Reuters - September 30, 2001

RANCHI, India (Reuters) - A policeman was burned alive and five of his colleagues wounded by leftist extremists who attacked a police post in India's eastern state of Jharkand, police said on Sunday.

Jharkand police chief T.P. Sinha said armed rebels of the outlawed Maoist Communist Center (MCC) attacked the police post in Koderma district on Saturday.

``They dragged a police constable to a nearby wooden pole where he was tied and beaten before being set on fire,'' Sinha told Reuters.

He said the rebels exploded more than 40 crude bombs and fired some 75 rounds on the police post before fleeing with arms, ammunition and money from the post.

The attack followed the killing of 12 people, including 11 federal police personnel, by MCC rebels in the state last week.

Maoist guerrillas virtually run a parallel government in thousands of villages in 14 of the 18 districts of the mineral-rich state, which was created last November.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper quoted what it said was a defecting Iraqi nuclear expert as saying Saddam Hussein has told his top scientists to concentrate on producing chemical and biological weapons.

It quoted the scientist, who it referred to by the pseudonym Dr. al Sabiri, as saying Saddam's researchers were also working on ways to spread germ and chemical weapons.

``I created death in Iraq. I had to get out,'' al Sabiri was quoted as saying in the report from Beirut.

``I was asked to examine hundreds of complicated and dangerous toxins. They were very easy to create using germs. You could put them in water or steam, throw them in the air or use them in the soil,'' he was quoted as saying.

``We developed nerve gas, botulism and anthrax. One day a light green yellow substance, which was crystallized and packed in tins, arrived. Suddenly intelligence men came in and rushed it away. I later found out they were working on some secret project.''

The scientist, who was reported to have worked at the Atomic Energy Organization in Baghdad, was quoted as saying said the toxins were tested on prisoners. He also said that there were attempts to design ways of delivering the deadly substances.

``Ballistic missiles is just one method they want to use to spread the poisons,'' al Sabiri was quoted as saying, adding that Iraq was also trying to adapt pilotless aircraft for the task.

The chief prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunal, Carla Del Ponte, has signed a new indictment against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic in connection with atrocities committed in Croatia.

Full story here.

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) -- The Syrian foreign minister on Thursday denounced the terror attacks on the United States as a ``horrible event'' and said his country supported an international effort to combat terrorism if targets were clearly defined and civilians spared.

Farouk al-Sharaa also said the campaign needed to start with a careful definition of terrorism and be conducted under the United Nations auspices.

``We would like to see this horrible event ... as a turning point in the history of all nations ... and out of the rubble and the ashes and the darkness we could see the light for the sake of humanity throughout the whole world,'' al-Sharaa said.

Syria supports several organizations that the United States labels as terrorist, but Damascus contends its support for groups involved in the Palestinian cause are resistance organizations fighting Israeli occupation.

Al-Sharaa spoke at a news conference after a meeting between President Bashar Assad and a European Union team trying to boost Arab support for the U.S.-led coalition against terror.

Syria's support for the U.S.-led campaign is crucial given the country's close ties to Iran and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, as well as its recently improved relations with Iraq.

He quoted Assad as telling the Europeans there ``should never be any linkage between terrorism and the Arab world and the Islamic world.''

Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, who headed the EU team, said the meeting with Assad was ``positive'' although there were ``some disagreements.'' He did not elaborate.

The EU delegation has already visited Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

MOSCOW, Sep 27, 2001 -- (RFE/RL) In his speech to the Bundestag delivered on 25 September, which he made in German, President Vladimir Putin said that the world has become much more complicated than it was during the Cold War and that politicians must overcome stereotypes from that period, Russian and Western news agencies reported.

Putin called for the creation of "a new, reliable and enduring arrangement" in international affairs that reflects contemporary political realities. He urged that while he has no desire to cast doubt on the "high value of relations between Europe and the United States," he believes that Europe can function as "a powerful and genuinely independent center of world affairs," especially if it unites its enormous capacities "with the human and natural resources of Russia and [Russia's] defense potential."

Editor's commentary: No we are not stupid. We still believe that it is better to be dead than live under FSB boot. Russian imperialists want to send tanks not only to Crimea but to Europe as well.

KIEV, Sep 25, 2001 -- (dpa) A proposed bridge connecting Russia's Krasnodar region with the Crimean peninsula across the Kerch strait ran afoul of Ukrainian officials objecting to the plan on ecological grounds, the Interfax news agency reported Tuesday.

A statement by Ukraine's Ministry of Ecology said the projected five-kilometer span across the Sivash strait would, if completed, threaten replenishment of fish stocks in the Azov and Black seas.

Further construction in the region also would increase the likelyhood of an oil or chemical spill being contained in the Azov sea with increased damage to the environment, the report said.

The Ukrainian statement was the first official reaction to two year's effort by Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov to build a bridge connecting Russia directly to the Crimea peninsula.

The bridge is needed to re-establish trade between Russia and Ukraine lost ten years ago when the Soviet Union broke up, Luzhkov has said.

A joint venture formed between the Moscow city government and the Crimean government laid foundation stones for the span this summer. Moscow owns 74 percent of the shares.

The total cost of the bridge has been estimated at between 50 and 100 million dollars. So far the Kerch Bridge joint venture has attracted little interest from private investors.

The Ministry of Ecology statement said work would not be allowed to proceed "until a full ecological impact review" is made on the project.

Luzhkov has offended Ukrainians by saying the region, once the summer resort of Communist leaders and tsars, should belong to Moscow and not Kiev. Russian President Vladimir Putin repudiated Luzhkov's remarks.

Editor's commentary: Russian imperialist Luzhkov thinks that we are all stupid. The only reason he wants to build this huge bridge is to allow Russian tanks easy access to Crimea. Too bad that Ukraine has not joined NATO yet to prevent this kind of open provocations from Russia.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has told Germany's parliament that all nations are to blame for the terrorist attacks on the United States because they trust outdated security systems.

He made it clear that he viewed Russia's problem with Chechnya as just part of the wider international battle against terrorism.

He said Russia would help the US by sharing intelligence, and would arm the Afghan anti-Taleban alliance.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: Russia is known as the biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world and now we have to listen this crap! Who organized assassination attempt on Pope? In those days they used Bulgarians and now they use Arabs. While everyone is talking about CIA failure to predict and prevent recent attack on WTC and Pentagon no one is blaming FSB for their failure to learn anything about attacks in advance. FSB is on par with CIA but their blame can't be found anywhere. Either they are total idiots or they stand behind attack that happened just one day after U.S. declared Lukashenko's victory illegal. Flights hijackers used are regular every weekday flights so hijacking could have been done on any weekday. If we also add that FSB monitors Bin Laden and Taliban 24-hours then how it was possible not to uncover anything about plot to attack U.S.? Explanation we heard is identical with explanation given by Serbian state security SDB after Curuvija had been assassinated by still unknown assassins. They tracked Curuvija until attack and just moments before he was assassinated those in charge ordered SDB agents to get back to their base. FSB stated that they tracked Bin Laden until September 11th and then suddenly lost track on him!? Russia openly supports Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and now wants to get support of other countries for another takeover of Afghanistan. Only a lunatic would support Northern Alliance and help Russia legitimize occupation of Afghanistan. CNN does support this idea but again we know who Ted Turner is. Motives for attack on WTC are clear and obvious. World trade and WTO are constant target of anarchists and communists who want anarchy and communism to replace democracy and capitalism. Blame for attack goes on Arabs although they are known as traders and capitalists. If the motive is Israel then it is hard to comprehend why would they strike WTC? There is no doubt that Russia and FSB stand behind communist-anarchist protesters as well behind most of terrorist organizations in the world. Terrorism was and is one of the most common tools of communists who want to destroy capitalism and civilized society. FSB is not even mentioned as potential organizer of attack on September 11th. It defies any logic we know.

If we are going to mention terror in Chechnya, FSB and Russian army are the one to be blamed. We have all seen what they have done to Chechnya which means there is no way that Russia is going to get any world support against Chechens. Fight of Chechen people is legitimate one. They have decided to secede from Russia by democratic means while Russia used force and terror to subdue them and install satellite government there.

BELGRADE, Sep 24, 2001 -- (dpa) A year ago on Monday, euphoria began building up in Serbia, Europe and the world as it became increasingly obvious that the former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic had suffered an electoral defeat which he could not wriggle out of.

He had lost presidential elections to the previously obscure Vojislav Kostunica, who was backed by the unified Democratic Opposition of Serbia (DOS) group.

At the same time Milosevic's own coalition lost in a landslide at federal parliamentary, Vojvodina provincial and Serbian local polls. The DOS completed the coup at early elections for the Serbian parliament three months later.

It took 11 days, until October 5, for the euphoria to reach the climax when more than half a million people virtually occupied Belgrade. Confident demonstrators pouring into the capital in huge convoys since morning shoved police barricades into the ditches.

