AP - February 28, 2002

HAVANA (AP) -- A bus crashed into the gates of the Mexican Embassy and an unknown number of Cubans rushed inside, where more than a dozen stood on the roof shouting anti-Fidel Castro slogans and vowing to throw themselves to the ground if police came in to get them.

Many details about the Wednesday night incident were unknown because police ordered reporters entering the area to leave.

Castro arrived at the embassy shortly after midnight Thursday where he greeted -- and was cheered by -- a group of more than 100 Cuban bystanders. Traveling in a group of three military jeeps, Castro was accompanied by Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque and Vice President Carlos Lage, among others.

The scene evoked memories of 1980, when a dispute over Cubans occupying the Peruvian Embassy led Cuba to withdraw its guards, prompting about 10,000 people to flood the mission grounds. The earlier occupation of that embassy began when six people crashed a bus into the gate and sought asylum.

Castro then opened the port of Mariel, and 125,000 Cubans fled to the United States in a chaotic boat exodus.

Cuban officials speaking privately Wednesday night said all they could say was that at least one of the gate crashers had been injured and was taken away for medical treatment. In the blocks around the embassy at least two men were seen being detained and many others being stopped and searched.

In front of the building late Wednesday, the white and blue Mercedes Benz bus that crashed into the black gate could be could still be seen. Officials said it was later towed away.

``We can stay here four years, 10 years, but we are not going to leave!'' one man shouted from the roof. ``Down with Fidel!'' several others shouted in unison.

Mexican Ambassador Ricardo Pascoe Pierce was out of the country and the embassy's commercial attache, Andres Ordonez, was seen in front of the building talking on a cellular telephone.

The incident occurred sometime before 11 p.m., several hours after Ordonez spoke with international journalists who came to investigate reports that Cubans were trying to enter the embassy.

At that time, Ordonez denied that anyone had tried to enter the mission and said the increased police presence around the building was ``part of the protection routine for embassies by the Cuban government.''

Shortly before midnight, scores of uniformed police, some with dogs, and state security agents shut down all traffic for blocks around the building. Usually only two Cuban guards protect the entrance of each foreign embassy in Cuba.

Several truckloads of burly pro-government workers, some of them carrying wooden sticks or metal pipes, pulled up near the embassy early Thursday.

A Cuban official said a government statement on the incident was expected sometime later Thursday. A night guard answering the phone at Mexico's Department of Foreign Relations in Mexico City late Wednesday said no one available for a statement.

When speaking with reporters earlier in the evening, Ordonez did allow that the reason for the increased security could have been statements by Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castaneda that were misinterpreted by people on the island.

Castaneda, who was visiting Miami this week, was quoted by news media there as saying that ``the doors of the embassy of Mexico on the island are open to all Cuban citizens.''

But the idea that ``Mexico was going to ... accept people to be taken out of the country is a rumor,'' he said then. ``There is no variation in the way the embassy is working, the migration norms in the consular area remain unchanged.''

There have been past similar rushes on foreign embassies in Havana by Cubans seeking to leave the country, but not in the last few years.

A spate of similiar embassy occupations in the spring of 1994 preceded an exodus of about 32,000 Cubans who left the island for the United States on rickety boats and rafters.

MOSCOW, Feb 27, 2002 -- (RFE/RL) The chief editor of Ekho Moskvy, the last Russian independent national broadcaster, said today he will step down because of pressure from the majority shareholder, state-controlled gas giant Gazprom.

Russian Interfax news agency quotes the chief editor of Ekho Moskvy, Aleksei Venediktov, as saying that a shareholders meeting has been scheduled for 31 May to appoint a new editorial management.

Venediktov said he will resign on 27 May during a meting of Ekho Moskvy journalists.

Two weeks ago, he said that Gazprom was seeking to change the station's management in an attempt to intimidate the radio.

Venediktov has announced several times in the past plans to resign, but he never did.

Gazprom owns 50 percent plus one share of Ekho Moskvy.

Ekho Moskvy is the last national media outlet with an independent editorial line toward the government of President Vladimir Putin following the recent closure of private television channel TV-6 as a result of a lawsuit by the partly state-controlled LUKoil. Another independent broadcaster, the NTV television network formerly owned by tycoon Vladimir Gusinsky, was shut down last April.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Khadisht Vitaeva says she last saw her husband alive, lying face down on the ground after Russian soldiers dragged him from their home in Chechnya.

Daud Vitaev's body was later found in a mass grave, and his killing by Russian troops in the town of Alkhan-Kala is one of six documented in a new report released Wednesday by the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

The organization accused Russian troops of committing arbitrary detentions, torture and extrajudicial executions during a series of security sweeps in the region in late June and early July.

Human rights groups and Chechens have long focused complaints against the Russian practice of cordoning off whole towns as they try to corner rebels who hide among civilians.

In Moscow, meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin told his security council that Chechnya was largely stabilized and that rebel groups had been significantly weakened, Russian news agencies reported.

Yet the killing of at least five soldiers and policemen over the previous 24 hours underlined the determination of insurgents to continue efforts to bloody and demoralize Russian forces.

Large-scale offensives in Chechnya ended in the spring of 2000 and Russian officials have claimed repeatedly that the rebels are fractured and on the verge of defeat. However, rebels have since then launched near-daily small attacks and further hurt Russian forces with land mines and booby traps.

But Putin admitted that much needs to be done to end the fighting in Chechnya.

``There remain the tasks of neutralizing the leaders of the rebel groups, of closing the channels for weapons and financing, and also the crossing of foreign mercenaries into the territory of Chechnya,'' Putin said, according to the news agency Interfax.

On Wednesday, Chechnya's pro-Moscow prime minister, Stanislav Ilyasov condemned the practice, saying ``the civilian population suffers'' during the sweeps, the Interfax news agency reported.

Despite repeated government pledges to end the practice, the sweeps have continued. Promises to investigate abuses and punish the soldiers responsible largely have proved empty, Human Rights Watch said.

``There needs to be real accountability, so that soldiers realize that if they kill or torture or make someone disappear, they are likely to be punished,'' said Diederik Lohman, director of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch.

In Alkhan-Kala, just west of the Chechen capital, Grozny, mayhem broke out after paratroopers, apparently hunting for a rebel warlord, descended on the town on June 19.

