AP - December 26th, 2002

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Serbia's outgoing president will be extradited to a U.N. court to face war crimes charges early next month, the prime minister of Yugoslavia's dominant republic said Thursday.

Unless Milan Milutinovic surrenders voluntarily, he will be handed over to the U.N. war crimes tribunal when his term expires Jan. 5, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said.

Djindjic urged Milutinovic to ``establish contact'' with the war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, and to turn himself in.

``The Hague (tribunal) cannot be avoided,'' Djindjic said at a news conference. ``The only question is whether it will be the hard way or voluntarily.''

Milutinovic has held the Serbian presidency since 1997. He was indicted for war crimes committed by Serb security forces in Kosovo in 1998-99, together with his close ally, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is on trial at the court.

Serbian authorities have refused to extradite Milutinovic during his term, citing his immunity from prosecution as the republic's president. Yugoslavia is made up of two republics, Serbia and Montenegro.

The U.N. court has demanded Milutinovic's prompt extradition. Last week, its chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, requested that Belgrade ensure Milutinovic's surrender immediately when his term expires.

Yugoslav Foreign Minister Goran Svilanovic said Thursday that ``all indicted must be extradited because we cannot be accepted as members of the international community if we don't respect international obligations.''

Djindjic said ``there are no legal or technical obstacles for Milutinovic's departure to The Hague'' once his term has expired.

Djindjic played a key role in last year's arrest and extradition of Milosevic. Several other key suspects remain at large, including Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader during the 1992-1995 war, and his wartime general, Ratko Mladic.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Military officials from Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, raped ethnic minority women and girls on a systematic basis and the State Department has confirmed it, according to a report in Thursday's Washington Post.

Following reports by human rights groups in Thailand in June of 625 rapes by Myanmar army troops in Shan State, the State Department sent an investigator to the Thailand-Myanmar border in August, the newspaper said.

According to the investigator, who talked to refugees in Thailand, ``We were able to locate many victims and record chilling new stories of rape and other atrocities in just three days.''

``All of the victims had been gang-raped by Burmese soldiers within the past five years, including a 13-year-old girl who had been raped two months earlier,'' The Post reported.

``The international community cannot stand by and allow these heinous crimes by the Tatmadaw (the Burmese military) to continue with impunity. We should continue to pressure the regime to end this violence and punish the perpetrators,'' the State Department report concluded, according to the newspaper.

The Myanmar government has denounced reports of mass rapes by the military as a fabrication.

HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam has jailed eight men from its Central Highlands on charges of sabotaging the government's national unity policy in the region in the aftermath of protests there over land rights and religious freedom.

The sentences, announced in Thursday's edition of the Communist Party daily Nhan Dan (People) and confirmed by a court official, followed the latest in a string of convictions of members of tribal minorities since the unrest in February 2001.

The newspaper said Y Thuon Nie, 30, was sentenced to 10 years in prison and seven other men were jailed for eight years each.

An official from Daklak's provincial People's Court told Reuters the sentences were handed down Wednesday after a one-day trial and that the eight men were from the Ede tribal group. He did not elaborate.

Vietnam has a total of 54 ethnic groups in its population of 80 million. About four million people from more than 40 of those groups live in the Central Highlands, which includes Vietnam's main coffee-growing area.

The government sent thousands of police and troops to quell the unrest in the region in February 2001, accusing protesters of wanting to set up an independent state.

The Nhan Dan newspaper said Y Thuon Nie and his fellow defendants told the court that after the unrest in Daklak, they met and sent information to ``reactionary'' people in the United States and encouraged people to flee to Cambodia.

More than 1,000 people from hill tribes, including protestant Christians, fled to Cambodia last year. Most have left for the United States where they have been granted asylum despite Vietnamese demands that they be sent home.

In October, the Daklak People's Court jailed three other men from the Ede group for fomenting unrest.

Earlier in October, a court in the neighboring province of Gia Lai sentenced a man of the Gia Rai ethnic group to nine years in jail for spreading anti-government propaganda among tribes.