In the afternoon, people stormed the federal parliament, torched the state television RTS headquarters and several police stations before forcing the security apparatus to surrender.

Milosevic conceded defeat on the next evening.

The doors were open for radical, fast reforms that would lead Serbia out of the deep crisis, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic had been saying early this year.

A year later there is no trace of euphoria - it has been replaced by the desperation of economic uncertainty with Serbs lacking confidence in their new political leaders and, with no palpable improvement in living standards, a feeling of betrayal.

Overall, Milosevic's negative legacy - including the unresolved status of Serbia's southern province Kosovo, and the willy-nilly drive for independence of Montenegro, Serbia's sister republic - was big enough to disable any thought of broad, one-swipe reforms.

But it is now painfully clear that DOS could have done better.

Over the previous year, economic reform has not moved far and the most painful parts, including the privatization of moribund "giants" still lie ahead.

Changes in the judiciary, which has become used to being influenced by political dictate under Milosevic, have been slow and incomplete.

There have also been complaints from journalists that the new democracy also showed a tendency to tailor the RTS program and editorial staff to their needs.

By now, DOS has missed the opportunity of almost consensual popular backing to quickly push through the most critical reforms.

Any future effort - possibly by future governments - to restructure the system will face much more resistance than it would have faced over the first post-Milosevic months.

Increasingly frequent and severe clashes of the two top leaders, Kostunica and Djindjic, led to an impression that they are too interested in scoring points in the popularity stakes, ahead of elections, for them to take steps which might damage their positions.

Various analysts have described Kostunica as a barren legalist, whose obsession with outdated procedure killed the "revolutionary" atmosphere, while others said Djindjic was a fake reformist, who rules by decree and is more attracted to rule than to restructure.

"They are all the same, the old ones and the new ones," said Jelka, a pensioner who said that she has supported "all of them" at some point in time.

"I'll never vote again. I'm too busy trying to survive," she said and scurried off in search of the cheapest potatoes to go in a stew with the half kilo of chicken necks she was carrying.

BELGRADE, Sep 24, 2001 -- (dpa) At least 100,000 cars stolen in Europe are now in Yugoslavia, Interior Minister Zoran Zivkovic was quoted as saying Saturday.

In an interview with the daily Blic, Zivkovic said Yugoslavia would receive the list of vehicles reported stolen by European insurance companies when it returns to Interpol for its September 24- 28 conference in Budapest.

It is believed that a large share of cars that were imported and registered without much trouble in the country over the previous four years have been "taken off the insurance" - illegally sold then reported as stolen - in western European countries.

The authorities in Serbia and Montenegro said they were unable to check if the cars were legal because they had no access to Interpol databases of stolen vehicles since 1992.

MOSCOW, Sep 24, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Vandals daubbed swastikas and anti-semitic slogans on the walls of the main synagogue in the Russian capital over the weekend, a spokesman from the Moscow Jewish community said Monday.

Pavel Feldblum, vice president of the association, told AFP the graffiti artists had signed their work "skinheads."

He said he hoped the police would take "more firm action" against such attacks following the incident which occurred late Saturday or early Sunday.

Feldblum said: "This is the first time that our synagogue has been subjected to such an attack. We have informed the police, but it is unlikely that those responsible will be found."

"This doesn't mean that we mustn't battle against antisemitism," he added, stressing the importance of an education campaign for schools.

In June a monument dedicated to 3000 Jews murdered in 1942 was vandalized in the western Smolensk village of Vizovenky on the eve of commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the invasion of the country by Nazi troops.

HONG KONG (AP) -- The terror attacks on Americans were a tragic lesson for U.S. leaders on the need to seek cooperation and avoid ``high-handed'' moves against other nations, billionaire financier George Soros said Thursday.

The U.S. effort to draw together an international coalition to fight terrorism in the wake of last week's assaults was an abrupt switch from President Bush's initial foreign policy bent of going it alone, Soros told reporters and executives at a gathering in Hong Kong.

``I think the Bush administration is now realizing that they do need to build alliances, and they have to be sensitive to the concerns of others. They can't just move high-handedly and unilaterally,'' Soros said. ``Nobody has that kind of power.''

``I think this tragedy has brought this home to America,'' he said.

Soros, 71, urged a cautious and patient response to the attacks, noting that public reaction could tip the balance in some countries, such as Pakistan and Egypt, in favor of antagonistic Islamic fundamentalist movements.

``We have suffered a big blow, and it's hard to take it without the instinct of hitting back, but I think we really have to restrain ourselves because the dangers are enormous,'' said Soros, who was born in Hungary but moved to the United States in 1956.

``If there is a positive fallout from this horrific event, it is that the Bush administration must realize we have to be concerned about the reactions of others,'' he said.

Soros, who made his fortune managing hedge funds, says the world should combat terrorism by revamping global financial institutions and providing more money for aid and development assistance.

He presented a report this week proposing that international institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the World Bank be revamped to help protect the interests of the world's poorest countries.

Editor's commentary: What Soros is saying is that U.S. deserved terrorist attack and that U.S. should immediately pay ransom to terrorists and states who sponsored them to avoid future attacks. George Soros is openly endorsing terrorists and taking their side. This is nothing new to us because he is the one who sent complete equipment for TV studio on Pale to help Karadzic broadcast hatred and lies throughout Bosnia. George Soros is the one who stands behind "Other Voices from Serbia", copycat site whose only goal is to sabotage FS Net and help Russian imperialists promote Stalinism in Serbia. His open collaboration with FSB (KGB) on sabotaging opposition forces in Russian colonies like Serbia and Russia itself helped preserve Stalinist idea throughout the world. He wants to pacify people, kill their will and make sheep out of them. Thanks to Soros, Russian Stalinists have no problems easily enslaving people. Bush administration mentioned recently that several NGOs are used to finance terrorism against U.S. We wouldn't be surprised if Soros himself is founder of those NGOs. George Soros is also a supporter of Nazi dictator Kostunica as well.

BELGRADE, Sep 21, 2001 -- (dpa) A large number of Partizan Belgrade fans jeered on Thursday during a minute of silence for the victims of the terrorist attacks in the United States held before a UEFA Cup game with Austrian club Rapid Vienna.

There was also a banner reading "Bush - bin Laden 0-1" in the stadium.

Yugoslavia was the target of United States-led NATO bombings two years ago for its role in the Kosovo conflict.

BEIJING (AP) -- A labor activist has been sentenced to ten years in prison after demanding government help for health problems caused by beatings and mistreatment during an earlier prison term, a human rights group reported Friday.

A court in the southern city of Shaoyang convicted Li Wangyang of ``incitement to subvert state power,'' and sentenced him Thursday, New York-based Human Rights in China said. Shaoyang is in Hunan province, 930 miles south of Beijing.

Charges were brought after foreign media reported on Li's case, the group said. Li's sister, Li Wanglin, was sentenced to three years in a labor camp in July, reportedly because she aided Li's case and talked to foreign reporters.

Li spent 11 years in prison after helping organize an independent union during the 1989 democracy protests centered on Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Held in solitary confinement at times, Li was beaten so badly he had to be hospitalized, human rights campaigners said. His family said Li was paroled due to poor health in June 2000, practically deaf in one ear, with failing eyesight and difficulty walking.

In May, police took Li from a hospital where he was being treated for heart and lung problems after he reportedly went on a 22-day hunger strike to demand government assistance.

A court official who declined to be named confirmed that Li was sentenced Thursday, but refused to provide any details on the charge or length of the sentence.

Li helped organize the Shaoyang Workers Autonomous Federation in 1989, challenging the official union that is the only body authorized to represent workers.

BEIJING, Sep 20, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A flag factory in eastern China has been forced to introduce round-the-clock shifts to cope with the huge demand for the Stars and Stripes following last week's terror attacks, its manager said Thursday.

The Shanghai Mei Li Hua Flags Co. has been swamped by demand prompted by the vast outpouring of patriotism-laced grief thousands of miles away following September 11's terror strikes in New York and Washington, with 500,000 U.S. national flags on emergency order.

"We had to turn down some of the order," said manager Wu Guomin.

"The order was too big, we could not cope with it. Because it was so urgent, they wanted everything too soon, we could not do it."

He said the factory, in China's commercial center of Shanghai, had been forced to introduce a series of shifts spanning 24 hours a day to meet the demand for U.S. flags of all sizes.

Those placing the orders in the United States had told him the retail price for some flags had increased five-fold since the attacks, which are feared to have killed more than 5,500 people.

The U.S. national emblem has become all but ubiquitous across the country since the attacks in New York and Washington more than a week ago, hung at half mast on flag poles, draped across makeshift shrines to the victims which have sprung up nationwide and placed over the shoulders of mourners at memorial services.

China exports huge amounts of manufactured goods to the United States, recording a bilateral trade surplus of almost 30 billion dollars last year.

BEIJING, Sep 20, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Four men accused of forming the "Association for New Chinese Youth" and publishing a manifesto on the Internet will be tried for subversion next week, one of the accused's wives said Thursday.