During their weeklong stay, the troops burned houses, looted property and killed livestock, Human Rights Watch quoted witnesses as saying. Detained men were marched off with their shirts pulled over their heads and forced to lie on the ground. At least six men were executed and three men recounted being tortured, the group said.

In the case of Vitaev, Russian troops pulled him and Rustam Razhepov from Vitaev's house during a battle in the town. Vitaev's wife was quoted as saying soldiers ordered the men to lie face down in the courtyard and forced her and her children out of the enclosure at gunpoint.

Despite repeated inquires, the military refused to give the men's families information about their whereabouts; the disfigured bodies were recovered a few days later from in mass grave, the report says.

In the village of Sernovodsk, in western Chechnya, hundreds of men were rounded up, witnesses were quoted as saying. Many reported being subjected to torture, including electric shock, Human Rights Watch said.

The group called on the Russian government to establish an independent commission to investigate abuses and to regularly report to the public on the number of soldiers arrested and charged for security-related crimes.

Russian troops withdrew from Chechnya in 1996 after a humiliating, 20-month war. They returned in fall 1999. Russia has sought to link the war with the international campaign against terror and portray the rebels as Islamic terrorists with links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

The developments come with controversy in Russia about the United States sending military advisers to Georgia, which borders Chechnya. The United States says rebels with links to al-Qaida are in the Pankisi Gorge region of Georgia and that it is considering sending troops to Georgia.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 200 former Iraqi officers will meet in Washington next month under the auspices of the U.S. government to plan the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein, U.S. and Iraqi opposition officials said on Wednesday.

The conference, set to take place during the third week of March at a U.S. military installation, is aimed at sending Iraq a message that the United States is serious about its threats of forcible ``regime change'' in Baghdad, the officials said.

``This will be the largest conference of officers in opposition to Saddam's dictatorship ever held,'' Sharif Ali Bin AlHussein, spokesman for the U.S.-funded opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC), said in a statement.

``It will have several aims -- to mobilize Iraqi officers and unite them with the democratic Iraqi opposition, to develop a plan of action to confront Saddam's regime, and to reinforce the important principle of the control of the military by a democratically elected government in Iraq's future.''

Although the United States says it wants to get rid of Saddam, experts do not expect any attack for many months, at least until after Washington tries diplomatic efforts to get U.N. weapon inspectors back into the country.

The officers expected to attend include former Brig. Gen. Najib al-Salihi, a former chief of staff in the elite Republican Guard, a U.S. official said.

The conference will be the culmination of U.S. contacts with smaller gatherings of Iraqi officers in Washington and appears to indicate some convergence between the civilian and military approaches to the task of overthrowing Saddam.

The London-based INC has offered itself as an alternative civilian leadership for Iraq but some in the U.S. administration have questioned the INC's competence.

The State Department briefly suspended funding for the INC last December because its accounts were in such poor shape. The organization's main military force is Kurdish fighters in the north, who are reluctant to risk the security of their autonomous region by provoking the Baghdad government.

The United States fought to drive Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in 1991 but then let Saddam crush internal rebellions. The CIA tried but failed to overthrow Saddam in 1996.

PENTAGON FORUM

Sharif Ali's statement said that the INC would convene the conference and that the event had support both the Pentagon and the State Department.

``We are on board with them in planning this and we expect it to be at a Pentagon forum,'' a U.S. official confirmed.

An INC official, who asked not to be named, said: ``We're trying to do it at a military installation because that would give a better message to the Iraqi army. It would tell them that their fellows are working with them against Saddam.

``The majority are high-ranking army and intelligence officers, including people who worked closely with Saddam. This is a serious business.''

In his State of the Union speech in January, President Bush called Iraq, Iran and North Korea an ``axis of evil'' because of their alleged support for ``terrorism'' and attempts to develop weapons of mass destruction.

U.S. officials have since singled out Iraq as the particular object of their displeasure.

But Washington's allies in Europe and the Middle East are mostly opposed to military action, at least unless the United States can prove a link with the attacks of Sept. 11.

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney will visit the Middle East next month on a trip expected to explain U.S. intentions and sound out regional opinions on a campaign against Saddam.

Defense and political analysts say that reluctant allies and depleted stocks of precision weapons all work against military action against Baghdad any time soon.

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Serbian security forces primed death squads in Kosovo to wipe out ethnic Albanians during a targeted ethnic cleansing drive in 1999, a human rights activist said at Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes trial Wednesday.

Serbs drew up a hit list in February 1999 of people to be shot during a crackdown on the majority population of the disputed province, Kosovo Albanian human-rights campaigner Halit Barani told the war crimes court in The Hague.

Prosecutors showed the court a list of 66 names the witness said was found in a municipal building in the town of Mitrovica in northern Kosovo after NATO bombing of Yugoslavia halted the Serbian military campaign in the province in June 1999.

``This (document) indicates the names of 66 people who according to the Serbs were to be shot,'' Barani, a distinctive figure with a flowing gray beard and shoulder-length hair, told the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia.

Milosevic, accused of whipping up ethnic hatred in the former communist Yugoslavia during his 13 years in power, is conducting his own defense at Europe's biggest international war crimes trial since the end of World War Two.

The former Yugoslav leader, charged with crimes against humanity in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo as well as genocide in Bosnia during the 1990s, was handed a copy of the list by a court clerk. He scrutinized it and frowned.

Milosevic, who is cross-examining prosecution witnesses, is accused of spearheading a brutal Serb campaign to expel 800,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo in 1999 as part of a grand plan to create a ``Greater Serbia'' at the tail end of his rule.

He has denied any such plan.

``SUMMARILY LIQUIDATED''

Barani, the ninth witness to testify at Milosevic's trial, said he knew that at least two people on the list were killed in March 1999. He told the court he had documented many Serbian atrocities in the city of Mitrovica that year.

Headed with the words ``List of Siptars (derogatory Serb term for Kosovo Albanians) in Kosovo Mitrovica who need to be summarily liquidated,'' the document bore a Serbian state stamp, Barani told the court.

The document was found by a Kosovo Albanian politician in a Mitrovica municipal office in June 1999 and was passed on to him during his work collecting evidence on atrocities in the southern province of Serbia, he said.

