strikes on his homeland.

In a statement issued by his office, former King Mohammad Zaher Shah, who has been working to select a new government for Afghanistan, said his paramount objective was the safety and dignity of Afghans and the integrity of the country.

``Unfortunately the unpatriotic position of the Taliban and their sponsors has again inflicted pain, sorrow and destruction on the people of Afghanistan,'' the statement said.

The statement was issued hours after the United States and Britain launched a missile attack targeting Osama bin Laden and his Taliban backers.

The strikes came after the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden to U.S. authorities, who have named him as the prime suspect in the worst terrorist attacks in history.

``Although we recognize the United States' legitimate right to pursue and seek justice against those who perpetrated the criminal acts of Sept. 11, our paramount objective is the safety, integrity and dignity of the Afghan nation and the Afghan territory,'' the statement said.

``We urge the United States and its allies to respect the territorial integrity of Afghanistan and the safety and the life of our innocent people.''

``Furthermore, the Afghan nation must be given the right and the opportunity to determine its political future according to its free will,'' the statement concluded.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) -- U.S. officials warned Friday that the leftist Sandinista party, seeking to regain power in presidential elections next month, at one time had links to groups that ``support terrorism.''

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States would ``respect the results of a free and fair vote that reflects the will of the Nicaraguan people'' Nov. 4.

``However, we have serious concerns about the Sandinistas' history ... of confiscating properties without compensation, destroying the economy and maintaining links with those who support terrorism,'' Boucher said in a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Managua.

His remarks came after a Thursday meeting in Washington between Secretary of State Colin Powell and Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Francisco Aguirre. They represented Washington's latest and strongest warning about the possible return of a Sandinista regime.

Aguirre, speaking to Radio Nicaragua on Friday, accused the Sandinistas of having been linked to rebels groups in Italy, Spain and El Salvador.

Sandinista candidate and former Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega accused Nicaragua's current conservative government of trying to frighten voters. He said his party has abandoned the socialist policies and anti-American rhetoric of the past.

``The foreign minister is left with nothing else to do but go around trying to divide people and invent things to confuse them,'' Ortega said.

The U.S. government had previously voiced its opposition to the Sandinista's returning to power.

Ortega is running neck-and-neck with conservative candidate Enrique Bolanos in polls ahead of the elections.

In the 1980s, the United States organized and funded a decade-long proxy war by Contra rebels against the Sandinistas, who were voted out of power in 1989 elections.

POZAREVAC, SERBIA, Oct 5, 2001 -- (dpa) Two armed robbers made off with 1.9 million dollars Thursday after hijacking an armored vehicle in the east Serbian town of Pozarevac, the Beta news agency reported.

They ambushed the security vehicle after it had loaded the money at the back entrance of the local office of the central payments system, an arm of the central bank, the report said.

The money, in various hard currency notes, was to be taken to the central bank safe in Belgrade, said office director Zika Petkovic.

The thieves took the driver hostage, holding a gun to his head, before releasing him not far away when they changed vehicles and fled.

Otpor, the student-based protest movement which provided much of the push to topple Slobodan Milosevic, has given its verdict on his successors.

It is a variation on their clenched-fist logo, with the thumb pointing down. "Mnogo ste isti," it says - "You're much the same."

At the Bajlonij market in central Belgrade, the autumn produce is piled high.

"Electricity is 10 times more expensive. Taxes - everything. People can't live like this for long."

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: This is what happens when you make deals with communists and KGB. In order to topple down Milosevic, DOS sold its soul to the Devil (communists and KGB). That's why they weren't able to make any substantial changes. We can only wait now for new elections in April 2002 that will be crucial one. If Serbia doesn't elect democratic and pro-Western government without Milutinovic and Kostunica's Nazi party DSS, things will get far worse than under Milosevic while Kosovo Albanians will have a clear path to their independence. Deadline comes on third anniversary of NATO troops entering Kosovo. We all know what happened in 1990 elections and we all know what were the consequences in 1991. Don't let this happen again, don't let Serbia crumble, support real changes not corrupted politicians and their Moscow masters. Garbage that we can hear every day in Serbia that DOS needs more time is exactly the same crap communists telling us over and over again. When we reach horizon everything will be better. Tito told us that, Milosevic told us that and now Kostunica is telling us the same lie. Independent Serbia without Milutinovic and Kostunica is the right direction for real changes. Don't vote for communism and KGB, vote for democracy and free market economy.

A year ago, Yugoslavs toppled the regime of Slobodan Milosevic in the hope of achieving freedom, peace and democracy.

Any hopes of a post-Milosevic boom have rapidly evaporated.

The Yugoslav economy is likely to grow by only 4% this year, a far cry from the double-digit surge some had predicted - and needed to catch up for the lost years.

Two-thirds of Yugoslavs still live below the poverty line, unemployment is a record 28%, and gross domestic product (GDP) per head is a meagre $3,000 even under the most forgiving method of calculation.

At the same time, prices are surging: Annual inflation is likely to average over 80% this year, its highest level since 1996.