PATNA, India (Reuters) - Outlawed leftist insurgents in India's eastern Bihar state shot dead five women and three children on suspicion they belonged to a rival faction of the group, police said Thursday.

They said the women and children, including a 15-month-old baby, belonging to two families were killed by a breakaway group of People's War who raided their homes Wednesday in Berichuk village, about 30 miles south of state capital Patna.

``They attacked the two families in retaliation for the killing of one of their members earlier this week,'' Neelamani (one name), Bihar's inspector general of police, told Reuters.

People's War is one of two Leftist groups operating in Bihar and some neighboring states, fighting to get farmland for peasants and to end what they call state repression.

They run a parallel government in several pockets and regularly attack law enforcement authorities and landlords.

Divisions within the two groups have led to the creation of several breakaway fronts which frequently target each other.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Two explosions rocked a residential area just outside of the Yugoslav capital early Saturday, destroying a warehouse belonging to a businessman with alleged ties to Serbia's underworld, police said.

Explosives were planted under two propane tanks in Belgrade's suburb of Zemun Polje. The blasts destroyed the tanks, construction machinery and several vehicles, a police statement said.

No one was injured in the blast.

Full story here.

PARIS (Reuters) - A Paris court on Friday found U.S. billionaire George Soros guilty of using inside information to make money on shares in bank Societe Generale, fining him $2.3 million.

Hungarian-born Soros, 72, was convicted of using insider information of a botched 1988 corporate raid on Societe Generale to make $2 million on the company's stock. The financier turned philanthropist had denied the allegations.

Soros said in a statement from New York he was "astounded and dismayed" by the court's ruling.

Full story here.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The first senior Russian officer to go on trial for crimes against civilians in the breakaway region of Chechnya has been declared insane, Interfax news agency reported Monday.

In a case seen as a test of Russia's willingness to clamp down on human rights abuses in Chechnya, Colonel Yuri Budanov faces charges of killing a young Chechen woman two years ago, in the early stages of Moscow's drive against separatists.

Interfax, reporting from the site of the trial in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, quoted a court source as saying the latest psychiatric assessment of Budanov had ruled he was insane. The agency said forensic psychiatrists recommended Budanov undergo medical treatment.

The trial, monitored by human rights groups, has been repeatedly interrupted for psychiatric tests on the defendant.

Moscow's Serbsky psychiatric institute, which declared many dissidents insane in Soviet times, said earlier this year Budanov could not be held responsible for the killing as he was ``temporarily insane'' at the time.

The results of the examination were to be announced later in the day at the trial's latest closed session, Itar-Tass news agency said.

DOUBTS OVER REFORM

A senior U.S. diplomat said the conduct of the trial raised doubts about how serious authorities were about proceeding with military reform.

``It does raise serious concerns as to whether (the military),...particularly the officer corps, are going to held to account when they commit excesses in Chechnya,'' the diplomat told Reuters.

He said post-Soviet military reform was proceeding slowly and ``borders on resistance to reform.''

Budanov is alleged to have murdered Elza Kungayeva, 18, during an interrogation after his men stormed into her village and took her back to a military base.

The victim's father, Visa Kungayev, who lives in a tent city housing thousands of Chechen refugees just outside Chechnya, expressed incredulity at the reports.

``I served in the Soviet army when I was a bit younger. It's a shame that insane colonels serve in the Russian army today and kill civilians,'' he told Reuters outside his snow-covered tent.

``But I don't believe he is insane. How can he be insane? He looks like a smart man. I will insist they carry out an additional, and this time independent, examination into whether he is actually insane.''

Budanov acknowledges killing Kungayeva, saying he believed she was a sniper. Budanov's lawyers have called for his release on grounds that he was not responsible for his actions, while Kungayeva's relatives accuse Budanov of raping and killing her in a drunken rampage.

The charges carry a jail term of up to 20 years but would likely be reduced for a defendant shown to have been insane.