Barani, testifying on the 11th day of Milosevic's trial, said he had documented dozens of killings by Serbian forces and witnessed with his own eyes how Serbs had picked out young Albanian men to execute them in April 1999.

Prosecutors are expected to have few difficulties proving well-documented atrocities were committed in Kosovo in 1999 but have to pin command responsibility on the silver-haired former Serbian nationalist hero to secure a conviction.

Prosecutors are first presenting evidence on his alleged role in ethnic cleansing in Kosovo before dealing with Croatia in 1991-92 and the 1992-95 Bosnian war. A plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf after he declined to enter a plea.

Barani, a member of a Kosovo human rights group called the Council for the Protection of Human Rights and Freedoms, said he saw nine young Albanian men, who were identified by name by Serbian forces, plucked from a refugee convoy on April 16, 1999.

SOUND OF GUNFIRE

``They were taken out of the convoy....When they were put in the yard of the house I mentioned, volleys of gunfire were heard.'' Barani was later told that eight of the nine men had been shot. The ninth escaped.

Barani said the majority of Mitrovica's mainly ethnic Albanian population was deported by Serbian forces in April 1999. ``All of them were told to go to Albania and were escorted there by the Serbian army and police.''

``Between the 14th and 17th April 1999 about 80,000 Albanians were expelled from Mitrovica and all of them were told to go to Albania.''

Milosevic, who was expected to cross-examine Barani on Thursday, has blamed the 11-week NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia and separatist Kosovo Liberation Armyguerrillas for the mass exodus from Kosovo.

He has branded the United Nations-mandated court ``illegal'' and shown his contempt for the tribunal by refusing to appoint a defense counsel.

He received a stern judicial reprimand earlier Wednesday for using his war crimes trial as a political platform to lampoon prosecutors and undermine witnesses.

Milosevic has tried to ridicule the prosecution at every turn by accusing it of denying material facts.

``Osama bin Laden could bring you as many witnesses also from Kosovo and Metohija (Serbian name for Kosovo) who could swear that they saw with their own eyes George Bush throwing grenades and bombs on the Pentagon and the White House,'' Milosevic said.

He has accused the U.S. and fugitive Islamic militant leader Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network of backing the KLA in 1999.

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah (AP) -- After recreating one game of a lifetime, the U.S. hockey team will try to play another -- one that Russian coach Slava Fetisov believes was helped along by referees with a North American bias.

The United States relied on its power and size to build a three-goal lead, then held on during a frantic, memorable third period for a 3-2 Olympic semifinals victory Friday over Russia -- 22 years to the day after their famous ``Miracle on Ice'' game in 1980.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: After this expected defeat, America's 70-year unbeaten streak (21-0-2) in Olympic games on home ice, we can expect pullout of Russian team from Olympics because their national team leadership can't handle defeats. They are just bunch of losers. In other game, Canada destroyed Lukashenko's team 7:1.

Russia's oldest symphony orchestra has apologised to the US airline United after its musicians were thrown off a flight following an alleged bout of drunken behaviour.

Some 100 members of the St Petersburg Philharmonic were removed from the plane in Washington on Monday during a routine stop in an Amsterdam to Los Angeles flight.

Full story here.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 21, 2002 -- (RFE/RL) United Nations Security Council members have discussed a media report alleging that the Belarus government offered military training to Iraqi officers in violation of UN sanctions.

A council diplomat told RFE/RL that the Council's oversight committee on Iraqi sanctions reviewed the report late yesterday.

The report, which appeared in October in the newspaper "Belaruskaya delovaya gazeta," said 10 Iraqi officers were invited to take a training course in Belarus last autumn.

The diplomat said the committee will discuss the issue again and could request an explanation from the Belarusian government.

Such a request would require unanimous consent from the 15 committee members and the diplomat said it is not certain whether all members favor further inquiry into the matter.

Earlier yesterday, Belarusian media quoted President Alyaksandr Lukashenko as denying other reports that his government was involved in arms smuggling in breach of UN sanctions.

Belgrade, 21 February: The Yugoslav federal government adopted the bases for talks of Yugoslav Premier Dragisa Pesic during his working visit to Libya 27 February-2 March, where he will discuss the state and prospects of bilateral relations and the most important issues of international relations of mutual interest.

As it was stated from the government session, special attention will be devoted to talks with top Libyan officials on the promotion of economic cooperation, on the adoption of appropriate regulations and the efficient resolution of the problem of operation of Yugoslav firms in Libya.

In the delegation will be also Yugoslav businessmen, who have important businesses in the country, which has been for many years an important economic partner of Yugoslavia, particularly through investment works.

It is expected that this visit will mark the continuation of construction works of Yugoslav firms on large projects in Libya.

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- Belgian authorities are investigating a Russian arms dealer suspected of running guns to al-Qaida and the Taliban and have arrested the dealer's associate, officials said.

Belgian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they expected an international arrest warrant would be issued soon for Victor Bout, who has also been named in U.N. reports as a prominent supplier of weapons to rebel groups in Africa.

Peter Hain, Britain's minister for European affairs, has played a leading role in international efforts to clamp down on gunrunning to African rebels. He called Bout a ``merchant of death.''

``Bout undoubtedly did supply al-Qaida and the Taliban with arms,'' Hain told The Associated Press.

On Feb. 7, Belgian police arrested an associate of Bout's, Kenyan businessman Sanjivan Ruprah, on charges of criminal association and holding a false passport.

The public prosecutor's office declined to comment on the case, but officials said Ruprah was being investigated for money laundering allegations, not illegal arms trading.

Ruprah is reportedly providing U.S. authorities with information on weapons transfers to Afghanistan. Belgian officials have declined to comment on those reports and calls to Ruprah's Brussels home went unanswered Tuesday.

In an interview Sunday, Hain said ``both Bout and Ruprah were among the leading merchants of death.'' He said Ruprah was involved in supplying diamonds to pay for arms sent to Sierra Leone and Liberia.

Belgian officials said Bout's cargo planes once operated out of Ostend airport in western Belgium, but there was no evidence that illicit arms passed through the country.

Bout pulled out of Ostend in 1997, and a report presented to the U.N. Security Council in January 2001 said his planes operate mainly out of the United Arab Emirates. The report detailed arms shipments from eastern Europe to Liberia and also said Bout had supplied arms to rebels in Angola and Congo in defiance of U.N. embargoes.