In a recent survey conducted by the Mark Plan polling agency, 40.7% said their living standard was worse than a year ago, and only 10.6% said it had improved.

Full story here.

BELGRADE, Oct 4, 2001 -- (dpa) Around 18,000 miners in Serbia's Kolubara and Kostolac pits went on strike on Thursday, demanding better pay and an apology from Finance Minister Bozidar Djelic.

The mining unions criticized Djelic for comments a day earlier the strikers were pushing for more money though their earnings were already "significantly higher" than the Serbian average, which is equivalent to about 95 dollars.

"I sincerely apologize if I offended anybody, but nobody can stop me from telling the truth," Djelic said at a press conference in Belgrade.

He said the miners could get no raise without further increases in the cost of electricity, which "the people simply cannot pay".

At the same press briefing, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic acknowledged the key role that the miners of Kolubara played in the toppling of former president Slobodan Milosevic with their strike a year ago.

"But that was for democracy ... not higher salaries and I doubt that this strike will get much public support," he said.

Djelic said that the Serbian power company EPS, the owner of the mines, already enjoyed a favored status and drew most of the foreign aid that arrived over the previous year.

Tens of thousands of people arrived at the Kolubara mine to support the strike last year, which continued until Milosevic stepped down despite huge pressure from the police and even the army.

A strike at Serbia's largest coal mine, Kolubara, has spread to the country's second-biggest mine at nearby Kostolac.

The two mines supply coal to Serbia's main power stations and employ more than 10,000 workers.

The Kolubara miners began their strike yesterday after talks with government ministers failed to result in an agreement on salary demands, despite increases in production.

Full story here.

MOSCOW, Oct 4, 2001 -- (RFE/RL) General Vladimir Gordienko, the chief of the Main Criminal Investigation Administration, said on 2 October that Russia currently occupies second place in the number of murders per 100,000 population, Interfax reported.

Only South Africa has a higher rate. Russia is gaining on South Africa, he continued, because the number of murders committed so far this year is 10 percent higher than the number committed during the same period a year ago.

Meanwhile, Interior Ministry officials suggested that they are close to solving several high-profile murder cases, including those of Duma deputy Galina Starovoitova and television journalist Vladislav Listev, the news agency said.

MOSCOW, Oct 4, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A new military cooperation deal between Moscow and Tehran could be worth around seven billion dollars in Russian arms exports, a military analyst close to the negotiations said Thursday.

The agreement sealed Tuesday by visiting Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani includes the purchase of Inconder long-range supersonic missiles and Yakhont anti-ship missiles, said Razhbjab Safarov, director of the Center for Coordination between Russia and Iran.

Other deals include the purchase of Su-27 and Su-30 fighter jets, as well as K-50 and K-52 military helicopters.

Iran will also buy T-90 and T-82K tanks.

The Russian defense ministry declined to comment on the claims made by Safarov, who is also an advisor to Russia's State Duma lower house of parliament.

MOSCOW, Oct 3, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Russia is to deliver the first reactor for a nuclear power station it is building in Iran next month, the Russian atomic energy ministry announced Tuesday.

Most of the material to be used in the first tranche of the nuclear project at Bushehr, in western Iran, will be delivered at the start of 2002, the ministry announced, as quoted by the ITAR-TASS news agency.

The latest details of Russia's cooperation with Tehran in the nuclear sector, strenuously opposed by the United States -- which regards Iran as a rogue state -- and Israel, emerged as Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani held talks in Moscow with his Russian counterpart Sergei Ivanov.

Thousands of Russian technicians and engineers are working on the project, whose first tranche is due for completion in 2003, the ministry said.

Discussions on the construction of a second tranche could begin later this year, it added.

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, during a visit to Moscow last March, expressed concern at mounting delays in the construction of the Bushehr power plant, ordered in January 1994 after the German constructor Siemens withdrew in the face of U.S. pressure.

Washington and Jerusalem fear that the Russian-Iranian nuclear cooperation could enable Tehran to acquire the technology needed to build nuclear weapons, an accusation that Russia dismisses.

BRUSSELS, Oct 3, 2001 -- (dpa) European Union governments seeking Russian support for a global anti-terror alliance must not soft-pedal on Moscow's human rights record in Chechnya, Amnesty International warned Tuesday.

In a statement coinciding with Russian President Vladimir Putin's discussions with Belgian leaders, the global human rights watchdog said the human rights situation in Chechnya remained "critical".

"Both parties to the conflict continue to commit serious human rights abuses and breaches of international law, although Russian forces are responsible for the overwhelming majority of physical harm and material damage suffered by Chechen civilians," Amnesty said.

Putin will attend an EU-Russia summit on Wednesday focusing on joint anti-terror initiatives in the wake of last month's attacks on the U.S.

Amnesty International said it was "disturbed" by recent comments by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder calling for a "more differentiated evaluation" of Russia's role in Chechnya.

"There is a tendency emerging to soft-pedal on human rights in order to foster the broadest possible coalition, Russia being one of the more obvious examples," said Dick Oosting of Amnesty International's office in Brussels.