Moscow has come under repeated international criticism of its human rights record in Chechnya, a predominantly Muslim province where Russian troops have been trying to stamp out a separatist rebellion for nearly a decade.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Iraq has scrapped a $3.7-billion oilfield deal with Russia's LUKOIL, the company said Thursday, dealing a blow to Moscow's hopes of keeping a strong economic foothold there after U.S. military action.

And the decision seemed sure to rebound on Baghdad's political ties with Russia, Iraq's closest ally on the United Nations Security Council.

A LUKOIL spokesman said an Iraqi deputy oil minister had told company president Vagit Alekperov by letter that the contract to develop Iraq's huge West Qurna oilfield had been canceled on Dec. 9.

In an angry reaction, spokesman Alexander Vasilenko said LUKOIL, Russia's largest oil firm, would challenge the cancellation of the deal -- regarded as the jewel in the crown of Russian contracts in Iraq -- in the courts.

``We do not understand how a petty bureaucrat from the Oil Ministry of Iraq can cancel a law which has been passed by Iraq's parliament,'' he said, reacting sharply to what appeared to be a significant political snub.

Russia, with a long-standing partnership with Iraq going back to Soviet times, has fought hard to protect its economic contracts and interests there as the prospects of U.S. military action aimed at toppling Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein have grown.

Apart from the West Qurna deal, its oil firms won the lion's share of the 2001 contracts to lift Iraqi crude under the U.N. ``oil-for-food'' program.

Moscow also wants to recover $8 billion-$12 billion in old Soviet debt from Baghdad.

The Iraqi decision to scrap the 1997 West Qurna agreement and the implications for Baghdad's relations with Moscow could now introduce a new element into the international maneuvering in the Iraqi crisis.

DIPLOMATIC TUG-OF-WAR

The future of Iraq's crude reserves, the world's second largest after Saudi Arabia's, are at the center of a diplomatic tug-of-war between countries hoping to grab a share of Baghdad's oil wealth once U.N. sanctions are lifted.

The deal gave a consortium led by LUKOIL the right to tap the massive Qurna oilfield and pump up to 600,000 barrels per day within three years of it being launched.

Energy Intelligence Briefing newsletter said reported comments by Alekperov that LUKOIL had received assurances from Moscow that it would not lose the field if Iraq's Saddam Hussein was ousted had been the last straw for Baghdad.

``We are carefully studying the letter but so far it seems to be a direct violation of a production-sharing agreement signed between Russian companies and Iraq in 1997,'' Vasilenko said.

Early in the crisis over Iraq's alleged development of weapons of mass destruction, Moscow appeared to be at pains to restrain President Bush's administration from hasty action.

Anxious that its economic interests could be imperiled by unilateral U.S. military action, Russia pressed hard for changes before backing the U.S.-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution giving Iraq a last chance to disarm or face a U.S. threat of war. Iraq denies having weapons of mass destruction.

Moscow also fears a U.S.-led war ousting Saddam could see Western oil firms surge into Iraq, resulting in a collapse of world crude prices. That would smash a huge hole in Russia's budget and severely jolt its oil-dependent economy.

BUSH ALLAYS RUSSIAN FEARS

Late last month Bush went out of his way publicly to allay Russian President Vladimir Putin's fears.

He told Russia's NTV television that if there was a change of regime in Baghdad ``we fully realize that Russia has economic interests in Iraq as do other countries. Of course these interests will be taken into account.''

Earlier this month Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin during talks in Beijing looked at ways of safeguarding their oil interests in Iraq in the event of a U.S. invasion, oil industry sources said.

Some political analysts said Iraq seemed now to have given up hope that Russia would be able to stop U.S. threats of military action.

``Iraq has now probably arrived at the point where it understood it was hopeless to wait for any political support from Moscow,'' said Vladislav Metnyov, senior oil analyst at Russia's trust and Investment Bank (TIB).