Belgian officials said they believe Bout now lives in Russia.

Lee S. Wolosky, an expert on terrorist financing and international crime at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Ruprah's arrest in Brussels was a blow to ``one of the largest arms trafficking organizations.''

Bout and Ruprah were both placed on a U.N. list of individuals banned from international travel because of suspected support for Sierra Leone rebels, who were blamed for atrocities in the West African nation's decade-long civil war before a 2000 cease-fire.

Two other men, whose nationalities were not revealed, have also been arrested in the case, Belgian officials said.

Belgium has stepped up efforts to clamp down on illegal trading since a U.N. report two years ago blamed lax controls at the city of Antwerp -- the world's largest diamond trading center -- for fueling trade in so-called ``blood diamonds'' used to finance African wars.

Editor's commentary: Now we know who supplied al-Qaida and Taliban with arms but what makes us wonder now is how come that Russian authorities allowed Victor Bout to continue with his bloody business after Ivanov's international pledge that Russia will fight against bin Laden and support removal of Taliban in Afghanistan. Very fishy.

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- At least 48 policemen were feared killed when suspected Maoist rebels attacked a district headquarters and a nearby civilian airport in northwestern Nepal, police said Sunday.

In the worst assault since they abandoned peace talks last year, the suspected rebels attacked police at the district headquarters in Achham, about 375 miles northwest of the capital city of Katmandu Saturday night, a police officer said on condition of anonymity.

The officer said at least 26 policemen were feared killed in the assault.

The rebels then targeted a small airport at Sanphebaga and were reported to have killed 22 policemen, said a local police official who refused to give his name. There were no passengers at the airport at the time of the attack.

There was no immediate official confirmation of the death toll.

A gun battle between government forces and the suspected rebels lasted until early Sunday. Police reinforcements rushed to Magalsen on Sunday, but were delayed by bad weather and the mountainous terrain.

Those killed included the top district administrator of Achham, the police officer said.

Led by commander Prachanda -- whose real name is Pushpa Kamal Dahal -- the guerrillas have been fighting in remote mountainous areas since 1996 to abolish Nepal's constitutional monarchy and create a communist republic.

More than 2,400 people have died in the fighting.

The rebels have called a general strike across Nepal on Feb. 22-23 to commemorate the sixth anniversary of their insurgency campaign.

Last week, suspected rebels detonated two bombs in government tax offices in Katmandu, wounding at least 10 people.

The government declared an emergency on Nov. 26 and ordered the army to join the fight against the rebels after they ended a four-month cease-fire and resumed attacks on government targets.

The army says it since has killed nearly 500 guerrillas and arrested another 1,400.

Officials say nearly 200 government soldiers and policemen also have been killed.

Last week, the State Department warned Americans about rebel attacks in Nepal, including areas visited by Western tourists.

The guerrillas had recently attacked Lukla, the main entry point for the Mount Everest trek, and other popular tourist destinations in the Solu Khumbu Valley, the advisory said.

MINSK, Belarus (AP) -- A U.S. congressman told Belarus officials on Saturday the United States is alarmed by reports the former Soviet republic sells weapons to countries that support terrorism.

Rep. Jim Saxton, a New Jersey Republican, led a congressional delegation to Minsk to meet with senior Belarusian officials, including Foreign Minister Mikhail Khvostov and Defense Minister Leonid Maltsev.

The legislator said he considered ``trustworthy'' reports that Belarus was selling weapons to terrorist organizations and so-called rogue states, the Russian news agency ITAR-Tass reported. Saxton said Belarus is allegedly providing military training to states that the United States has accused of sponsoring terrorism.

Belarus has denied the allegations, emphasizing that it abides by all United Nations' regulations regarding arms sales.

Saxton urged Belarus to make its arms sales transparent, saying such a move would help improve relations between Minsk and Washington, ITAR-Tass said.

Belarus' president, Alexander Lukashenko, is avowedly anti-Western and has pursued closer ties with Iraq, Iran and Libya.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) -- Vietnam has rejected charges from a U.S. government commission that it suppresses religion, calling the accusation a gross interference in the country's internal affairs.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said Saturday that the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom slandered Vietnam by distorting the status of religion in the Communist nation.

``It is necessary to reaffirm that Vietnam has so far never tried, imprisoned or put any religious figure under house arrest for religious reasons,'' Thanh said.

``Only those who violate the law are brought to trial in conformity with the law,'' she said in a statement carried by the official Vietnam News Agency.

Michael Young, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, testified in the U.S. Congress on Wednesday that, despite increased religious practice in Vietnam in recent years, the government ``continues to suppress organized religious activities forcefully.''

Vietnam's government only allows religious activities by seven officially sanctioned organizations with leaders approved by the Communist Party. Young said the government monitors, detains and penalizes people who have engaged in ``illegal'' religious activities.

A dissident Roman Catholic priest, Father Thaddeus Nguyen Van Ly, was sentenced to 15 years in prison in October for ``undermining national unity'' and violating house arrest after he submitted written testimony to the U.S. commission criticizing restrictions on religion in Vietnam.

MOSCOW, Feb 15, 2002 -- (dpa) Russia's parliament demanded Friday that former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic be released from United Nations custody in The Hague, Holland, where he faces charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

A total of 316 deputies in the 450-seat Duma backed the resolution with only 6 votes against, the Interfax news agency reported.

The proceedings against Milosevic had become a "political trial of an entire country," criticized the Communist speaker Gennady Seleznyov.

"Both the NATO leadership and the people who ordered the bombing of Yugoslavia must be brought before court," he was quoted as saying.

The Duma also accused the United Nations war crimes tribunal of ignoring crimes by NATO and Albanian extremists in Kosovo in its examination of the conflicts in former Yugoslavia in the past decade.

The house said in the resolution that crimes committed in the Balkan wars should be dealt with in courts in former Yugoslavia.

President Vladimir Putin should now use his influence in the UN Security Council to ensure the tribunal's work has a clear time limit, it added.

Milosevic has been under detention by the tribunal since the end of June after being handed over by Belgrade. He refuses either to recognize the legitimacy of the tribunal or the charges against him.