But Oosting warned that "any sell-out at this stage may seriously undermine the credibility of the EU's entire human rights policy."

The human rights group said Russian forces were still involved in "cleansing operations" in Chechen towns and villages, arbitrarily detaining civilians and using disproportionate force against them.

Russian authorities had also failed to investigate or ensure justice for civilian victims of human rights abuses by Russian forces and independent human rights observers still faced significant obstacles in gaining access to Chechnya, it said.

European Union officials say human rights issues will not be swept under the carpet at the summit with Russia.

"Russia has impressed many by her willingness to set history aside and to align herself solidly with the international coalition against terrorism," EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten told a meeting of European and Russian business leaders on Tuesday.

"I hope this also opens the way to a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Chechnya," Patten added.

MINSK, Oct 2, 2001 -- (RFE/RL) Some 40 Belarusian intellectuals and prominent public figures have demanded that the Minsk City authorities stop the road construction work at Kurapaty, a site outside Minsk where tens of thousands were executed and buried by the NKVD in the 1930s, Belapan reported on 29 September.

They said in a statement that a government commission in 1989 confirmed that Kurapaty is a burial ground of thousands of victims of the NKVD, and is now listed as a Belarusian historical and cultural heritage site. The authors of the statement consider the ongoing expansion of the Minsk beltway to be a direct threat to Kurapaty.

They want the authorities to suspend the construction work, carry out additional archeological excavations at the site, publish the full results of the previous investigation, and turn the area into a memorial.

Pavle Strugar, Miodrag Jokic, Milan Zec and Vladimir Kovacevic are charged in connection with the bombardment of the medieval walled city by Yugoslav forces.

Dozens of people were killed and the city was partly destroyed during shelling by the Yugoslav army, navy and airforce, which lasted from October to December.

The men are charged with the murders of 43 civilians. They are also accused of causing wilful damage to historic monuments and the wanton destruction of villages near Dubrovnik.

Full story here.

MOSCOW, Oct 1, 2001 -- (dpa) The Russian army has started supplying battle tanks and armored cars to the opposition Afghan Northern Alliance, the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported in Moscow on Saturday.

The engineer units involved came under Taliban fire during the operation over the Tajik-Afghan border river of Pandj, the paper said.

Interfax news agency reported heavy fighting between the ruling Taliban and the Northern Alliance on the Tajik border.

The strength of Russia's 201st Armored Infantry Division stationed in Tajikistan was reportedly to be increased by 1,500 men.

An estimated 10,000 Russian soldiers were currently stationed there for duty along the border of the former Soviet Central Asian republic.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov has ruled out any intervention by Russian troops in Afghanistan.

PODGORICA, Oct 1, 2001 -- (dpa) Slightly more than half of Montenegrin voters support independence and a third oppose it, a survey released by the daily Vijesti Saturday said.

At the moment, the pro-independence camp, with 52 percent support, has a narrow edge above the threshold - half that necessary for a positive outcome from its viewpoint, and possibly not enough to push through independence without risking volatility.

The pro-Yugoslavia group, which wants Montenegro to remain in a redefined, minimized federation with Serbia, has the support of 33 percent of voters, according to the September poll conducted by the National Institute of the United States.

With 55 percent of those polled saying they want a referendum on independence to determine the future status of the tiny republic, it is possible that the decision belongs to the 15 percent of those who have declared themselves as undecided.

The poll was conducted September 13-18, on 1,289 people in all Montenegrin municipalities.

Two separate surveys conducted in mid-April, shortly before Montenegro held early parliamentary elections, gave the pro- independence camp the edge of around 55 to 43 edge.

BEIJING, Oct 1, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A female follower of the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual sect suffered a lengthy beating by police before being thrown to her death from a high window, the group's New York-based headquarters said Monday.

Yu Xiuling died on September 19 after a fall from the fourth story of a police station in the northeastern province of Liaoning, the Falun Dafa Information Center said in a statement.

A police official in the district of Longcheng where the incident reportedly took place denied any knowledge of the event. Other local officials could not be contacted because of the National Day public holiday.

According to the Information Center, 32-year-old Yu was arrested on September 14 for being a Falun Gong practitioner.

On September 19 she was taken to a police station in Longcheng district and beaten for a number of hours after she refused to renounce her beliefs in the Buddhist-based sect, the Center quoted unnamed sources as saying.

After the beating two police officers threw Yu, still alive, from the fourth-story window, the report added, saying her husband was then told she had jumped to her death.

The U.S.-based Falun Gong center says more than 280 followers have died in custody since the group was outlawed as an "evil cult" just over two years ago.

Reports of such deaths have proved difficult to verify, but independent human rights groups have put the toll at more than 150.

Analysts assert China's communist leadership considers Falun Gong a threat to social stability and a challenge to its authority.

During last year's National Day Falun Gong severely embarrassed authorities by staging a mass protest in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Around 1,000 people were rounded up by police, at times brutally, in front of shocked tourists. In recent months protests by the group have tailed off, with some observers seeing this as evidence the government crackdown is succeeding.