The Chancellor's office in Berlin has been deluged by old shirts sent by angry Germans who declare that his tax policies have, quite literally, taken the shirts off their backs.

The Social Democrats' ratings have slumped dramatically since the vote - with some pollsters noting the steepest drop in support for a ruling party since World War II.

In the two months since the party re-entered government, unemployment has risen again above the 4m mark, while reductions in social welfare payments have proved deeply unpopular.

A website, www.aktionletzteshemd.de records 33,500 people as saying they have sent a shirt. The site also offers the shirtless the opportunity to buy a T-shirt sporting: "I am wearing this T-shirt because Schroeder has my last shirt".

The Tax Song, which attacks the chancellor for jettisoning his electoral promises so soon after winning the elections, is meanwhile spending its third week at the top of the charts, seeing off competition from mass-selling artists such as Eminem and Robbie Williams.

Full story here.

Paris, 10 December 2002 (RFE/RL) -- The Paris-based media-advocacy group Reporters Without Borders today awarded Russian journalist Grigorii Pasko its top annual prize for his reporting.

Pasko's wife accepted the award, $7,600, as her husband is currently serving a four-year prison sentence after being found guilty by a military court of intending to hand over sensitive information to a foreign power.

Pasko has denied the charges and says he is being punished for his reporting on the Russian Navy's dumping of toxic materials into the Sea of Japan.

Pasko was among five journalists considered for the award.

Reporters Without Borders said Pasko is one of 110 journalists currently jailed for "just wanting to do their job."

BELGRADE , Dec 9 (Tanjug) - After the failure of the Serbian presidential elections, Serbian parliament speaker Natasa Micic will become acting Serbian president, replacing current president Milan Milutinovic.

The Serbian presidential elections failed after less than 50 percent of the electorate had taken part. This means that the second election round will not be held, in keeping with the amendments to the law on the election of the Serbian president, recently adopted by the Serbian parliament.

BELGRADE , Dec 9 (Tanjug) - Presidential candidate of the Serbian Radical Party Vojislav Seselj said on Sunday evening that the election results so far showed that Serbia had again failed to elect a president, but that Serbia's Radicals are satisfied with winning 200,000 votes more than in the September election.

He said that Vojislav Kostunica is a loser in this election and apparently past for Serbia. In Seselj's opinion "Kostunica will not survive this election politically".

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Serbs failed for a second time to elect a president Sunday, as too few voters showed up to cast ballots, according to exit polls, deepening instability in the troubled Balkan nation.

The Center for Free Elections and Democracy, an independent group of observers, said turnout was around 45 percent, about the same as when the vote failed in October because of the required 50 percent voter turnout.

``We can definitely say'' that the elections failed, said Zoran Lucic, a spokesman for the group.

It was unclear what would happen if officials declared Sunday's vote invalid -- The Serbian constitution has no provisions regarding the repeated failure of the vote. But a failure would likely fuel the political feud between Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and his top rival, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

Kostunica won the most votes in the October vote, and pre-election surveys had him comfortably leading Sunday's race, analysts said many voters had stayed home amid widespread apathy and freezing temperatures.

The failure of the ballot would be a serious political setback for Kostunica, who in 2000 led the popular movement that toppled Slobodan Milosevic, the autocratic Yugoslav ex-president now on trial for war crimes before the U.N. tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands.

Kostunica, a moderate nationalist with pro-democratic views who advocates cautious reforms, faced two extremists: Vojislav Seselj of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party -- an ally of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein; and Borislav Pelevic of the Serbian Unity Party, founded by late Serb warlord Zeljko Raznatovic, better known as Arkan.

Complete unofficial results were expected later Sunday.

Djindjic's ruling pro-Western government has not fielded its own candidate and has refrained from endorsing Kostunica -- mostly because of his nationalist and anti-reformist views.

Slow economic and social reforms, scandals and perpetual power struggles between Kostunica and Djindjic have disillusioned Serbs, who are more concerned with their dire living standards and rampant unemployment.