Editor's commentary: There is no doubt who sponsored and ordered Milosevic to commit all those crimes in former Yugoslavia. Russian imperialists and communists with FSB had decisive role in orchestration of heinous and terrible crimes executed by Milosevic and his Stalinist gang. It is strange that there will be no witnesses from Russia in the Hague to testify about crucial Russian involvement during late '80s and '90s in Serbia and Balkan. Truth may not be told at all.

CHISINAU, Feb 15, 2002 -- (dpa) Moldova's biggest anti-Russian protests yet took place in the capital Chisinau Thursday, Infotag news agency reported.

Independent observers estimated the crowd of students and teachers at more than 15,000.

Demonstrators carried banners reading "Don't invent the history of our people!", "Communism to the trash heap!", "We don't want to be Soviet Youth!", "Down with Communism, up with Democracy!", and "We want to be in Europe!".

Chisinau authorities attempted to prevent the march by shutting down public transportation moving to and from the city center, but protesters simply continued to Chisinau's main square on foot.

After gathering in front of the national administration building and listening to speakers, demonstrators marched down Chisinau's main street to the parliament building.

Although not registered ahead of time with authorities as specified by law, the march was peaceful. Police made no move to interfere with the demonstrators, who dispersed without incident.

Marchers were protesting an Education Ministry plan to make Russian a mandantory school subject, and to replace Romanian history classes with Moldovan history classes.

They also object to a Ministry of Justice plan to give Russian the same status as Romanian as legal language in Moldova. Demonstrations against the measures have taken place in Chisinau almost every working day since the New Year.

Most of Chisinau's schools and higher educational institutions closed their doors so students and teachers could take part in the Thursday demonstrations, the report said.

Molodova's President Vladimir Voronin has accused the opposition Moldovan Christian Democratic Party (MCDP) of organizing the marches to improve its popularity in regional elections scheduled next month.

A Voronin order earlier this month making all MCDP gatherings illegal failed to stop the demonstrations.

MINSK, Feb 15, 2002 -- (dpa) Police in Belarus Thursday arrested more than 100 teenagers and students attempting to stage a demonstration marking St. Valentine's Day in the capital Minsk.

The arrests were made after some 500 members of a national youth organization gathered in the city's central square in defiance of police warnings, chanting slogans in favor of free speech and a reduction of state repression.

As a token of their opposition to the government of authoritarian Belarussian President Aleksander Lukashenko, some marchers carried old-style Belarussian flags banned by Lukashenko after he took power in 1996.

A police charge managed to capture around 100 of the students before the remainder made their escape. The detainees were being held in a Minsk city jail pending public disturbance charges.

BEIJING, Feb 15, 2002 -- (dpa) China has deported 53 Western Falun Gong members who were detained for staging brief protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on Thursday, state media said.

Chinese officials informed the U.S. embassy that 33 U.S. Falun Gong members were expelled on Friday, an embassy spokesman said.

At least five Germans boarded a flight to Frankfurt and five Canadians were also expected to leave China on Friday, embassy officials said.

Up to three more Germans and one British man were reportedly detained on Thursday, but embassy staff said they had been unable to confirm if they were still in China.

China's official Xinhua news agency said 53 of 59 detained foreigners from 12 countries were expelled because they "agitated for the evil cult (Falun Gong) and stirred trouble" in the square.

But the Xinhua total is believed to include 45 Falun Gong members detained in Tiananmen Square and 14 others detained by police in Beijing hotel rooms on Wednesday.

Diplomats said four British, two French and two Finnish citizens were expelled on Thursday after being detained at their hotels.

The agency said Beijing police were still holding six foreigners who "refused to reveal their nationalities or present any from of identification.

The protest on Thursday is the largest staged in China by foreign Falun Gong members and follows a similar one last November, when 35 foreign Falun Gong members were arrested and deported.

A Falun Gong statement said the group wanted to protest against China "trampling on human rights" by mounting a "persecution campaign" and torturing detained practitioners.

The group claims more than 350 followers have died as a result of Chinese police brutality and thousands have been sent to labor camps without trial.

Falun Gong promotes a mixture of traditional qi gong breathing exercises and Taoist, Buddhist and other beliefs.

ROME, Feb 14, 2002 -- (dpa) British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi plan to forge closer ties between their countries by signing an agreement on economic policy during a meeting in Rome Friday, diplomatic sources said Thursday.

A joint declaration will signal the strengthening of what has been described in Rome as an Anglo-Italian axis within the European Union and a waning in Italy's traditionally close ties with France and Germany.

The document, which is expected to be presented at next month's summit of EU leaders in Barcelona, aims to promote a new trade agreement between Britain and Italy.

It also calls for greater flexibility in the labor market and a liberalization of the domestic energy market, which France opposes.

Britain wants to pursue economic reform within the EU by forging closer ties with the conservative governments of Spain and Italy in what the media are describing as the European BAB - Blair-Aznar- Berlusconi - axis.

The Rome summit may also signal the strengthening of a common stance between Italy and Britain on the political front, at a time when the EU is beginning to debate its future.

"Economic reform is our priority. But with Rome we are also finding a convergence of interests on the idea that Europe should remain based on the concept of nation-states rather than became a federal super-state guided by Brussels," Peter Hain, Britain's Europe Minister, told La Repubblica newspaper Thursday.

Since rising to power in Italy last May, Berlusconi has displayed an ambivalent stance towards Europe. He has talked of a "a federation of nation-states" with France and has reassured German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer about Italy's unchanged commitment to the Union.

At the same time, he has pulled out of a project for the development of a common European military plane, obstructed plans for a common European arrest warrant, and sacked his most pro-European cabinet minister, Renato Ruggiero.

TOKYO (AP) -- A former member of the Japanese Red Army terrorist group was sentenced to 12 years in prison Thursday for hijacking a plane to North Korea in 1970, court officials said.

The Tokyo District Court announced the sentencing of Yoshimi Tanaka, 53, who was arrested in 1996 in Cambodia with more than $120,000 in counterfeit U.S. currency. He was trying to flee Cambodia to Vietnam in a North Korean Embassy car accompanied by North Korean diplomats. He was later extradited to Japan from neighboring Thailand.

Tanaka belonged to the Red Army at the time and was one of nine members accused in the hijacking, the first in Japan, which prompted the government to enact an anti-hijacking law setting a maximum penalty of life imprisonment for the crime.