Computer scientist Yang Zili, journalist Xu Wei, geologist Jin Haike and writer Zhang Honghai will be brought before the Number One Intermediate Court in Beijing Wednesday, said the wife of Zhang, Lu Kun.

Arrested in March, the group were accused of "actively investigating the means for reforming society", said the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

The incriminating manifesto's titles included "Real democracy practiced in China and false democracy" and "New citizens to rebuild China".

Yang Zili has previously called for political reform and criticized the suppression of the Falun Gong sect, among other matters, the Center added.

The accused risk up to ten years in prison, according to the Center, which called on the international community not to forget human rights in China while attention was focused on the aftermath of last week's terror attacks in the United States.

MINSK, Sep 20, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Publishing of an independent weekly newspaper in Belarus was suspended as the weekly's major shareholder claimed displeasure with the newspaper's allegiance to the opposition.

The Svobodnye Novosti weekly was actively involved in the opposition's election bid to topple Belarus's iron-fisted President Alexander Lukashenko, which had drawn the ire of shareholder Sergei Atroshchenko.

Atroshchenko, who owns 60 percent shares in the weekly, announced plans to remake the newspaper into "a non-political, family reading" and accordingly applied to the authorities to suspend publishing.

However, Svobodnye Novosti's staff accused Atroshchenko of foul play, charging him with trying to silence yet another opposition newspaper to please Belarus's Soviet-style authorities.

Shortly after this month's presidential poll, which secured Lukashenko a controversial victory, Atroshchenko allegedly asked reporters to publicly repent and renounce their political allegiance, which the staff refused to do, chief editor Alexander Ulityonok said.

The staff plan to appeal the shareholder's decision in court, claiming that "Atroshchenko's decision was illegal, as he had to consult other shareholders before taking it," Ulityonok told AFP.

"In addition, he has never fulfilled his financial obligations to the weekly and did not even appear in our bureau for the past nine months," he fumed.

Svobodnye Novosti's reporters said they feared this was the latest in Minsk's crackdown on the independent media, which had been one of the reasons international observers refused to recognize the September 11 poll as free and fair.

KIEV, Sep 19, 2001 -- (dpa) Ukraine's parliament Tuesday opened an investigation into an accused weapons smuggler with possible close links to President Leonid Kuchma, the Interfax news agency reported.

Boris Andresiuk, chairman of the parliament national security committee said his group would look into possible weapons trafficking by Ukrainian national Aleksander Zhukov, and his alleged links to Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma.

Italian police arrested Zhukov in July on weapons trafficking charges. He is suspected of connecting crooked Ukrainian army base commanders with Balkan nationalist extremists and criminals.

Zhukov met with Kuchma several times during the late 1990s, presidential opponents have alleged. Zhukov has not commented on the charges. Kuchma has stated he has never met Zhukov.

Andresiuk said his committee would review information provided by Italian police and Ukraine's secret police, the SBU. If parliament were to establish any complicity by Kuchma in arms trafficking, it would require a two-thirds majority to impeach him.

Ukraine's Soviet-era armories are some of the world's largest sources of smuggled weapons. Kuchma earlier this year estimated some 32 billion dollars' worth of Ukrainian military property was stolen during Ukraine's first decade of independence.

Presidential opponents have repeatedly accused Kuchma of close links with criminal organizations. Kuchma denies the allegations, in spite of audio tapes made public by a former body guard seeming to confirm them.

The body guard, Mykola Melnichenko, received political asylum in the U.S. last June. The SBU has issued a warrant for Melnichenko's arrest as a traitor.

BEIJING, Sep 19, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Six people, including four women, have died in police custody in China after being detained for allegiance to the banned Falun Gong spiritual sect, the group's U.S.-based headquarters said Tuesday.

The six all died either in official custody or in detention centers, with some being beaten or tortured to death, the Falun Dafa Information Center said in a press release.

The fatalities bring to 278 the number of followers of the semi-mystical sect who have died in police custody since Falun Gong was outlawed as an "evil cult" just over two years ago, the center said.

It added that unidentified "government sources" in China had put the figure at more than 1,000.

Such cases are notoriously difficult to verify, but independent human rights groups have put the toll at more than 150.

One of those who died, 33-year-old Li Mei from east China's Shandong province, died in May after suffering a broken spine and other injuries at a "transformation school" in the province's Laiyang city, the center said.

While in the facility she had practiced Falun Gong exercises of the sort performed by sect followers, it added, leading to the torture.

Another woman, Wang Hong, 39, from Liaoning province, also in east China, died at home on August 31 after being repeatedly tortured at a labor camp after refusing to renounce her belief in Falun Gong, the center said.

And He Xueyan, from Sichuan province in China's southwest, was beaten to death in police custody in April, it added, saying her body had not been released yet to her family.

Two male Falun Gong followers died of unknown causes while in custody, the group said, while authorities said another woman had jumped from a moving train during transit in custody.

The group noted that a series of other followers had allegedly jumped from trains or high buildings in mysterious circumstances in the past.

Tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been sent to "re-education through labor" centers since the Chinese government banned the group -- which mixes Buddhist and traditional Chinese teaching with meditation and group exercises -- in July 1999.

The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, which has been independently verifying the reports, has said it has been able to confirm 156 deaths of Falun Gong adherents so far.

BEIJING, Sep 18, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Four people were executed in Beijing Tuesday, including a pimp who ran a prostitution racket involving under-age girls, state media said.

Miao Zhangshun, assisted by his wife, forced six girls, two of them under-age, into prostitution over a six-month period ending March 2000, the Xinhua news agency said.

Miao was also found guilty of beating and mistreating the girls, and on one occasion raping one of them, the agency said.

Three others were also executed Tuesday in the Chinese capital, including a farmer who used a knife to rob female drivers, according to the agency.

Western diplomats in Beijing say China has executed at least 1,800 criminals since early April when President Jiang Zemin kicked off a national "strike hard" crackdown on crime.

The total number of executions during the period is more than the number of executions in the rest of the world over the last three years combined, according to the Amnesty International human rights group. Editor's commentary: It is interesting that pimps who work in government brothels are not prosecuted which means that this man was sentenced to death not because prostitution is crime but because he was a threat to government monopoly on brothels and prostitution.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Vigilantes broke up a candlelit vigil for the terror victims in America on Tuesday, kicking and arresting people gathered in sympathy for those who perished in New York and Washington.

Onlookers said the vigilantes waded into the crowd of 4,000 mostly young men and women in Madar Square in Tehran, pulled out more than 10 people and handed them over to uniformed police, who looked on without interfering.

``We were beaten up by vigilantes, but still it was worth expressing sympathy for the victims of the terrorist attacks in America,'' student Shokufeh Sadeqi, still holding a lit candle, told The Associated Press.

``We are here tonight to tell the American people that 'we are with you,''' said 20-year-old Mehrdad Hasani.

The crowd marched through the square shouting ``America, condolences'' and ``Death to terrorists,'' when the attackers struck. The vigilantes seemingly operate outside Iranian law and against opponents of the country's hard-line Islamic leaders who hold most of the power.

The government-run Persian daily Iran said official authorization had been given for the ceremony, but the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported that no authorization was provided.

Hours earlier, reformist lawmaker Ahmad Bourqani signed a condolence book, on behalf of parliament speaker Mahdi Karrubi and the parliament's leadership council, at the U.S. interest section of the Swiss Embassy.

Bourqani was the first member of Iran's ruling establishment to sign the book, the agency said.

Iran has no political ties with the United States. The U.S. Embassy in Tehran was closed in 1979 after student militants seized the building and took 52 Americans hostage following the Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed shah of Iran.

Also Tuesday, Iran stepped up its diplomatic campaign to discourage the United States from ``emotional and hasty'' retaliation to the Sept. 11 attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The attacks left more than 5,000 people dead or missing.

Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi spoke by telephone with his Egyptian, Syrian, Canadian, German and French counterparts.

The United States is gathering international support for a military strike against those who orchestrated the attacks and has named exiled Osama bin Laden, who lives in Afghanistan, as the prime suspect.

Kharrazi said Iran, which borders Afghanistan, was worried about any U.S. military action against the impoverished nation. He said the United Nations should monitor any military response.

Iran-U.S. ties began thawing after reformist President Mohammad Khatami's 1997 election victory, but hard-line Iranian leaders who wield great influence oppose any rapprochement with the United States.

Although Iran is on the State Department list of countries sponsoring terrorism, the United States has said it is willing to explore the possibility of Iran joining its broad international coalition to fight terrorism.

Editor's commentary: This is another evidence that Iranian government may be behind attack on U.S. Why would they arrest peaceful protesters calling for those responsible for attacks to be brought to justice? Bush has clearly stated that those who are not with U.S. against terrorists are against U.S. and support terrorists.

A district court in Belgrade says investigators have found at least 269 bodies in a mass grave outside the city. The victims are believed to be male ethnic Albanian civilians killed by Yugoslav troops during the Kosovo conflict.