BEIJING (AP) -- Asserting that two Tibetans convicted of a series of bombings might have been framed, human rights activists are appealing for foreign pressure on China to rescind a death sentence imposed on one of them.

Activists said the Tibetans -- one a senior Buddhist monk -- were denied a fair trial and suggested they might have been targeted as revenge for their peaceful activism.

``It's unconscionable to impose a death sentence under such conditions,'' said a statement by Liu Qing, president of New York-based Human Rights in China.

In addition to Liu's group, Amnesty International, the International Campaign for Tibet and the government-in-exile of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, are calling for pressure on Beijing to revoke the sentence.

China angrily rejects foreign government appeals in court cases as interference in its affairs, and dismisses human rights groups claims as biased. But Beijing sometimes responds to pressure even while publicly denying that it is doing so.

Activists accuse Beijing of misusing the international antiterror campaign as an excuse to crush peaceful pro-independence sentiment in Tibet and the northwestern Muslim region of Xinjiang.

The monk, Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche, received a suspended death sentence Monday from a court in western China's Sichuan province. His aide, Lobsang Dhondup, was sentenced to death.

Death sentences in China are automatically appealed but rarely overturned. Suspended death sentences usually are commuted later to long prison terms.

``We appeal to the international community to put pressure on the Chinese government to rescind the death sentence,'' the Dalai Lama's government said in a statement issued from its base in Dharamsala, India.

Activists contrasted the sentences with Chinese steps earlier this year suggesting less hostility toward the Dalai Lama, who campaigns for more cultural and political autonomy for Tibetans.

At least six Tibetan political prisoners have been released, and the Dalai Lama was allowed to send delegates to visit Beijing and Tibet.

Rinpoche and Dhondup were convicted in two bombings last year in the Ganzi region of Sichuan and a third this year in the provincial capital, Chengdu. One person was killed in the Ganzi bombings.

Militants opposed to Chinese control of Tibet have carried out at least eight bomb attacks in the Himalayan region since the mid-1990s. Communist troops marched into the region in 1950, and Beijing says it has been part of China for centuries.

The Dalai Lama, who fled into exile in 1959 during a failed uprising against communist rule, has urged Tibetans to avoid violence, but some want more direct action.

Activists describe Rinpoche as a community leader in Sichuan, which abuts Tibet and has a large ethnic Tibetan population.

``The clear implication is that Rinpoche and Dhondup did not have access to a fair and open trial and that the proceedings were dominated by political considerations,'' said Human Rights in China.

``A number of sources ... raised the possibility that the respected Tend Delek Rinpoche had been framed,'' the group said, using a different form of Rinpoche's name.

The International Campaign for Tibet called on U.S. diplomats to take up the case with China during human rights talks to be held this month in Beijing.

A Chinese court took the highly unusual step this year of revoking a death sentence for the leader of an underground Christian church after lobbying by U.S. officials. The church leader was later sentenced to life in prison.

Chinese authorities said they found pro-independence literature at the Sichuan bombing sites.

Chinese authorities didn't release any details of the trial of Rinpoche and Dhondup. But Radio Free Asia, an independent broadcaster financed by the U.S. government, quoted a relative of one of the men as saying they were denied lawyers.

According to the report, the unidentified relative said Rinpoche was gagged by guards after he shouted, ``Long live His Holiness the Dalai Lama!'' in court.

Rinpoche, 52, studied in the 1980s with the Dalai Lama, according to the London-based Tibet Information Network.

Amnesty International said Chinese authorities had been suspicious of Rinpoche for years. It said they reportedly tried to arrest him in 1998 after he tried to set up a monastery without official permission, and that he led protests against deforestation of the area by a local timber company.

``There are serious concerns that he may have been targeted by the authorities for his peaceful religious and community activities rather than any violent offenses,'' Amnesty said.

In an unprecedented step, judges in the war crimes trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic have revealed the identity of a key witness. The man, who has so far been referred to as Witness C-61, was named as Milan Babic, a former senior Croatian Serb leader and former ally of Mr Milosevic.