He is the only one of the nine suspects to be convicted.

The Red Army, formed in the late 1960s, advocated ``simultaneous world revolution.'' Its members have been accused of bombings and attacks on embassies and airports in Japan and abroad. In 1972, 24 people were killed at Israel's Lod airport in an attack blamed on the group.

During his trial, Tanaka pleaded guilty to the charges and apologized to the passengers.

Judge Masazo Ogura said Tanaka's actions, aimed at destroying social order, were extremely malicious.

``It shocked society and gave the passengers and their families immeasurable physical and psychological pain and fear,'' he said in his ruling.

Tanaka was also accused of kidnapping, forcibly carrying passengers across international borders, robbery and helping to start a riot in a separate attack on a Tokyo police station in 1969.

Three of Tanaka's alleged accomplices died in North Korea. Five remain there, though one may also have died, according to Japan's National Police Agency.

During the hijacking, Red Army members wielded samurai swords and carried a bomb, witnesses said. The flight, bound for the southwestern city of Fukuoka, was first forced to fly to South Korea, where all the passengers were freed. The crew members were released after they flew to North Korea with the hijackers.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - President Bush has decided to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, and has ordered the CIA, the Pentagon and other U.S. agencies to devise plans to remove him, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Wednesday.

``This is not an argument about whether to get rid of Saddam Hussein. That debate is over. This is how you do it,'' the Inquirer quoted a senior Bush administration official as saying.

The newspaper said the White House was determined to act even if U.S. allies do not help, and is now waiting for government agencies to come up with a combination of military, diplomatic and covert plans aimed at achieving Saddam's ouster.

Full story here.

ROME, Feb 13, 2002 -- (dpa) A well-known Roman lawyer, the head of a prison near the Italian capital and the president of a local businessmen's guild in Sicily were among those arrested Wednesday by Italy's anti-Mafia police.

The arrests took place during predawn raids in Rome and Sicily. Magistrates employed around 200 police officers to deliver a total of 32 arrest warrants, search homes and seize Mafia assets. The charges include criminal association and corruption.

Investigators believe the suspects were part of a Mafia network which worked to get its hands on public work contracts awarded in Rome.

Among those arrested were two Sicilian brothers believed to be close to Mafia boss Giuseppe Madonia, a close associate of Mafia godfather Bernardo Provenzano.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - AIDS is soon to ravage Russia with consequences that may be even more catastrophic than in Africa, yet the public is barely even aware the epidemic has arrived, Russia's top AIDS official said.

After decades of little contact with the disease, Russia and Ukraine have suddenly been caught unprepared in the throes of the world's fastest growing epidemic of the HIV virus.

Of Russia's 180,000 officially registered infections, 100,000 occurred just last year. Experts guess the actual number of Russian cases is as high as one million, more than one percent of adults.

``Every year, we see the number of new cases doubling. If this continues even two or three more years, we will see not one percent, but two, four, eight,'' Vadim Pokrovsky, head of the Russia's official AIDS center, said in an interview.

Because infected people do not immediately fall ill and require treatment the disease is still all but invisible, spreading before the public has a chance to see its effects.

There are as yet no teeming clinics packed with the desperate and the dying, no armies of children orphaned by the disease or destitute patients begging on the streets. The untreated will not begin to die in their thousands for a decade.

But all that is coming soon, and virtually nothing is being done to prepare society for the consequences, said Pokrovsky.

``People do not see this danger. Maybe it is because, for so many years we warned them 'AIDS is coming. AIDS is coming'. And it never came,'' he said. ``We expected it sooner. It came later. And now people still think we're just making noise.

SCARIER THAN AFRICA

Russia's AIDS epidemic is already far worse than in Western Europe and North America, where the disease struck high risk populations of drug users and homosexuals but stopped before becoming widespread among the rest of the public.

Just how much worse it will get is not yet clear. It began in Russia among drug users and has not yet spread widely to the public at large through heterosexual sex, as it did in Africa.

But Pokrovsky points to sky-high rates of other sexually transmitted diseases, which are signs of widespread risky sex and increase the chance of transmitting AIDS. Russia has syphilis rates hundreds of times higher than in the West.

``In this, Russia looks more like Africa,'' he said.

And even if Russia's epidemic stops before it reaches the double digit infection rates in some parts of Africa, the demographic and economic impact would prove even more severe.

``In Africa, there are high birth rates, but in Russia the birth rate is low. If we have a rate of only three percent infected, population would fall by six percent,'' Pokrovsky said.

``In Russia, AIDS is scarier than in Africa. There the population is replaced. In Russia it will not be.''

CRYING WOLF

Since HIV patients usually do not require medical treatment until years after being infected, the financial burden of the disease has yet to be felt.

So far, the state is treating only 5,000 patients. But to keep up just with officially registered cases, it will have to treat 100,000 in 2005 and costs will explode.

As in Africa, Russia will probably have to deny treatment to most patients and sentence them to certain death.

Pokrovsky estimates a public relations campaign to curb the spread of AIDS would cost $75 million. But the soft-spoken, ginger-bearded young doctor has had no luck in winning funds.

Not one prominent public figure has acknowledged being HIV infected, though Pokrovsky has treated a handful.

His clinic, behind a muddy construction site in a dreary outlying Moscow district, hardly looks like ground zero in the 21st century's most pressing public health catastrophe.

``I'm crying: 'Wolf! Wolf!'. And people say, 'That's just old Doctor Pokrovsky.''

BELGRADE, Feb 8, 2002 -- (dpa) Yugoslavia would stop financial aid to the defense ministry of the Bosnian Serb entity of the Srpska Republic (RS) on March 1, the federal government said Thursday.

The step relates to salaries paid by Yugoslavia to a part of the RS military officers' corps, it said in a statement.

Apart from cooperating with the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague and other conditions, Yugoslavia has to fully support the Dayton peace agreement for Bosnia to qualify for United States aid.

The Dayton agreement, which ended the bloody war in Bosnia in 1995, has established two entities in the country - the RS and the Moslem-Croat Federation BH.

The U.S. administration is due to issue a decision on Yugoslavia's compliance on March 31.