Full story here.

WASHINGTON, Sep 18, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Calling him "Europe's last dictator," President George W. Bush Monday accused Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko of stealing the presidency in voting earlier this month.

"Not only did Alexander Lukashenko, Europe's last dictator, steal the elections from the Belarusian people -- for the moment, he also stole their opportunity to return to a path towards democracy and free-market economy," Bush said.

"This was a sadly-missed opportunity and a sad moment for a brave people, who suffer under a climate of fear."

Bush said the United States would work with its European allies to promote democracy in Belarus.

The authoritarian Lukashenko's overwhelming victory in the September 9 election has been fiercely attacked as meaningless by observer groups.

The European Union Friday strongly criticized the vote, saying it was marred by harassment of opposition groups and a failure to respect democratic procedures.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe sent 300 observers to monitor the poll, and later reported that it had failed to come up to widely accepted standards. The pan-European body notably criticized the vote count, which they said the monitors were "unable to follow."

Lukashenko was officially credited with 75.5 percent of the votes on an 82.5 percent turnout.

BEIJING, Sep 18, 2001 -- (dpa) A court in eastern China on Tuesday jailed the leader of a qi gong-based spiritual movement for 12 years after convicting him of tax evasion, a human rights group reported.

Shen Chang, 44, a master of traditional qi gong exercise and meditation who founded the Human Body Science movement in 1990, was also found guilty of operating an illegal business, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.

Shen was arrested last July for "using an evil cult to breach the law," but was later charged with the other offenses, the center said.

Police told the court in Suzhou city that Shen evaded 900,000 yuan (108,000 dollars) in taxes payable on income from his exercise groups, it said.

In 1995 alone, he earned some 6.3 million yuan (760,000 dollars) from the unlicensed sale of 300,000 promotional tapes, the court was told.

The Human Body Science movement has around 5 million followers, mostly in eastern China, the center said.

Last week the center said a court in Hunan province, southern China, had jailed a leader of the banned Zhong Gong spiritual movement for seven years for tax evasion.

Hunan authorities had closed nearly 100 Zhong Gong centers and arrested at least 20 leaders since the government began a crackdown on the group in 1999, it said.

The government has mounted a major campaign against all qi gong-based spiritual movements since April 1999, when 10,000 members of the largest and best-known such group, Falun Gong, held a silent protest outside the Beijing leadership compound of the ruling Communist Party.

BELGRADE, Sep 18, 2001 -- (dpa) Belgrade police on Monday confirmed reports that a top member of Slobodan Milosevic's fallen regime was arrested and facing theft charges after being caught and videotaped red-handed.

Zeljko Simic, minister of culture in the previous Serbian government and earlier Milosevic's advisor, was arrested on accusations of repeated theft from a friend, a police spokesman, Ljubisa Mavric told a press conference.

Mavric ran a tape that Simic's unnamed friend made after realizing that somebody visiting him was stealing things.

The video, taped by a hidden camera in the man's home, showed Simic picking through an envelope with money three times while his host was out of the room and taking 100 German mark bills.

A search of his home when unearthed a Rolex watch, perfumes and other stolen items, local media reported earlier Monday, quoting police sources.

Simic, who in the early 1990's led Belgrade's delegation on the division of assets among former Yugoslav republics, even stole protein supplements for weight lifters, sources have said.

BELGRADE, Sep 17, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Investigators have dug up at least 48 bodies, presumably of murdered Kosovo Albanians, from a mass grave in western Serbia, a local district court said Saturday.

"Based on preliminary results of autopsy of bodies dug up from a mass grave near (the town of) Bajina Basta, it has been established that there were at least 48 human skeletons" in the grave, it said in a statement carried by Beta news agency.

Thirty eight victims were male sex, one female, while court experts were not able to establish sex of nine bodies, the statement said.

"The victims, all in civilian clothes and older than 17, had fatal injuries caused by firearms and had been buried for about two years," it added.

The investigators collected parts of victims' clothes and took DNA samples for identification, the court said.

The excavation was monitored by UN war crimes tribunal experts, representatives of OSCE, the international commission for missing persons and the local non-governmental Humanitarian Law Center.

The grave is situated near the Perucac hydroelectric plant in southwest Serbia where in July bodies were found floating in the reservoir. They were thought to be from a group of 60 Kosovo Albanians killed by Serbian forces and put in a truck and dumped in the reservoir in 1999.

Serbian investigators have previously dug up more than 340 bodies from four other mass graves, two in a Belgrade suburb and two in eastern Serbia, that are thought to contain a large number of murdered Kosovo Albanians.

The victims were among an estimated 800 Kosovo Albanians killed by the former regime of Slobodan Milosevic during its bloody two-year campaign in Kosovo, which were then shipped to Serbia proper.

Belgrade's new authorities believe the bodies, which constituted key evidence against the regime, were removed in secret and hidden in a number of mass graves as the international community rallied against Milosevic and NATO troops readied to move into Kosovo itself in 1999.

No charges have been brought yet as police said they are continuing the investigation.

Thousands of ethnic Albanians went missing during the 1998-99 Kosovo conflict, and the West accused Milosevic's forces of committing widespread atrocities.

Milosevic is now awaiting trial before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague for his alleged role in war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the province.

Some 2,500 ethnic Albanians and 1,300 Serbs are still listed as missing, two years after the end of the conflict.

BRUSSELS, Sep 17, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The European Union strongly criticized the former Soviet republic of Belarus on Friday, saying last weekend's election there was marred by harassment of opposition groups and a failure to respect democratic procedures.

Endorsing a report made by independent international observers of the elections, which took place on Sunday, the EU presidency said it "greatly regrets" that the poll was "not held in conformity with OSCE rules for democratic elections".

The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) sent 300 observers to monitor the poll, and later reported that it had failed to come up to widely accepted standards. The pan-European body notably criticized the vote count, which they said the monitors were "unable to follow."

Lukashenko, the authoritarian Belarus president, was officially credited with 75.5 percent of the votes on an 82.5 percent turnout.

Friday's statement, issued by the Belgian EU presidency, said the EU regretted "that the Belarus authorities did not seize the opportunity of this election to place their country squarely on the road to democracy."

The EU particularly deplored "harassment of opposition officials, of domestic observers, independent media and non-government organizations," the statement added.

It also said that the future of the EU's relations with Belarus would "basically depend on its respect for human rights and the progress of democracy in the country."

NAZRAN, Russia (AP) -- Rebels in breakaway Chechnya shot down a Russian helicopter Monday, killing two generals and eight colonels, and attacked the republic's second-biggest city in the largest rebel assault in months.

The officers were members of a general staff team on an inspection trip to the rebel region, the Russian military commander in Chechnya, Col. Gen. Valery Baranov, said on Russia's state RTR television.

Rebels fired a portable surface-to-air missile at the Mi-8 helicopter after it took off from the Chechen capital Grozny, killing the 10 officers and three crew members, Baranov said.

Also Monday, rebels attacked Russian outposts on the outskirts of Gudermes, Chechnya's second-largest city, where many officials in the region's Kremlin-appointed administration are based. Rebels came at the city, 20 milies east of Grozny, from different directions firing automatic weapons and grenade launchers.

It was a brazen assault on one of the first cities seized by the Russians after troops entered Chechnya in September 1999, and one full of Russians and Moscow-backed Chechens. The attack was a well-coordinated action by the rebels, who have focused over most of the past year on small-scale raids and planting mines.

At least 10 Russian troops died in the gun battle, which lasted for several hours, Kremlin envoy Sergei Yastrzhembsky said on Russian television. He said Russian forces responded with aircraft and artillery strikes and had cleared out most rebels by evening.

Baranov said Russian troops killed at least 15 rebels.

Reports on the number of rebels who attacked Gudermes varied. The head of the Moscow-appointed Chechen administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, put it at 15, but Interior Minister Boris Gryzlov said about 300 militants were believed involved.

Local residents who spoke to The Associated Press near Gudermes put the number of rebels at about 100. They said the attack began at dawn with rebels surrounding most Russian outposts and administrative buildings in the city and spraying them with gunfire.

Moscow fought a 1994-96 war with Chechen separatists, which ended in a humiliating retreat by Russian troops and de facto independence for Chechnya. Russian forces re-entered the region after Chechnya-based rebels raided a neighboring Russian region and after more than 300 people died in apartment house bombings in Russian cities blamed on the rebels.

Early in the renewed conflict, Russian troops cleared Gudermes of rebels and established a temporary regional capital there. The capital was later moved back to Grozny, but many officials in the pro-Moscow administration have remained in Gudermes.

MOSCOW, Sep 17, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) One hundred seventeen Russian nationals are missing and believed killed in last week's terror attacks in the United States, the Russian embassy in Washington announced Monday on its Internet site.

The list of missing Russians was drawn up on the basis of telephone calls received from Russians who have had no news of relatives or friends since the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, the embassy said on its www.russianembassy.org website.

Russian authorities have as yet given no official confirmation of the death of any of their nationals.

The provisional toll from last Tuesday's attacks stands at more than 5,000 dead or missing.

WASHINGTON, Sep 17, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The United States has expelled a group of visiting Chinese journalists, some of whom reportedly applauded at this week's terrorist strikes in New York and Washington, State Department officials said Saturday.

"On September 14, we curtailed the visit of a group from China under the International Visitor Program," the official said. "Under the current circumstances, it was decided not to continue the tour."

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, declined to elaborate on the circumstances of the group's expulsion, but others confirmed there had been reports that some of the journalists had applauded and cheered when they saw television footage of hijacked planes slamming into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

It was not immediately clear where the alleged incident occurred, but the group, which was being hosted by the New York-based Institute of International Education, had been scheduled to visit that city this week, the official said.

The 14 journalists from various local television stations around China, were on a 28-day study tour funded by the State Department's International Visitor Program which brings foreign professionals to the United States to meet their U.S. colleagues.

The official said the status of all other similar tours now underway were being reviewed "on a case-by-case basis."

The 40-year-old International Visitor Program has brought more than 186 current and former heads of state and more than 1,500 senior foreign government officials to the United States since it was founded, according to the State Department.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq urged Washington on Sunday to reconsider its foreign policy in the wake of the attacks on U.S. cities and said the horror was a consequence of American unfairness.

``We hope that American politicians will take thisas a stimulus for quiet reasoning and reassessment of America's role in the world,'' Foreign Minister Naji Sabri told Reuters.

Sabri refused to comment on whether Iraq, which is on a State Department list of ``state sponsors of terrorism,'' expected to be a target of U.S. retaliation.

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein advised the United States on Saturday to use wisdom, and not force, in retaliating.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Washington would go after countries that harbor ``terrorists and their organizations'' in retaliation for the attacks on New York and Washington, which left more that 5,000 dead and missing.

Rumsfeld did not reveal which countries the United States would target.

A U.S.-led coalition bombed Iraq heavily during the 1991 Gulf War. Iraqi targets still come under attack by Western planes policing two ``no-fly'' zones in the north and south of the country.

``It is hoped around the world that U.S. officials and politicians assess in a reasonable manner why the attack happened to them on a large scale and not to others,'' Sabri said in an interview at his office in Baghdad.

``If they will do this, they will serve their own security and the security and stability of other nations around the globe.''

The minister said the United Sates brought the attack on itself because it disregarded ``human rights and the national interest'' of other nations, including Iraq and the Palestinians in revolt against Israeli occupation.

Iraq has been under U.N. sanctions since it invaded Kuwait in 1990. Washington is a strong proponent for maintaining the sanctions, despite their damaging effect on the standard of living ordinary Iraqis and increasing international calls to lift them.

``The regime of sanctions which American officials described as the harshest and most comprehensive in history could not kill the Iraqi state, society and people,'' the minister said, citing government commitment to infrastructure projects and rising trade.

Editor's commentary: Number one suspect for terrorist attack on WTC and Pentagon is Saddam himself. Only Iraq and Iran had capability to train military pilots for such a mission. Almost all military pilots from Iraq flew with their planes to Iran before Gulf War and many remain there even today. Who would plot such evil attack as if not Saddam or fundamentalist government in Iran? No one hates more U.S. than they are and no other Arab country have their potential to conduct this. If Saddam thinks that destruction of WTC will help him get a break then he is sadly mistaken. This will only result in another Gulf War but this time destination will be Baghdad and his head on the plate. Ten years after Gulf War this lunatic is still in power in Iraq and plots new evil deeds every day so there is no excuse for not destroying him once for all. After brilliant victory FSB government in Kremlin would find itself surrounded by NATO from west and south like during WWII but this time their would be no money from U.S. to help them overcome Germany. Maybe it is time to give up dreams of Russian imperialism early or face collapse of Russia as USSR collapsed 10 years ago.

MOSCOW, Sep 14, 2001 -- (RFE/RL) General Anatolii Kornukov, the commander in chief of the Russian air force, said on 12 September that any terrorist act like those that hit New York and Washington could not take place in Russia, Interfax reported.

He said that "if I found out that a passenger plane had been seized by terrorists and was heading toward the Kremlin, I would give the order for its destruction, however sad that would be. At the price of the lives of the hostages, we would save the lives of many hundreds and thousands of others," Kornukov concluded.

But "Nezavisimaya gazeta" on 13 September quoted Kornukov as acknowledging that if an aircraft with terrorists took off from the environs of Moscow and set course for the Kremlin, "frankly, we would not have time" to shoot it down.

Editor's commentary: This is quite a relief because you have to wonder what would happen in case that terrorists get their hands on Antonov An-124 and fill it with 150 tons of explosives, rockets and gasoline on their crash course for Kremlin. It is safe to live in Moscow these days. Totalitarian states like Russia always have better safety records than democracies because freedoms in general are heavily restricted making terrorist attacks almost impossible.

BELGRADE, Sep 13, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The trial of Dragoljub Milanovic, a close ally of former president Slobodan Milosevic, opened here on Thursday, where he is accused of deliberately failing to take steps to protect employees on Serbia's state television (RTS) premises ahead of the NATO bombing.

Milanovic was the former general manager of the station that NATO insisted was a legitimate military target because it considered it a "propaganda mouthpiece" of the Milosevic's regime.

Sixteen employees, all technicians and production workers, were killed on April 23, 1999, when a NATO missile hit the RTS building in central Belgrade during the Atlantic alliance's 11-week air war against Yugoslavia.

Milanovic is accused of "provoking general danger," because he did not allow workers to evacuate and threatened to fire them if they did.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. Security Council has decided to delay a vote on lifting five-year-old sanctions on Sudan because of the terrorist attacks on the United States, diplomats said Thursday.

France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-David Levitte, whose country holds the council presidency, said that Thursday's scheduled discussion on ending sanctions, which was to be followed by a Sept. 17 vote, had been postponed. The council would decide at a future date when to consider the issue again, he said.

The United States had insisted that Sudan demonstrate it was no longer providing sanctuary to terrorist groups before lifting sanctions. However, Washington has been working with Sudan to address concerns about the nation's alleged backing of terrorism.

Colombia's U.N. Ambassador Alfonso Valdivieso said council member had been told the Americans were ready to lift sanctions.

The sanctions order U.N. members to reduce Sudan's diplomatic presence in their countries, to restrict the movement of its officials, and ban its planes. The sanctions remain on the books, but have never been enforced.

The measures were intended to pressure Sudan to hand over gunmen who opened fire on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's car on June 26, 1995, while he was visiting Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The suspects were believed to have fled to Sudan.

Last month, an official in the Bush administration said U.S. counterterrorism experts had concluded the gunmen are no longer in Sudan and do not enjoy the support of the government.

The council also postponed a scheduled discussion of violence in Burundi because former South African President Nelson Mandela, a peace mediator in the conflict, was not able to come to New York. U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said this was because of medical treatment.

BELGRADE, Sep 13, 2001 -- (dpa) French President Jacques Chirac postponed his official two-day visit to Yugoslavia over the U.S. terror attacks, President Vojislav Kostunica's cabinet said Wednesday.

Chirac's visit was scheduled for Friday and Saturday, the first of a western chief of state since NATO and Yugoslavia were at war in 1999.

He and Kostunica had spoken over the phone earlier, the statement said.

GENEVA (AP) -- Negotiators still shocked by images of the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington decided Wednesday to postpone a decision on admitting China to the World Trade Organization.

``Such a big thing happened. This kind of thing compared with that kind of thing -- we have to reschedule,'' said Chinese chief negotiator Long Yongtu.

WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell said that there would be further informal meetings Thursday to resolve final differences over China's admittance, an informal group meeting on Friday and then the formal session on Monday.

The decision means that a meeting planned for Friday to admit Taiwan will also be put off until next week. It was agreed in 1992 that Taiwan could not become a member ahead of China.

The U.S. Mission to international organizations in Geneva remained open Wednesday with a skeleton staff. ``We aren't going to be very active today because of the circumstances,'' somber U.S. officials said.

Diplomats originally had a self-imposed deadline of Thursday for completing works on the terms of China's membership, but the attacks made it difficult for U.S. negotiators to get guidance from Washington.

Earlier Wednesday, the WTO announced that it was postponing meetings planned for later in the day and Friday to study U.S. policies on international trade. The meetings were unrelated to the China talks but had been scheduled for almost a year.

Clearance by WTO members would open the way for formal approval of China at a November meeting of WTO trade ministers in Doha, Qatar. China could then become a full member early next year.

If China's membership goes through next week, the WTO also hopes to clear Taiwan for membership.

China's approval depends partly on settlement of a disagreement between the United States and the European Union.

American International Group, which has operated in China since 1994, wants assurances that it can continue to expand its operation there without having to find Chinese partners, unlike new companies joining the life insurance market which under the membership agreement must be 50 percent Chinese-owned.

European insurance companies, which operate as joint ventures with Chinese partners, insist that AIG must play by the same rules as they do. The European Union says it already has a guarantee from Beijing that all companies, including AIG, will have to respect the 50 percent rule in all future ventures.

MOSCOW, Sep 12, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Russian troops in Chechnya are there "forever", Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said Tuesday on a visit to federal military headquarters near the Chechen capital Grozny.

Russian forces "will stay here (in Chechnya) forever... irrevocably, and will never leave," the Interfax news agency quoted Ivanov as saying in an interview with ORT television.

Ivanov made an unscheduled visit Tuesday to the Russian army headquarters at Khankala, in Grozny's eastern suburbs, to meet the commanders of Moscow's military operation in the breakaway republic.

Chechen rebel fighters have stepped up their offensive against Russian forces in Grozny and in southern Chechnya in recent weeks.

Russian troops entered Chechnya on October 1, 1999, in a self-styled "anti-terrorist" operation which put an end to the de facto independence the republic had acquired in 1996.

Earlier this year the Kremlin announced a scaling down of the federal military presence in Chechnya, claiming that the situation in the republic was becoming normalized, but the troop withdrawal has effectively halted.

Russian public opinion, initially heavily in favor of the intervention in Chechnya, has been gradually turning against the Russian presence there.

YALTA, Sep 12, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma on Tuesday described his Belarus counterpart Alexander Lukashenko's controversial presidential victory as "convincing."

"It was a very convincing victory, it cannot be dismissed," Kuchma said at a joint press conference with a European Union delegation during the Ukraine-EU summit in the Crimean Black Sea resort of Yalta.

However Kuchma added that Kiev would "take into account" the conclusions of the international community regarding the outcome of Sunday's presidential election.

The Belarus opposition, the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe and the United States questioned the fairness of the election and refused to recognize Lukashenko's victory.

But Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated the authoritarian Belarus leader on his re-election.

Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, was won 75.6 percent of the popular vote in a record 82.5 percent turnout, according to official figures.

His main challenger, opposition leader Vladimir Goncharik, won 15.4 percent.

The Belarus opposition has filed a complaint for electoral fraud and demanded that the results be annulled.

It called on the international community to support its demand for a new election.

WASHINGTON, Sep 11, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The United States on Monday unleashed a furious verbal assault on the authoritarian leader of Belarus, calling his victory in weekend presidential elections "meaningless" and the result of massive fraud.

State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said the United States would be consulting with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to determine how best to protest the polls, which both Washington and the OSCE said were not democratic.

"Regrettably, no part of the electoral process has been transparent or fair," Reeker said of Sunday's voting and the run-up to the polls, which President Alexander Lukashenko says he won with more than 75 percent of the vote.

"Lukashenko has merely used the facade of elections to engineer a meaningless victory for himself," he told reporters.

"The United States concurs with OSCE's findings that the electoral process was not democratic," Reeker added. "Elections that are neither free nor fair cannot be internationally recognized."

The OSCE had 300 observers monitoring the poll and criticized it as unfree and unfair. But it stopped short of declaring the election invalid, stressing the need to avoid isolating Belarus.

Washington's comments were stronger but Reeker, also noting the importance of not totally isolating Minsk, declined to say what measures the United States might consider.

For the past three weeks, U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, have been lashing out at Lukashenko and his regime, accusing him and his government of a litany of political misdeeds including repressing opposition figures and hindering election observers as the election neared.

The election "process has been marked by fundamental flaws and consistent interference by Belorussian authorities," Reeker said, accusing them of showing "a clear disregard for both democracy and human rights."

Earlier Monday, Lukashenko called on his main challenger, Vladimir Goncharik, to "act like a man" and admit defeat after he contested the results, calling the vote a "monstrous fraud."

Opposition estimates indicated that Lukashenko won only 46.7 percent of the poll.

The OSCE in particular criticized early voting -- a procedure used by more than 14 percent of voters -- as an open invitation to fraud, as well as harassment of opposition media and Lukashenko's domination of the airwaves.

The Helsinki Group which monitors human rights in Belarus also alleged widespread fraud by an election committee stuffed with Lukashenko supporters.

MINSK, Sep 10, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) A bomb exploded near a U.S. embassy building in Minsk on Sunday as Belarus turned out to vote in controversial presidential elections overshadowed by accusations of vote rigging.

The homemade device exploded around 30 meters (100 feet) from a US information service building in the Belarussian capital and left a crater in the ground, but caused neither injuries nor serious material damage.

Police would not comment on the explosion, except to say that they had opened an investigation.

The United States has been at the forefront of criticisms of the rule of incumbent authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko and has said it will not recognize the results of the election which he is widely expected to win.

Turnout was reportedly high in Sunday's ballot, but opposition parties have warned of "massive fraud" while international vote monitors have criticized the high incidence of advance voting as an open invitation to fraud.

MINSK, Sep 10, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The Belarus branch of the Helsinki Group for human rights called Monday for the country's presidential elections to be invalidated "because of gross violations of Belarus law and international standards."

The group, which monitored Sunday's poll won by President Alexander Lukashenko with 75.6 percent of the popular vote in an 82.5 percent turnout, according to official figures, said it had received "credible reports that ballots had been removed and replaced."

The results "recall the Soviet era where turnout was 100 percent and the electors voted 100 percent for the single candidate," the group's president, Tatsyana Pratsko, told a press conference.

The composition of the central electoral commission was "in no way transparent" and allowed for "complete political control" of the electoral process, the group said in a statement.

The campaign revealed "a state apparatus and media acting fully in the service of the reelection of the president," it said, noting that early voting -- Belarus law allows people to cast their ballot during the five days leading up to the poll -- had been "impossible to monitor."

An observer from the pan-European security body, the OSCE, said earlier that the conduct of the poll was "not up to international standards."

The opposition candidate Vladimir Goncharik, who was credited with just 15.39 percent of the poll, dismissed Sunday's vote as fraudulent even before the final results were announced.

European election monitors have said the presidential election in Belarus - which returned President Alexander Lukashenko to office - "failed to meet international standards".

According to official results, Mr Lukashenko won 75% of the vote, while his closest challenger, Vladimir Goncharik, won 15.4%.

Mr Goncharik demanded a re-run, accusing the authorities of vote-rigging, and appealed to foreign governments not to recognise the result.

However, the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, congratulated his Belarusian counterpart on a "convincing victory".

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: According to Putin, 75% of Belarusians think they are Russians!? We very well know who are those who claim that Montenegrins are Serbs so there is no reason not to think that FSB government in Moscow is behind this as well. This is similar to Hitler's annexation of Austria.

MINSK (Reuters) - Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, dubbed Europe's last dictator by U.S. officials, won a landslide victory on Monday in an election scarred by smear campaigns and allegations of vote-rigging.

Lukashenko claimed victory just an hour after polls closed on Sunday. The election commission confirmed his victory on Monday, saying he won 75.6 percent of the vote with all ballots counted, trouncing his nearest rival, Vladimir Goncharik, a trade unionist who managed to scrape just 15.4 percent.

``Our people are victorious. They chose their president in the first round,'' Lukashenko, who will hold office for another five years, told a news conference on Sunday. ``This is a glittering victory... It is elegant and beautiful.''

Like last year's parliamentary elections, which the West says were rigged, the election for president was dogged by doubts about standards and procedure. The opposition has accused the authorities of vote-rigging and intimidation.

Goncharik, who fronted a broad coalition of parties devoted to toppling Lukashenko, said the figures were bogus.

``We will never recognize the results of the election if they are as falsified as these first figures,'' he told 1,000 mainly young supporters gathered in a square in Minsk.

Braving heavy rain and the threat of a KGB police crackdown, they chanted ``Long live Belarus!'' and waved the red and white nationalist flags banned by Lukashenko, who favors closer ties with Russia. Several burned the president's photo.

``We will do everything to let the international community know how it was done,'' Goncharik said to cheers from the crowd.

GONCHARIK WANTS BIG RALLY

Goncharik had urged Belarussians to join the unauthorized rally throughout the night to ``defend democracy,'' saying a 20,000-strong turnout would represent a massive moral victory.

But Western diplomats were skeptical he would muster major support. The KGB security police had threatened to crack down on any protest and state television broadcast pictures of troops rehearsing hardline riot control tactics.

There was minimal police presence at the demonstration, which began to disperse in the early hours of Monday.

The Lukashenko victory is likely to provoke dismay in Europe and the United States.

The United States is one of his fiercest critics, accusing him of using death squads against his opponents, several of whom have disappeared. The president denies the charge.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, monitoring the election, has voiced concern about polling. Officials have accused it of fronting a spy operation to topple the president.

Western polling experts said the early voting system, where ballots could be cast as early as Tuesday, was particularly open to abuse. Polling monitors from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, on the other hand, said they were satisfied with procedures.

Goncharik, accused of fomenting rebellion by authorities, said his team would pass information about ballot stuffing by Lukashenko's campaign to international election monitors.

OPPOSITION MEETINGS BROKEN UP

The opposition also accused authorities of denying them adequate access to media and voters. Opposition meetings were broken up and campaign posters torn down by police in Minsk.

Lukashenko enjoyed broad coverage from the state-dominated media. But he also has genuine support, particularly among the elderly and in impoverished rural communities for maintaining order, salaries and pensions.

His goal of creating a ``union state'' with neighboring Russia has appealed to widespread nostalgia for the Soviet era among voters wary of the economic reform which has consigned many of their former Soviet neighbors to poverty.

But not all Belarussians are fans.

``I lived here during the war. I saw the Germans coming down that street. But what is happening now is much worse,'' said Vladimir, 61, a Minsk resident who declined to give his full name. ''For me, Lukashenko is the worst fascist. This country is just being taken over by Russia.''

Lukashenko himself has no doubts about his popularity. Asked as he cast his ballot who might replace him in five years' time, he said, ``Who says this will be my last term in office?''

MINSK, Sep 10, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The main challenger to Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko in Sunday's presidential election, Vladimir Goncharik, said on Sunday he would not recognize the result of the ballot if there was widespread vote-tampering.

"If there is massive fraud we will not recognize the result. We will protest via all the channels. We will appeal to public opinion and to international organizations. You must not fool the people," Goncharik told reporters as he cast his vote in Minsk.

On the eve of the election in the former Soviet republic, Goncharik had warned against fraud and a dirty tricks campaign intended to spread fear.

On Sunday he also said that extra troops had been sent to the capital for the election.

He said the opposition would gather at 8:05 pm (1705 GMT) in central Minsk and detail all the violations that had taken place.

"There will be no provocation on our part," said Goncharik,

leader of the most important union in the country.

Some 7.3 million people are voting on Sunday in the first round of presidential elections that Western observers say have been rigged by Lukashenko's authoritarian regime.

Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994.

MINSK, Sep 7, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The head of the OSCE group of observers charged with monitoring this weekend's elections in Belarus admitted Thursday to "numerous concerns" about the fairness of the race which strongly favors the incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko.

The first of those concerns was the advance vote, which had been authorized by the electoral law without justification and which the OSCE fears was "open to manipulation", the group's chief Hrair Balian told AFP.

The advance poll, which allowed Belarussians to vote as early as Tuesday, also came under fire from opposition groups, who urged the voters to boycott the poll.

The urns containing votes cast in advance are sealed every evening and opened in the morning, but the simple system could not safeguard the votes' integrity, Balian said.

"The seal can be opened and then the box sealed anew during the night, the same for five consecutive nights" until the Sunday election, Balian warned.

In addition, the opposition is dangerously under-represented in the electoral commissions, with only 250 members out of 80,000 commissioners representing Belarus's various political parties, Balian charged.

Once the Sunday poll is finished, the results would be transferred to the central commission without being first monitored, "which offers a new chance for manipulations," he added.

Balian also noted that the state-owned media "predominantly cover the president and his activities", devoting some 60 percent of their time to glowing and "completely false" reports about Lukashenko.

Only 24 percent of the coverage is devoted to Lukashenko's chief rival, Vladimir Goncharik, Balian said, adding that "95 percent of Goncharik coverage is negative while 95 percent of Lukashenko coverage is positive."

The OSCE mission is a frequent target of verbal attacks from the authorities, with Lukashenko accusing both the group and the West of masterminding a plot to topple him from power.

The United States had already found it "impossible" to believe Minsk's claim that the vote, which some 300 OSCE observers would monitor, would be free and fair.

However, Minsk had angrily denied the charge, accusing Washington in turn of trying to meddle in Belarus's internal affairs.

WASHINGTON, Sep 6, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) For the third time in two weeks, the United States hit out Wednesday at the government of Belarus and its authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, saying it was "impossible" to believe Minsk's claim that weekend presidential elections would be free and fair.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher recalled allegations he made just eight days ago and similar ones expressed three days earlier by Secretary of State Colin Powell of possible government involvement in the disappearances of opposition figures and crackdowns on the press.

"Such incidents make it impossible, today, to credit the Belarussian government's claim that it will conduct a legitimate election that meets international standards," Boucher said in a statement.

He said the United State firmly supported the efforts of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor Sunday's polls, a mission that Lukashenko dismissed earlier Wednesday.

Lukashenko told reporters in Minsk that he did not care whether OSCE observers recognized the election as fair or not.

Boucher said Washington had no preference as to who won the poll, which is being contested by Lukashenko and Vladimir Goncharik, who has complained that he has been denied access to the media during the campaign.

"The United States has repeatedly stated that it will accept the winner of free and fair elections in Belarus," he said.

"Unfortunately, to date, the Belarussian authorities have intimidated and harassed opposition candidates and the independent media, calling into grave doubt whether the electoral process can meet the free and fair standard or reflect the true will of the Belarussian people," Boucher said.

On August 25, Powell made the same criticisms in an open letter to the people of Belarus on the 10th anniversary of their independence.

On August 28, those complaints were reinforced by Boucher at a State Department news briefing.

Belarussian officials have rejected the U.S. accusations as interference in the country's internal affairs.

BEIJING, Sep 7, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) China has convicted seriously ill dissident Li Wangyang of subversion for going on a hunger strike to demand medical treatment for abuse he endured while in prison, a rights group said Friday.

Li, 50, was convicted of "incitement to subvert state power" on Wednesday by the Intermediate People's Court in Shaoyang city, in the central province of Hunan, the New York-based Human Rights in China (HRIC) said in a statement.

His family and friends were denied access to the court proceedings.

Li, a labor activist during the 1989 student demonstrations, began a hunger strike in February, a few months after he was released from prison.

He served 11 years in prison for setting up an independent labor union, the Shaoyang Workers Autonomous Federation, in 1989 and while in prison suffered frequent and severe beatings which left him with serious illnesses.

Li was hospitalized early this year and went on a 22-day hunger strike to demand authorities pay for expensive treatment for a range of back, heart and lung problems he suffered while in prison.

He was arrested May 6 from a hospital in Hunan, where he was receiving treatment for the numerous health problems.

Li's sister Li Wanglin has been sentenced to three years in a "reeducation through labor" camp for helping him publicize his hunger strike.

HRIC said Thursday Li Wangyang, who has not been sentenced, could face a prison term of 10 years or more.

Independent labor activists have voiced the hope that the United States and other democratic countries as well as the International Olympic Committee would pay attention to Li Wangyang's case, HRIC said.

What Li did was "completely reasonable and legal," the rights body said.

Li is one of the earliest advocates of independent labor unions in China, which currently bans them, HRIC said.

BEIJING, Sep 6, 2001 -- (dpa) Soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) have never been the most popular people in Tibet. Tibetans tried fighting them, then they attempted to cut off their food. But these tactics and subsequent armed rebellions and protests have all failed to dislodge the guardians of China's Communist empire.

Fifty years after PLA troops first entered the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, even Chinese truck drivers call them "bandits", claiming the nickname is used because some soldiers patrolling Tibet's rough roads regularly help themselves to passing goods.

On September 9, 1951, some 3,000 Chinese troops marched into Lhasa, soon followed by about 20,000 of the 40,000 troops who had already occupied parts of eastern Tibet since crushing a Tibetan army of just 8,000 in October 1950.

The Chinese Communist Party hailed the troops as liberators who would lead ordinary Tibetans out of serfdom and overthrow the ruling "feudal theocracy". Yet it did not found a Tibetan communist party, instead imposing rule from Beijing, 2,500 kilometers away.

It claimed the invasion was justified under a Seventeen-Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet, signed under duress in Beijing in May 1951 by envoys of the then 16-year-old Dalai Lama. The adolescent spiritual head of Tibet heard the news in a Tibetan language broadcast by Radio Beijing, he said in his autobiography "Freedom in Exile".

"The government of Tibet must actively assist the People's Liberation Army to enter Tibet with a view to consolidating national defense," reads one of the 17 points. China accused the Dalai Lama's government of attempting to "repel the People's Liberation Army by famine" by issuing an order later in May 1951 banning the sale of all cereal foods to the Chinese troops. This only fuelled Beijing's determination "liberate" Tibet by force.

"Today people of all ethnic groups are fully enjoying political, economic, cultural and other rights, and have complete control of their destiny," Vice-President Hu Jintao said in a July speech marking 50 years of Chinese rule in Tibet.

The PLA and armed police units are "the strong pillars and loyal guards in defending the frontier of the motherland and maintaining stability in Tibet", said Hu, who is President Jiang Zemin's heir apparent and a former leader of China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

"It is only under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, only in the embrace of the big family of the motherland and only by firmly taking the socialist road with Chinese characteristics that Tibet can enjoy today's prosperity and progress," he said.