Mr Babic has been giving evidence in secret for three weeks. When he was not testifying behind closed doors, his face and voice were disguised. Mr Babic's lawyer said his client decided to go public to contribute to reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia.

Clashing with Mr Milosevic in open court for the first time, Mr Babic said that the former Yugoslav leader played a key role in the Croat Serb uprising in 1991 after Croatia proclaimed its independence.

Mr Babic, a former mayor of Knin and self-proclaimed president of the Serb Republic of Krajina, said Mr Milosevic had used his political and military levers to maintain his grip over the Serb minority in Croatia.

Full story here.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia and China want to join forces to safeguard oil interests in Iraq if the U.S. invades and topples Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, a top Russian industry official said Wednesday.

The official said the neighboring states have agreed to cooperate to protect their interests against Washington once Iraq's huge oil reserves are opened to foreign investment under any new Iraqi administration.

``Obviously, no agreement has been signed on the issue, but there were a number of discussions, including, as far as I know, between the leaders of the two states,'' said the source, who accompanied President Vladimir Putin to Beijing this week.

He said, that if Saddam were ousted: ``It was agreed that closer economic and diplomatic coordination was needed to restrain unfettered U.S. power in Iraq.''

Russia is concerned that if Saddam is forced from power, oil development contracts signed by the Iraqi government with Russian firms may be torn up by a future U.S.-installed administration.

Members of the Iraqi opposition, keen to be part of any new government, have said they will review oil deals signed by Saddam.

One of biggest contracts at stake is a $3.7-billion deal signed in 1997 by Russia's largest oil firm LUKOIL for the right to tap the huge West Qurna oilfield. The field could pump up to 600,000 barrels per day within three years of being launched.

China's largest oil firm China National Petroleum Corp has a deal with Baghdad to develop the Al-Ahdab oilfield, a $700 million project with an anticipated output of 90,000 bpd.

``It is no simple coincidence thatAlekperov was the only Russian oil executive on this trip with Putin, although Russia has a number of other joint energy projects with China,'' the source said.

RUSSIA TO WAIT AND SEE

Analysts did not expect Russia to state its position on the oil deals until it becomes clear whether Saddam, a close ally of Moscow since Soviet times, will manage to cling to power.

``Russia is not the main player in Iraq at the moment and it has simply to wait,'' said Valery Nesterov from Troika Dialog brokerage.

Paul Collison from Brunswick UBS Warburg said Russia was defending the LUKOIL contract in Iraq to uphold its international image, but added that Iraq's estimated Soviet-era debt of $12 billion had greater importance for Moscow.

``I think the Soviet-era debt problem stands higher on the Russian agenda. But losing the Kurna contract, even if its production sharing terms seems not to be very good for LUKOIL, would be a major blow to the Russian ego,'' he said.

Russia pressed hard for changes before backing last month's U.S.-sponsored U.N. Security Council resolution giving Iraq a ``final opportunity'' to disarm or face a U.S. threat of war.

U.S President Bush said in November the United States fully realized that Russia and other countries had economic interests in Iraq that should be taken into account.

PODGORICA , Dec 4 (Tanjug) - US Ambassador to Yugoslavia William Montgomery is visiting Podgorica Wednesday to confer with Montenegrin officials and representatives of the opposition.

Commenting the announcement by the opposition that it would boycott the presidential election scheduled for December 22, Montgomery said after meeting Montenegrin parliament Speaker Filip Vujanovic that during his long diplomatic carreer, he has always been against any form of election boycott, which is a category he cannot understand.

Editor's commentary: Now it is clear that Montgomery is white racist supporting fascists in Serbia. What kind of an ignorant racist sicko wouldn't know about Martin Luther King and his Montgomery bus boycott? Is it therefore a coincidence that colored people in Serbia, mostly Roma are severely persecuted after Kostunica's coup and Montgomery's arrival in Serbia? Unidentified sources told recently to weekly "Nedeljni telegraf" that Montgomery put tremendous pressure on Djindjic to return members of Kostunica's Nazi party DSS to Serbian parliament so they can continue to obstruct and prevent reforms? For him, colored people in America are invisible people who are supposed to work as illegal immigrants on southern plantations for few dollars a week. Who was Martin Luther King and what was he boycotting, is question this sick racist is probably going to ask himself now. Did he notice that Colin Powell is black too. Major problem here is why George Bush appointed him as ambassador to FRY although Montgomery is a certified racist and fascist? Was he thinking at all?

Many of you outside of FRY probably do not know that in addition to standard requirements for tourist visa for US, all who want to travel from FRY must prove that they have at least $3,000 a month for the duration of their stay. All without that money are not issued visas. That is patented by Montgomery himself who introduced this during his service in Croatia. State Department officially denies this which means that Montgomery is imposing his own racist standards against Serbia and some other countries in Balkan region. What Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, US Congress, OSCE and UN think about this is presently unknown but it is obvious to all of you that this is one of the most blatant and racist acts against people of one sovereign country. Only rich mobsters and criminals are welcome from Serbia who robbed and murdered during civil war while victims and decent people are not welcome. And this is for tourist visas only not immigrant ones. And what does FRY foreign minister Svilanovic and president Kostunica think about this? Haven't heard any comments from them on this topic although they are both frequently criticizing US policy towards FRY. Both of them get their visas with no problem so why get bothered with people's problems. They only need them to vote for them once in 4 years. How about enacting similar measures against Americans who want to come to Serbia like $10,000 per person in cash as well as their thorough background check? According to Montgomery and his fellow racists Serbs are some kind of garbage while Americans are some higher race of supreme beings.

One more thing. You probably do remember when Richard Holbrooke and Madeline Albright called for Serbs to vote in 1997 presidential elections. Democratic Party boycott was then also ridiculed although the one who got elected ordered massive terror campaign against Albanian population in 1998, resulting in open genocide in 1999, NATO strikes against Serbia and finally into Milutinovic's indictment by the Hague tribunal. Where is Holbrooke's and Albright's responsibility for forcing Serbs to elect war criminal responsible for most brutal crimes against humanity in the 20th century? No wonder why their testimonies in the Hague will be closed for public. Is it strengthening democracy to elect fascists and criminals to spread terror and genocide? Today, all three of them try to force Serbs to accept collective guilt for crimes committed by Milosevic and his gang although they are the ones who help them to grab and keep the power for a decade.

BELGRADE , Dec 4 (Tanjug) - The Democratic Alliance of Bulgarians in Yugoslavia Main Committee, the Municipal Committee of the Democratic Alliance of Bulgarians in Bosilegrad, and the Caribrod Cultural and Information Centre of the Bulgarian minority in Bosilegrad, addressed on Wednesday a letter to the Federal and Serbian governments and the Ministry for Education and Sports protesting against the "violation of the Bulgarian minority's rights in the area of education".

"Two years after the fall of Milosevic's regime, the new "democratic" regime in Serbia continues to play a transparent political game aimed at deceiving the public opinion by claiming that the Bulgarian minority "does not want to study in their mother tongue," the statement said.

BELGRADE , Dec 3 (Tanjug) - Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) leader Slobodan Milosevic, on trial before the tribunal in The Hague, has called on the citizens of Serbia to vote for the candidate of the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) - Vojislav Seselj, as the joint candidate of the opposition, at the repeated Dec 8 Serbian presidential elections.

Milosevic's letter of support for Seselj was read out on Tuesday by SPS Deputy President Bogoljub Bjelica, who said that the SPS party organs had also decided to back Seselj as the opposition's joint candidate.

Editor's commentary: War criminal is backing soon to be indicted war criminal. He probably wants Seselj to join him soon in the Hague. All this looks very similar to previous elections in 1997 when "European" Milutinovic ran against "nationalist" Seselj. Who are you going to vote for? You want to be part of Europe so you have to vote for "European" candidate. We all know how it turned out. Milutniovic won convincingly and the next year massive military and police operation against Albanians began. Voting for "European" Milutinovic caused massacres and genocide against Albanians, NATO airstrikes, indictment of Milutinovic by the Hague tribunal and collapse of SPS. What to say about first Serbian president Milosevic elected in 1990, who immediately after his election launched brutal civil war that caused collapse of SFRY, destruction of Serbia and his final trip to the Hague. He also ran as "European" candidate who is going to help Serbia become closer to EU. Ultimately both presidents will end up in Hague while Serbia is much more away from EU than it was in 1990. Today we have third "European" candidate, Nazi Kostunica. His opponent is once again "nationalist" Seselj so it is "obvious" for which candidate (not) to vote. Question here is whether Serbs can allow three mistakes in a row, whether Serbia is finally going to collapse. First step in the right direction of saving Serbia is not to vote for another "European" candidate. All three candidates have already announced immediate dissolving of Serbian parliament in case of their victory and call for new elections that would result in Kostunica's Nazi party taking majority while true democratic forces would be squizzed with 10-20%. Someone has to be complete lunatic to go and vote for these three candidates from Hell. With their victory you can expect (finally) civil war in Serbia and concentration camps for all those who oppose them. Do you want to spend your next vacation in some resort or behind barbed wire?

Election update: DHSS, SPO, PDS, LSV and Hungarians are also boycotting elections. DOS is not officially boycotting but it will not call for voters to vote for any presidential candidate which is understandable because all three of them would dissolve Serbian parliament if they win. Current projection is that Kostunica's Nazi Party DSS would win majority while Seselj's SRS would come second. That would mean an end to reforms and better future for Serbia.

Copenhagen, 3 December 2002 (RFE/RL) -- Denmark has set free Chechen rebel envoy Akhmed Zakaev after rejecting a Moscow request to have the separatist activist extradited to Russia on terrorism charges.

The Danish Justice Ministry today said in a statement that it has not received sufficient evidence from Russia to extradite Zakaev, who has served as an aide to Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov.

Jakob Scharf, head of the Justice Ministry's international division, said that Zakaev is free but stopped short of indicating where Zakaev will go.

Zakaev was arrested on 30 October in Copenhagen at Moscow's request after a legal meeting of rebels and human rights activists. Russia claims he is linked to attacks on civilians in connection with the war in the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

TOKYO (AP) -- The former Belarusian ambassador to Japan has disappeared just days after he was removed from his post and ordered to return home, officials said Monday.

Pyotr Kravchenko has been highly critical of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who tolerates little dissent in the former Soviet republic.

On Nov. 19, the president ordered the ambassador removed from his post. It was unclear when exactly Kravchenko went missing. But on Saturday the Belarusian foreign ministry asked its Japanese counterpart for help finding him.

Kravchenko had not been located as of Monday morning, a Japanese foreign ministry spokeswoman said.

Japanese media reported the former ambassador had sought refuge at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo over the weekend, but embassy officials denied that.

``We have no information about the Belarus ambassador,'' said embassy spokesman Patrick Linehan. ``He never was at the embassy.''

Pavel Latushko, a spokesman for the Belarus foreign ministry, said Kravchenko disappeared with a checkbook, the key to the embassy and other materials.

``Pyotr Kravchenko didn't fulfill the foreign ministry's order and hasn't returned to his homeland,'' Latushko said.

Kravchenko served as foreign minister from 1990 to 1994 before Lukashenko became president. He was elected to the parliament in 1994 and named ambassador to Japan by Lukashenko in 1998.

Since becoming ambassador, he has been outspoken critic of the president and active in the opposition.

Human rights organizations suspect Belarusian authorities of involvement in the disappearance of several presidential opponents in recent years.

Last week the United States slapped a travel ban on Lukashenko and seven top ministers over human rights violations. Fourteen of 15 EU members have done the same.