Last year, former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic was arrested early morning on April 1 - after a two-night police siege of his house - in an apparent bid to beat the deadline and receive aid from Washington.

JAGODINA - Serbian Vice Premier Zarko Korac has described Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica's visit to the United States as a "terrible blow to our state," since Washington's message is that it does not want any kind of dialogue with Belgrade.

Speaking for the Jagodina television Palma Plus late on Thursday, Korac said that Kostunica had not been received by any important political person, which was "a terrible blow to our state."

MINSK, Feb 8, 2002 -- (dpa) Food shortages in Belarussian jails put thousands of criminals on the street, a Ministry of Internal Affairs official said Friday.

Dmitrii Partov told Deutsche Presse-Agentur Belarus' national correction system had released over 4,500 hardened criminals as part of a mandatory amnesty program initiated with the beginning of 2002.

The criminals, in most cases thieves or burglars but in some instances also rapists and murderers, received amnesty because the prison system did not have enough food to feed them, Partov said.

Persons released were likely to commit repeat crimes because of lack of skills and the generally poor condition of the Belarussian economy, but there is little the government can do about it, he conceded.

The former Soviet republic Belarus is generally considered Europe's last police state.

President Aleksander Lukashenko runs the country almost single-handed, but Belarus' centrally-planned economy has been devastated by corruption and isolation from outside markets.

MINSK, Feb 8, 2002 -- (dpa) Flu reached epidemic levels in Belarus, a Ministry of Health statement made public on Friday said.

The report estimated one of every five Belarussians currently is suffering from a flu. Some 8 million people live in the former Soviet republic.

The epidemic appeared to be worst in the cities of Minsk, Gomel, and Slutsk.

Officials had closed half of the nation's schools and a third of its factories, the statement said.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge has ruled that Iran should pay $183.2 million to the family of an American killed in a 1996 terrorist bombing of a bus in Israel.

The widow and three children of New York native Ira Weinstein sued Iran under a federal law that allows victims to seek damages from nations that sponsor terrorism.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth found the bomb used in the Feb. 25, 1996 attack in Jerusalem, which killed two dozen people and injured 80, was detonated at the direction of an operative for the Islamic militant group Hamas who was trained by Iranian security personnel.

Weinstein died 49 days after the bombing, after treatment that included numerous surgical procedures and inadequate pain medication because of his medical condition.

In the opinion issued Wednesday against Iran, Lamberth awarded wrongful death damages of $248,164, plus $10 million for pain and suffering and individual damages of $8 million for Weinstein's wife, Susan, and $5 million for each child. Another $150 million in punitive damages were awarded against the Iranian intelligence agency.

The Iranian government did not send representatives to court to contest the lawsuit.

And the Weinsteins' ability to collect the money is in question. More than $150 million in frozen assets of Iran have been claimed by American terror victims or their families, but they must get specific congressional approval to pursue collection.

The claims of the families of two other Americans killed in the same 1996 attack already have been approved by Congress for payment. A statement from the Weinsteins urged Congress to allow them to collect.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia angrily denounced a CIA report that questions the Kremlin's willingness and ability to prevent the spread of dangerous technology, a sign of renewed tension following a sharp improvement in relations in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The Foreign Ministry, in a harshly worded statement, on Thursday demanded an official explanation from Washington. The unclassified CIA report on weapons of mass destruction has caused ``not only extreme surprise but also serious concern'' in Russia, it said.

``This is the first time in recent years that an official American document makes an attempt to question the devotion, willingness and ability of the Russian government to prevent the leakage of sensitive products and technology abroad,'' the Foreign Ministry said. ``Russia strictly meets its international obligations to control the export of sensitive trade and technology.''

CIA Director George Tenet told Congress on Wednesday that Russia is one of the leading suppliers of nuclear technology and missiles to countries hostile to the United States and remains ``the first choice of nations seeking nuclear technology and training.''

The CIA report to Congress, which covers the first half of 2001 but was released last week, said the Russian government's ``commitment, willingness, and ability to curb proliferation-related transfers remain uncertain.''

``Despite improvements in Russia's economy, the state-run defense, biotechnology, and nuclear industries remain strapped for funds, even as Moscow looks to them for badly needed foreign exchange through exports,'' it said. ``We remain very concerned about the proliferation implications of such sales in several areas.''

President Vladimir Putin has lent strong support for the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan, saying Russia long ago recognized the worldwide threat of terrorism. But President Bush's denunciation of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as part of an ``axis of evil'' that must stop pursuing weapons of mass destruction or face consequences presented a challenge to Russia, which has friendly ties with all three.

In Moscow, Iran's ambassador warned of unpredictable consequences if the United States uses force against Iran, saying ``we will react as any country would,'' but Gholam Reza Shafei expressed hope that U.S. leaders ``will come to their senses and will not allow this to happen.'' He did not elaborate on Iran's possible response.

Shafei dismissed as ``baseless'' allegations by top U.S. officials linking Iran to terrorist organizations and that it was in pursuit of nuclear technologies.

Russia is engaged in a $800 million deal to build a nuclear power plant in Iran, assistance the CIA report said ``enhances Iran's ability to support a nuclear weapons development effort.''

Russia is eager for the removal of U.N. sanctions against Iraq, which have stalled oil projects and the repayment of billion in Iraqi debt to Moscow.

Thursday's harsh words follow recent bickering over renewed U.S. criticism of Russian actions in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. Russia says its war in Chechnya is a battle against international terrorism, and has accused the international community of applying double standards.

Despite disagreements, Putin has continued to pursue closer ties with the United States, and relations are warmer than in years. Both countries say they hope to reach agreement on cuts in long-range nuclear weapons stockpiles in time for a planned summit in Russia in May.

On Tuesday, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States expects the cuts to be legally binding -- as the Kremlin, with its cash-strapped military, has repeatedly stressed it would prefer over an informal deal Bush had said he wanted.

Russia and the United States ``are building up cooperation in tackling those problems that the international community is facing in the 21st century,'' Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Thursday after a meeting with former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn, according to Interfax news agency.

Ivanov told Interfax that differences remain between the former Cold War foes, particularly over the Bush administration's decision to pull out of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The Russians have called the move a mistake and a threat to global security.