The number of non-Tibetans living in the region more than doubled from 1990 to 2000, reaching 205,200 out of a total population of 2.6 million, according to census results, though military personnel are not counted in Chinese census figures.

This year the government began an ambitious project to link Lhasa to the national rail network by 2005, a move which Tibetan exile groups and other critics say will only hasten China's economic and cultural assimilation of Tibet.

Exile support groups estimate that 1.2 million Tibetans have died at the hands of Chinese soldiers and police in the past 50 years, most of them in the 1950s and during the "ten lost years" of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) when troops sacked Tibet's Buddhist monasteries.

By January this year, Tibetan jails still held 266 political prisoners, three-quarters of them monks or nuns, the London-based Tibet Information Network says. At least 37 Tibetan political prisoners have died since 1987 "as a direct result of abuse in prison", the group says.

The repression has driven the public face of the Tibetan independence movement outside the Chinese region. The Dalai Lama, who won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for advocating non-violence in seeking freedom for the Tibetan people, lives in exile in Dharamsala, India. He now favors greater autonomy for Tibet, rather than independence from China.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet when a 1959 uprising against Chinese rule prompted a military crackdown. His aides disguised him as a soldier.

MOSCOW, Sep 6, 2001 -- (RFE/RL) Speaking at the opening of the Moscow Book Fair on 5 September, Prime Minister Kasyanov said Russians are deservedly called "the most reading country in the world," Russian agencies reported.

He noted that 80 percent of the books published in Russia today are published by private publishing houses and that 60 percent of the books published are textbooks and scholarly-scientific books.

He urged Russian publishers to print more books for children.

He also announced that the Russian government will finance over 10 years the publishing of a 30-volume "Great Russian Encyclopedia."

Editor's commentary: Finally it's coming! Britannica remained unchallenged for decades and even Microsoft Encarta failed to compete against it. New FSB encyclopedia will probably consist of 1/4 of first volume dedicated to events before 1917 while the rest will cover red terror years and rise of NKVD/KGB/FSB. Time has finally come to see FSB version of history of the world and basics of doublethink ideology. New FSB dictionary will accompany this landmark publishing event introducing Newspeak as new modern Russian language. Basic principles of Newspeak can be found in Orwell's "1984".

MOSCOW, Sep 6, 2001 -- (dpa) Two Russian cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station have ordered prunes, dried apricots and nuts from earth to combat space-bound constipation, space agency officials said in Moscow Thursday.

Each astronaut on the space station has his own individual diet plan, Boris Afonin of the Russian Institute for medical-biological Problems told Itar-Tass news agency.

He suggested that cosmonauts Vladimir Deshurov and Mikhail Tyurin eat some finely chopped nuts which are sent up with their regular food rations.

Last week, a Danish company said it had been commissioned by the U.S. space agency NASA to come up with non-flatulence milk products.

As the first company in Europe, Arla Foods has been approved as a partner for NASA's commercial center for food research, FTCSC (Foods Technology Commercial Space Center), the Danish company said.

The task is to develop a cheese, a milk-based drink and a yogurt with probiotica - living micro-organisms which reduce "intestinal discomfort" for astronauts working in space.

Editor's commentary: We suggest the strongest laxative that will work in space too - Lukashenko's speeches and his vivid rhetorics are sure remedy for constipation. Ever since he took the power in Belarus, constipation among population declined rapidly and it is believed to be extinct. His recent speech in which he recommends himself as the new leader of Russia-Belarus federation because he is more competent leader than Putin is something that will cure any constipation anywhere even in space. For those who are not so sure we recommend double extra strength laxative made out of Lukashenko's and Milosevic's speeches.

Saxony has become the first German state to pay compensation for students who were discriminated against by the former Communist authorities of the former East Germany.

Under Communist rule, people could be denied the chance of further education because they were not members of the Communist youth organisations, or because their parents belonged to religious groups or had applied for emigration visas.

Full story here.

MOSCOW, Sep 5, 2001 -- (RFE/RL) Only 14 percent of Russians think that Russia is a democratic state, with 54 percent saying that "overall" it is not, according to a poll reported in "Novoye vremya," No. 34. Sixty percent of the sample said that their votes will not change anything.

MINSK, Sep 4, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Belarus elections authorities on Monday warned main opposition candidate Vladimir Goncharik against violating electoral rules following a weekend rally that they said was illegal.

The head of the elections commission, Nikolai Lozovik, also said that t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "We will say 'no' to the idiot!" had been found at Goncharik's campaign headquarters and newspapers distributed with news about the opposition candidate.

According to Lozovik, the distribution of the t-shirts -- displaying a caricature of President Alexander Lukashenko -- and special newspaper editions are an attempt to buy voters, which is against the law.

Goncharik is Lukashenko's main challenger, although polls show him trailing in the campaign.

Under the electoral law in this former Soviet republic, candidates can be barred from the vote to be held Sunday after two warnings.

A spokesman for Goncharik, Mikhail Pastukhov, dismissed the accusations and said authorities were seeking to hamper the opposition campaign.

"The law allows meetings with voters and requests local authorities to facilitate and not to hinder them," he said.

"But mostly they offer us an arts center in the outskirts with a hall for 40 people. Or they cut off electricity or seize all our pamphlets. So under these conditions we are forced to break the rules," Pastukhov added.

Goncharik on Sunday delivered the same criticism on a Minsk square where the authorities set up an improvised market to sell cut-price goods in an apparent bid to undermine his campaign.

The regime of Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, has been internationally isolated by the West, which has accused the Belarus authorities of numerous human rights violations.

Africans students and refugees in Moscow say they are increasingly falling victim to violent attacks and police harassment - and all racialy motivated.

"I was kicked from the back," Joseph said. "When I fell down, they came and started kicking my head, body. About 15, if not 20 groups of young people were standing by and shouting: 'hey Negro, out of Russia, otherwise we'll kill you.'"

Victims complain that the police officers themselves are racist and random document checks, detainment and even beatings are commonplace.

"I don't feel safe because you don't know what will hit you [from] behind and that's why I don't go out late. I take a taxi anywhere I go, for safety," Jane said.

"Even on the metro I'm scared. I can't even go out anymore. Russia is no longer safe for us blacks."

Full story here.

MINSK, Sep 3, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) The main opposition candidate in next week's presidential elections in Belarus Sunday accused the authorities in the former Soviet republic of staging a campaign of harassment against him.

"One day the electricity is cut, another day a market is set up at the place where I am due to meet electors," said Vladimir Goncharik, who is backed by a coalition of opposition parties for the September 9 election.

"The authorities are staging a campaign of harassment against my candidature, by discrediting me."

He was speaking in a square in the Belarus capital, where city authorities had set up an improvised market earlier in the day selling cut-price goods.

Around 3,000 people turned up to see Goncharik, one of three candidates in the election which authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko is tipped to win.

Authorities have recently stepped-up raids on independent newspapers, non-governmental organizations and the electoral committees of the opposition candidates.

The Lukashenko regime, which has been in power since 1994, has been internationally isolated by the West, which has accused the Belarus authorities of numerous human rights violations.

The United States last week said it fears the election will not be free and fair because of rampant repression and harassment of the opposition, including various unsolved disappearances of dissidents.

MINSK, Sep 3, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) Belarus state-owned newspapers deleted parts of the main opposition candidate's election manifesto published 10 days before the country's presidential elections, one of his aides said Friday.

The daily newspapers Sovyetskaya Belarus and Zvyazda, which printed the program of Vladimir Goncharik, "cut off a page and a half from (the text) which contained criticism of the country's present situation," an aide to Goncharik, Alexander Dobrovolsky, told AFP.

Goncharik is the main challenger of authoritarian Belarus incumbent Alexander Lukashenko in the September 9 vote, although polls show him trailing in the campaign.

"This is typical of a power which is afraid of the truth. Quite obviously, this decision wasn't made by the newspapers' editors themselves," Dobrovolsky added.

The two newspapers, in a statement that ran alongside Goncharik's program, said "the deleted passages contained subjective criticism of other candidates, something the election commission forbids."

However, the head of the election commission's legal department, Galina Mkrtchan, said that "the election code forbids censoring candidates' election campaign declarations."

Another aide to Goncharik, Sergei Alfer, said national radio broadcasts were interrupted in several regions as Goncharik spoke.

And another daily, Predprinimatelskaya Gazeta, hit the streets Friday with blank spaces where an article challenging Lukashenko's right to run for re-election should have been published.

"A government official barred this article from being published while the paper was going to press," an insert in the paper said.

The printing house's manager, Yury Budko, said the decision had been made by Deputy Information Minister Vladimir Glushakov.

But Glushakov denied that this step constituted an act of censorship.

"That was not censorship at all, only a friendly piece of advice," he told AFP.

"The article contained passages against the authorities, with calls to destabilize the elections," he added.

The regime of Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, has been internationally isolated by the West, which has accused the Belarus authorities of numerous human rights violations.