Police have arrested a man who tried to enter the Kremlin by passing himself off as the Russian president. He has been ordered to undergo psychological tests.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: It's a good thing to send this man to psychiatrist. What kind of a lunatic would like to be Vladimir Putin? Would you like to be Charles Manson or Janet Reno also?

One of Russia's top advertising executives has been murdered in a business-related shooting in Moscow, which police believe was most likely a contract killing.

This is the highest-profile contract killing in Russia so far this year. There are usually several hundred every year, but few are ever solved.

Full story here.

BELGRADE, Feb 7, 2002 -- (dpa) A former official of Slobodan Milosevic's party, Dusan Nikolic, committed suicide by jumping into a smelter, investigative judge Jasminka Stefanovic confirmed Wednesday.

Nikolic, former secretary of the Socialist Party in Serbia for the region of Bor, leaped into 1,000 degrees Celsius hot molten metal of the Bor metalworks Tuesday afternoon.

His remains were extracted by firemen after the smelter cooled, Stefanovic told the Beta news agency.

"Nobody but me is guilty for all the events and misfortune," said a brief note left near the smelter by Nikolic, who suffered from depression and apathy and underwent psychiatric treatment in Bor.

His friends were quoted as saying that he had problems in coping with the fall of the SPS from power and that he had left active politics.

Beta also said that he had recently received an eviction notice from a municipal apartment.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush is considering ``a full range of options'' for removing Saddam Hussein as Iraq's president, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday.

``The United States might have to do it alone,'' Powell said at a House hearing.

Iraq is working on developing nuclear weapons, and its refusal to admit international arms inspectors prompted Bush to consider ``the most serious set of options that one might imagine,'' Powell said.

Bush has denounced Iraq for barring U.N. inspectors for more than three years and named the country as part of an ``axis of evil'' that includes Iran and North Korea.

``He is leaving no stone unturned as to what he might do'' if Saddam Hussein does not reverse course, Powell told the House International Relations Committee.

``The president is examining a full range of options,'' the secretary said. He declined to say whether Bush was considering a military assault on Iraq, or additional economic and diplomatic pressures.

Most Arab governments and some U.S. allies in Europe have cautioned Bush against a military assault on Iraq. They were nearly unanimous in supporting the anti-terrorism campaign against the Taliban and the al-Qaida terrorist network in Afghanistan as a response to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Arab leaders say Saddam has given the United States no similar provocation.

Nonetheless, ``We still believe Saddam Hussein should move on,'' Powell said. ``The people of Iraq deserve better leadership.''

Iraq has remained bent on developing nuclear weapons, Powell said, adding that U.S. intelligence had concluded Iraq was a year or more away from its goal.

At the hearing, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., said, ``We simply cannot allow Iraq to develop nuclear weapons.'' Powell said Bush was considering ``the most serious set of options one might consider.''

``Regime change is something the United States might have to do alone,'' Powell said. ``How to do it? I would not like to go into the details of the options.''

In the past, Powell has suggested diplomatic, political and economic measures could be used to uproot terrorists and their government supporters. But at the hearing, he did not suggest these alternatives to the use of force.

Powell dismissed an Iraqi offer to hold talks with the United Nations, an overture conveyed through the Arab League and accepted by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Powell said Iraq had to accept the return of accept U.N. inspectors, and that there was nothing to discuss otherwise.

By contrast, Powell said the Bush administration was open to ``reasonable conversation'' with Iran.

Powell said the Untied States had a long-standing list of grievances with Iran, including its support for terrorism and trying to send weapons to the Palestinians.

Iran's ``latest provocation,'' he said, was ``meddling in Afghanistan'' and unsettling the fragile interim government in Kabul.

``Get out of the `axis of evil' column and make a choice that we think your people want you to make and not the choice your nonelected government has been making in recent years,'' he said.

MOSCOW, Feb 4, 2002 -- (dpa) The fight between the Russian military and regional power suppliers over unpaid bills escalated Monday after the army moved to prosecute companies it says crippled national defenses.

Much of Russia's far eastern coastline became vulnerable when power was stopped at a radar base on the Kamchatka peninsular, military sources told the news agency Interfax. A missile testing range was also shut down.

Numerous military installations were still without electricity on the peninsular and in the Chita region of Siberia as the Chitaenergo and Kamchatskenergo companies demanded payment of outstanding bills of 267 million rubles (8.7 million U.S. dollars).

Non-payment also resulted in power cuts against the Russian Pacific and Baltic fleets in recent days by other local branches of the state-controlled company United Energy Systems (UES) of Russia.

All defense spending is by law covered by the state budget, but funds often either fail to reach remote military units or are misappropriated. Electricity has been repeatedly cut off at indebted military facilities in recent years.

Slobodan Milosevic will be tried on charges relating to the Kosovan, Bosnian and Croatian wars in one single trial, the war crimes tribunal in The Hague has ruled.

The decision to hold a single trial is a victory for prosecutors who had argued against an earlier ruling which would have separated the Kosovo charges from other accusations.

Full story here.

BELGRADE - A senior official of the Democratic Party (DS), Goran Vesic, on Thursday accused Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica of "expressing a series of untruths" at Wednesday's press conference about the involvement of his closest associates in the Delimustafic affair. Vesic told a special press conference that all there untruths have only one aim "to hide from the public the responsibility of his closest associates for their cooperation with a war criminal (Delimustafic) sought by Interpol."

According to Vesic, Kostunica cannot avoid giving an answer to "the most important question of this affair - why his closest associates met with a war criminal who was hiding in Belgrade under a fake identity."

Russia has won back one of its most precious and famous assets, the Stolichnaya brand name, which one connoisseur, James Bond, once praised as Russia's best vodka.

And like Mr Bond, millions of other Stolichnaya drinkers have help to elevate it to the best selling vodka in the world, with sales totalling $2bn (£1.4bn) a year.

Now, a Moscow court has ruled that Stolichnaya, along with 42 other vodka brands, should be returned to the state, namely, to the Agricultural Ministry.

The decision ends a four-year long dispute between the ministry, which was responsible for every shot and bottle during the Soviet years, and a private company Soyuzplodimport (SPI).

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: It seems that Mr. Bond is not such a good vodka expert after all. It is well known that the best vodka in the world is not produced in Russia but in, guess what, Mr. Bond's home country U.K.:

French are not bad either so the last year award goes to them: