AP - March 31, 2002

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Faced with a midnight suspension of all U.S. aid to Yugoslavia, Serbia's government issued arrest warrants Sunday against four of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's closest associates to face war crimes prosecution.

The development came as tensions soared in the countdown to the Sunday deadline issued by U.S. Congress to the Yugoslav authorities, demanding they cooperate with the Netherlands-based U.N. war crimes tribunal or lose $120 million in financial assistance.

Four warrants were issued Sunday for former Milosevic associates, including Milan Milutinovic, the current president of Serbia, who remained in his post in Yugoslavia's dominant republic after Milosevic fell.

Vladan Batic, the justice minister in Serbia, which is Yugoslavia's dominant republic, said it was now up to police to arrest the four, whose extradition is sought by The Hague tribunal, where Milosevic is currently on trial.

``The police will have the final word, they will decide when and how to carry out the (arrest) actions,'' Batic said.

Milutinovic is unlikely to be arrested soon because his post, though virtually powerless since pro-democracy forces took over the government, still carries immunity. His term expires at the end of 2002.

Although U.S. financial aid for Yugoslavia will be automatically suspended at midnight Sunday, Secretary of State Colin Powell is to decide next week whether to continue the support.

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said the country was ``only a step away from the most serious international isolation,'' blaming his political archrival, Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, for lack of cooperation with The Hague court.

Kostunica has opposed extraditions, considering the U.N. tribunal illegal and unjust. He insists that surrender of war crimes suspects should not take place until a special law is passed.

``The Yugoslav president is trying to escape his responsibility in all this, expecting the Serbian government to do the dirty work for him,'' Djindjic told Serbian television. ``This country needs to say clearly where it stands on The Hague (issue) ... and not dump all the burden on the Serbian police.''

Djindjic summoned Serbia's democratic leadership for a late-night meeting Sunday, the state news agency Tanjug reported.

Afterward, Batic spoke with reporters.

``Within hours, the United Sates will impose sanctions on our country, sanctions that will mean turning the clock back to the era of Slobodan Milosevic, to misery and isolation,'' Batic said.

The Serbian Civic Alliance, a member of the ruling coalition, said the arrests were necessary to prevent international sanctions and keep funds desperately needed for reforms coming.

``Without surrender of those indicted to The Hague tribunal, Serbia will again slip into isolation,'' the party warned.

The four Milosevic aides, charged for crimes against humanity on the same indictment as the former president, held top positions during the 1998-99 Kosovo war.

Besdies Milutinovic, they are Nikola Sainovic, Milosevic's top security adviser and former deputy prime minister; Dragoljub Ojdanic, a former Yugoslav army commander; and Vlajko Stojiljkovic, former Serbian interior minister in charge of the police.

Bosnian Serb wartime commander Gen. Ratko Mladic -- alongside Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic the most wanted war crimes fugitive -- was not among them. Mladic is widely believed to be in Serbia under the protection of the Yugoslav army, but Serbian authorities have said he is beyond their reach for the time being. About 15 suspects live in Serbia.

Serb officials have tried to downplay Congress' March 31 deadline, saying arrests of suspects were unavoidable but their exact timing was less important.

Acting on a similar ultimatum, the Serbian government last year arrested Milosevic, who is now standing trial in The Hague for atrocities his forces committed in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia in the 1990s.

The Serbian Government has issued arrest warrants for four of Slobodan Milosevic's closest associates charged with war crimes.

Justice Minister Vladan Batic made the announcement just hours before a US-imposed deadline for Serbia to co-operate with the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague or lose $120m in aid.

Those named are:

• Milan Milutinovic, current Serbian president;
• Nikola Sainovic, Mr Milosevic's top security adviser and former deputy prime minister;
• Dragoljub Ojdanic, a former Yugoslav army commander; and
• Vlajko Stojiljkovic, former Serbian interior minister in charge of the police.

Full story here.

Tens of thousands of Moldovans protested on Sunday against the ruling communists and demanded greater efforts to find a leading opposition deputy.

Demonstrators were angry at what they saw as government attempts to drag Moldova back into the sphere of its imperial master, Russia.

They were also concerned about Vlad Cubreacov, a leading member of the Christian Democratic People's Party (PPCD) and the driving force behind earlier rallies, who has disappeared.

Full story here.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Faced with a U.S. deadline to hand over war crimes suspects, Serbia's government on Wednesday defied a high court ruling and adopted a U.N. tribunal's rules allowing such extraditions.

Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica and his nationalist followers have opposed extraditions to the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, saying they are illegal and demanding that a special domestic law be adopted to let Serbia hand over suspects.

The government's defiant move comes a day after Yugoslavia's constitutional court, dominated by Serbian nationalists, ruled that the tribunal's statute cannot be applied in Serbia.

The U.S. Congress gave Yugoslavia until March 31 to cooperate with the court or risk losing $120 million in financial assistance. Acting on a similar deadline last year, the Serbian government arrested former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is now on trial in The Hague for atrocities his forces committed in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia in the 1990s.

Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic said the Serbian government decided to adopt The Hague's statute after months of fruitless legal debates and wrangling between political factions.

The government move indicates that it is ready to arrest and extradite at least some of 15 Serb war crimes suspects living in the republic and sought by The Hague.

Batic said that he doesn't believe March 31 is the final deadline because the Serbian government has fulfilled two other conditions set by the United States -- releasing all ethnic Albanian prisoners from Serbian jails and severing formal ties with the Bosnian Serb military.

Among the suspects sought by the tribunal are the world's top war crimes fugitives, former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his wartime military commander, Gen. Ratko Mladic. Mladic is known to be hiding in Serbia; Karadzic's whereabouts are unknown.

Both were indicted together for genocide for the 1995 massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, Bosnia, and the three-year military siege and shelling of Sarajevo.

MOSCOW, Mar 26, 2002 -- (dpa) Russia's chief envoy for human rights, Oleg Mironov, spoke out Tuesday against continuing excesses in the country under the leadership of President Vladimir Putin.

"The rights and freedoms of citizens are still being violated in all areas," Mironov said in an interview published in the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper.

On the second anniversary of Putin's election as president, the top rights official in the Kremlin focused criticism on economic hardships suffered by the Russian people, continuing violence against civilians in the republic of Chechnya and encroachment on freedom of the press.

Each month his office receives more than 2000 complaints from the population, 40 percent of which Mironov said still lives in poverty.

"They are denied the most important human right of all, the right to a dignified life," he said.

Meanwhile, state-controlled television stations on Tuesday praised Putin's social and economic reforms as a way out of the country's problems.

Putin became leader on March 26, 2000, following the surprise resignation of Boris Yeltsin. Putin retains a high popularity among ordinary Russians.

MOSCOW, Mar 26, 2002 -- (Glasnost Foundation) The trial of the leaders of PORTOS youth organization is being held today, March 25 in Moscow City Court, which has repeatedly postponed prior hearings.

Unlike the pro-Putin still-born organizations, this public organization has been quickly gaining in popularity and has provoked the anger of the authorities, who chose to close it by the usual scenario: A Special Police unit raided its offices, looted all the property, and arrested the leaders.

Now they are charged with organizing an illegal armed formations (possession of officially registered shot gun and gas pistols), kidnapping and torture and creation of a totalitarian sect. All charges are absolutely unsubstantiated.

When the defense lawyer asked the investigator why his clients had been accused of creating an illegal armed formation, the investigator responded that any group of persons which possesses any piece of firearms, including a shotgun, falls under this provision. It will be interesting to see if that view is shared by the Moscow City Court.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Sitting in her cluttered law office, Biljana Kovacevic-Vuco makes a startling observation: She's an enemy of the state.

A prominent human rights attorney and the daughter of a former Yugoslav army general, Kovacevic-Vuco is convinced the secret police have a thick file on her. When she walks down the street, she can't stop looking over her shoulder -- or shake the feeling she's being watched.

``All day long, I feel like they're here all around me,'' she says. ``I am marked as a state enemy because I don't like what's going on in this country and I'm not afraid to say so. There's a real atmosphere of fear and intimidation in Serbia, and I'm not the only citizen who feels it.''

Last week's resignation of a deputy Serbian prime minister accused of passing secret files to a U.S. diplomat focused attention on secret police operations and on the hundreds of thousands of dossiers that state security holds on leaders and ordinary citizens alike.

Some fear the sheer volume of material -- much of it dating back to communist leader Josip Broz Tito's regime and spanning Slobodan Milosevic's 13 years in power -- contains enough dirty secrets to distract the country for decades to come.

``People will always trade in these kinds of files. They will always threaten: `If you don't cooperate with me, I'll release this or that,''' said Bratislav Grubacic, a political analyst.

Last summer, Serbian authorities opened tens of thousands of dossiers so citizens who were considered to be ``domestic enemies'' could see their own files.

But most files remain under wraps in the name of national security. And even the files that have been released contain largely blacked-out documents.

``It's very murky: You only see their conclusions, not the entire file,'' Grubacic said. ``You'll never know exactly who followed you or who sat with you in a restaurant.''

As Yugoslavia struggles to shed Milosevic's legacy and institute democratic reforms, critics of the system are calling for all files to be opened and the spy agencies and army to be put under civilian control as a way to make a clean break with the past.

``The secret services are not properly controlled. They still have a Stalinesque upper class of officers,'' said Vojin Dimitrijevic, director of the Belgrade Center for Human Rights.

Not surprisingly, Yugoslavia's intelligence community wants some secrets kept under wraps.

``I do believe that not all secrets can be revealed to the public -- and particularly to the politicians,'' a former high-ranking army intelligence officer said in an interview.

The official, who agreed to discuss the issue only if granted anonymity, said it was standard practice for secret police to keep files on anyone who might have influence on state and army security agencies.

``Whether it's ever really used is another question,'' the official said. ``In our time, we would do it with gloves. Nobody would notice that anything was going on.''

Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Momcilo Perisic, who resigned last Tuesday after being arrested for allegedly passing secrets to an American diplomat, said he was the victim of a setup by military intelligence. The U.S. Embassy insisted no espionage took place.

The affair deepened a rift between Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, who controls the army and military intelligence, and his political rival, Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who commands the state security apparatus.

Djindjic expressed anger that the military intelligence service had followed and wiretapped his deputy for more than five months without informing the Serbian government. He contended the operation was intended to undermine his administration.

Amid the squabbling, there appears to be little trust in police and the military. Less than 25 percent of 10,000 Yugoslavs interviewed in a poll trusted the security forces, according to a survey published this month by Southeast Europe Democracy Support, a network of think tanks.

``We people in the street are just ordinary cannon fodder,'' said Srecko Simonovic, 24, selling used books on Belgrade's Republic Square, scene of the protests that toppled Milosevic. ``They can do anything they want with us.''

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- The prime minister of Yugoslavia's dominant republic will sever all cooperation with Yugoslavia's president for not firing a general involved in an alleged U.S. spying affair, a senior official said Saturday.

The comments by Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic represent a further escalation in the rivalries between Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic and Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica.

Increased tensions between the two threaten to paralyze the workings of government at a time when Yugoslavia and Serbia need to show progress in democratic and economic development to enjoy continued Western support. Serbia is home to more than 90 percent of Yugoslav citizens and effectively sets Yugoslav policy.

Djindjic and Kostunica cooperated in ousting former President Slobodan Milosevic after he lost elections in late 2000 but have drifted apart since. Kostunica, a nationalist, opposed Milosevic's extradition to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands, a move orchestrated by Djindjic as part of moving the country into the Western camp.

In comments to The Associated Press, Batic accused Kostunica of ``protecting and cuddling Milosevic's cronies,'' an apparent reference to Gen. Aco Tomic, the head of Yugoslav army intelligence.

``There will be no more cooperation with Kostunica, because we cannot cooperate with someone who protects criminals,'' Batic said, suggesting, without details that Kostunica might be making himself criminally responsible by refusing to fire Tomic.

In the wake of the military's arresting a senior Serbian government figure March 14 for alleged spying for the United States, the Serbian government accused the general of contravening the law by failing to inform it of the case while reporting to Kostunica.

Earlier this past week in an interview in Belgrade's daily Blic, Kostunica said that he would fire Tomic only if he ``was sure that he breached existing rules and regulations.''

``However, everything points to the fact that this was not the case and that Gen. Tomic, (military) security and the Yugoslav army have acted according to the existing regulations,'' he said.

Addressing supporters Saturday in Nis, about 110 miles south of Belgrade, Djindjic said he expected a ``reshuffle of the army's leadership'' Monday.

He accused Tomic of eavesdropping on private meetings between himself and Kostunica. ``In number of occasions we were discussing national security, and Tomic was in the room next door,'' he said.

The military says Momcilo Perisic, who resigned as Serbian deputy prime minister after he was released from detention March 16, was handing over top secret documents to a U.S. diplomat, John David Neighbor. Other Yugoslav officials have said the documents could have been used against Milosevic at his U.N. war crimes trial in The Hague, Netherlands.

In a breach of international conventions, Neighbor was held incommunicado for 15 hours -- at times with a hood over his head -- and reportedly beaten up. The United States protested his treatment.

Both the United States and Perisic -- a former chief of Yugoslav army's general staff fired in 1998 for opposing Milosevic's policies in Serbia's southern province of Kosovo -- have denied that any espionage took place.

Djindjic and his allies argued the Perisic's arrest was aimed at undermining the Serbian government and meant to prevent possible arrests of more Serb war crimes suspects and their extradition to the war crimes court in The Hague.

The U.S. Congress has set a March 31 deadline for Yugoslav authorities to cooperate with the U.N. tribunal or forfeit financial aid.

Kostunica has continued to defy international demands to hand over about a dozen other suspects, including top officials of Milosevic's fallen regime.

BOGOTA, Colombia (Reuters) - Colombia's outlawed paramilitary gunmen are offering Web surfers a bloody online video game in which they can join the country's drug-fueled guerrilla war and shoot leftist rebels.

At www.accubec.org/shooting.html, cyber-gamers join paramilitary ranks virtually, defend a fictional small town, and kill leftist rebels in a conflict that has claimed 40,000 real lives in the past decade.

``The humble population of Aguas Blancas is being attacked by FARC and ELN bandits,'' the Internet site reads, referring to Colombia's two leftist rebel groups.

``Your mission is to stop the police headquarters from being destroyed by killing as many of these heartless delinquents as possible.''

Paramilitary fighters are classified as terrorists by the United States and are accused of committing some of Colombia's worst atrocities in their fight against guerrillas -- allegedly once using chain saws to hack up suspected rebel sympathizers.

In the game, players guide the sights of an assault rifle over the bodies of guerrilla fighters. The rebels duck out from doorways and rooftops to return fire while lobbing gas-cylinder bombs at the mayor's office. Blood spurts from the necks and chests of shot rebels, who fall to the ground and disappear.

To advance levels, virtual far-right gunmen need to pick up first-aid boxes and ``paramilitary shields'' -- which absorb 75 percent of the impact of incoming rounds.

The game ends when a player has been pierced by too many rebel bullets. The site tells you how many guerrillas you have killed and thanks you ``for supporting a free Colombia.''

FARC MAN AND ELENA

The 10,000-member paramilitaries -- born as self-defense militias financed by cattle ranchers -- are Colombia's fastest growing insurgent force and are accused by rights groups of having deep ties to the military and drug trafficking.

The video game is not the only anti-rebel propaganda on the site of the Elmer Cardenas block of paramilitary forces, who are fighting rebels for control of a key drug and arms trafficking region near the Panama border.

In cartoon-like animation, the block also mocks the rebels in a story called ``FARC Man and Elena,'' fictional ``heroes'' who terrorize common Colombians. The man personifying the FARC, Spanish initials for the 17,000-member Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has a potbelly, a rifle for a nose, and the trademark sweat towel of rebel boss Manuel Marulanda.

Elena, FARC Man's girlfriend, is the personification of the smaller, 5,000-member National Liberation Army, or ELN. She has a skull for a head, bobbed with blond hair, and is wearing a tiny dress barely covering her backside.

``A new hero arises ... dedicating his whole life to destroying electricity towers, blowing up oil pipelines to save the environment, and kidnapping people for pennies,'' the story says.

``Welcome to the adventures of FARC Man and Elena. Coming soon: They will steel your heart. They will steel your hope. They will extort money from your family.''

Salsa music pipes in, as FARC Man and Elena bomb a small town into darkness. ``How they like to make us use our dynamite,'' Elena cackles, her skull bouncing side-to-side.

The Internet site is the latest in a marketing campaign by militias, banded together under the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC.

AUC chief and ex-army scout Carlos Castano has launched a new best-selling biography called ``My Confession.'' The book, now being exported to the United States, Mexico and Venezuela, explains Castano's hatred of the guerrillas -- fostered by the rebel kidnapping and killing of his father.

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Hundreds of peasants with Brazil's Landless Workers Movement invaded a farm owned by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso's family on Saturday seeking land, credit and agrarian reform.

Calling it an act of terrorism, the government ordered army troops to the site to help federal police at the Corrego da Ponte farm in Minas Gerais state. They said the combined government force there would total about 300 people.

``This act by the Landless Workers Movement is an act of terrorism,'' Minister of Agrarian Development Raul Jungmann said at a news conference.

``It is terrorism which reaches the institution of the presidency, which is something that belongs to all Brazilians. ... All Brazilians had their homes invaded, occupied and violated symbolically.''

One of Brazil's most radical and vocal groups, the MST advocates the occupation of unused farmland for poor rural workers in this country of 170 million people, where a handful of rich own the vast majority of arable land.

MST member Adriano Coutinho told Reuters by telephone from the farm that about 600 people peacefully entered the property on Saturday morning and set up camp. Local media reported that between 400 people and 500 people were at the farm, which lies near the city of city of Buritis about 100 miles from the capital, Brasilia.

``We're demanding (Cardoso) undertake a concrete agrarian reform on a national level, that he free up funds for farming on a national level,'' Coutinho said.

The MST said in a statement cited by local news agency Agencia Estado that it occupied the land after attempts to negotiate with the government failed. It is also demanding land for 80 families and money for education and infrastructure projects such as health clinics and running water for its communities.

Cardoso's chief security advisor, Gen. Alberto Cardoso, said a lawyer representing the president's family was on his way to Corrego da Ponte with a judge's order to vacate the premises.

``This is a serious, grave problem like there hasn't been before in the country's history. The home of the country's representative has been invaded,'' Cardoso said.

Protests by Brazil's landless have periodically led to violent confrontations with the police. Seven years ago, 19 rural workers were killed by military police during a land occupation in the Amazon.

And with just seven months to general elections, the invasion triggered a bout of political sparring between the government and the leftist opposition Workers Party, which it said was ``intimately tied'' to the MST.

The PT, whose presidential candidate is ahead in opinion polls, denied the charge.

Editor's commentary: Colonial conquerors are long time gone from Brazil, there are no whites oppresing Brazilians there but taking land by force is becoming more nad more popular these days thanks to Zimbabwean dictator, Robert Mugabe. Reasons are not important, what is important is to steal and take in the name of "poor" and "oppressed".

By Alexandra Poolos

PRAGUE, Mar 22, 2002 -- (RFE/RL) Montenegro's Liberal Alliance Party says it is withdrawing support for the government to protest a new accord that preserves the republic's union with Serbia.

The move yesterday by the pro-independence party is unlikely to prevent parliament's ratification of the Belgrade accord, but may trigger the collapse of the Montenegrin government.

Liberal Alliance chief Miodrag Zivkovic told reporters in Podgorica yesterday that the party believes Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic betrayed voters when he signed the historic agreement that restructures -- but preserves -- the current Yugoslavia as a looser federation between Serbia and Montenegro.

"With this agreement in Belgrade, Montenegro got a new federation instead of a referendum [on independence]. Mr. Djukanovic and [Prime Minister Filip Vujanovic] may represent the Montenegrin people, the people who support an independent Montenegro, but they have stolen the state and given it to the minority who opposed an independent country. I want to remind you that with this act, the Democratic Party of Socialists (Djukanovic's party) broke its own party program and completely betrayed all the people who voted for an independent Montenegro, [as well as] breaking the agreement with the Liberal Alliance. Our actions are only a formal response to DPS breaking this agreement."

The Liberal Alliance's six-seat bloc in parliament is critical to the balance of power between Djukanovic's coalition and his opponents, who have favored maintaining the common Yugoslav state.

The Alliance agreed to support Djukanovic's government after they were promised a referendum on independence this year. Now, without Alliance support, Prime Minister Vujanovic faces a possible no-confidence vote in parliament.

The Alliance move will have dramatic effects on the domestic political scene, but will most likely not deter official ratification of the Belgrade agreement. Djukanovic's remaining coalition bloc in parliament, combined with pro-Yugoslav deputies, constitutes the majority needed to ratify the accord.

But Djukanovic's coalition is shaken by the loss of Alliance support, which could trigger early parliamentary elections in Montenegro or even Djukanovic's ouster as president in elections later this year.

The coalition is hoping a last-minute compromise with the Liberals is still possible.

Prime Minister Vujanovic told Montenegrin state radio yesterday that the party could even have some seats in the cabinet if it chose to return its support to the governing coalition.

"I hope that a solution can be found [to retain] the Liberal Alliance's support for the government because it's the only way we will have the option of holding a referendum on independence in three years. I am ready to give some ministerial posts to the Liberal Alliance. We can talk about every possible solution, because it's most important to save the union of the independence bloc as a guarantee that after three years we will get a referendum."

Under the accord signed last week in Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro will share a common defense and foreign policy, but will retain separate currencies and customs regulations. After three years, both republics will have the right to hold a referendum on breaking from the union.

In Montenegro, polls indicate that a little more than half of the republic's 680,000 residents support independence from Serbia.

MOSCOW, Mar 21, 2002 -- (RFE/RL) Embattled magnate Boris Berezovsky told "Moskovskie novosti," No. 12, that he has applied for political asylum in Great Britain because the Russian prosecutor-general has prevented his return to Russia by issuing an international warrant against him.

"The fate of my business, as well as that of all Russian business [has become] the exclusive prerogative of the Russian president, and he will not stop until he has gained complete control not only over politics and information, but over the economy as well," Berezovsky said, noting that 60 percent of his business interests lie within Russia.

SYDNEY, Mar 20, 2002 -- (dpa) The captain of a Russian ship impounded in Australia for illegal fishing has died after drinking a cleaning fluid he mistook for neat alcohol, news reports Wednesday said.

The captain and two crew members mixed the cleaning fluid with orange juice to fuel a drinking bout while detained on board their boat, the Volga, in Fremantle, near Perth.

The man died after a three-week coma. His drinking buddies were also hospitalized but survived the poisoning.

The Volga and another fishing boat, the Lena, were caught poaching Patagonian toothfish in Australian waters in the Southern Ocean.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor accused the Yugoslav government Wednesday of refusing to hand over indicted suspects including Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko Mladic.

Carla Del Ponte said it's time for Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica to arrest Mladic and surrender him for prosecution by the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal.

``It's just the political will to arrest him and to transfer him,'' she told reporters between meetings at the United Nations.

Mladic and the Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic are the most prominent of the 32 indicted Yugoslav war crimes suspects still at large.

Last month, Del Ponte asked Bosnian Serb authorities entity for help in finding Karadzic after NATO troops failed to arrest him in a raid.

The prosecutor said she had repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked NATO commanders to create a special plainclothes task force to arrest fugitives -- rather than sending several hundred uniformed soldiers whose presence alerts the local population which is sympathetic to Karadzic and others in hiding.

The two Bosnian Serbs are wanted on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity for alleged atrocities commited by Serbs under their authority during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. They would also be potential witnesses at the current trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Del Ponte came to New York from Washington, where she met Monday with Secretary of State Colin Powell to discuss the Yugoslav tribunal's difficulties in getting cooperation from Yugoslavia, particularly Kostunica, who also heads the army.

``We have no access to the archives of the army, no access to witnesses, no arrest of fugitives, particularly fugitives from the army -- Mladic,'' she said.

Del Ponte said Powell promised to support the tribunal. Powell has said he would take Yugoslavia's level of cooperation with the tribunal into account in deciding whether the United States would provide Yugoslavia with $40 million in aid.

The prosecutor said she also discussed with Powell the possibility of getting high-level Americans to testify at the Milosevic trial. She wouldn't disclose any names, except to note that Richard Holbrooke, who helped negotiate the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the Bosnian war, had announced that he was ready to testify.

Del Ponte also said the tribunal wasn't getting the cooperation it needed from the Serbian government, noting that investigators sometimes receive minor documents but have no access to the archives they really need.

The lack of cooperation is ``an obstacle'' to wrapping up the tribunal's work by the target date of 2008, Del Ponte said.

In addition to the 32 who are still fugitives, she said she expects about 16 new indictments, some naming several people, before investigations end in 2004.

On a related issue, Del Ponte was asked whether the tribunal's investigators in Bosnia had found any links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network. She replied, without elabroating, that investigators had turned over ``information that can be used in the fight against terrorism'' to the U.S. Department of Justice.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush, suspecting that North Korea may have a hidden nuclear weapons program, acted Wednesday to encourage Pyongyang to allow full international inspections of its nuclear facilities.

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush, despite his misgivings, will continue to abide by a 1994 agreement that commits the United States to provide North Korea with 500,000 metric tons of heavy oil annually.

The deliveries are to continue until two light-water nuclear reactors, financed mostly by South Korea and Japan, are installed in North Korea. The reactors are not of a type that can produce weapons-grade plutonium.

Each year from 1995 on, President Clinton routinely certified that North Korea was not attempting to build nuclear weapons, a promise it made in 1994.

Bush dropped the policy Wednesday and refused to certify Pyongyang's compliance with its promise. Instead, he issued a waiver that will ensure uninterrupted fuel deliveries, assuming Congress goes along. This keeps the United States in compliance with the 1994 agreement.

``There's no question that the president has concerns,'' Fleischer said, alluding to Bush's refusal to certify.

He said the North Koreans had not provided sufficient information about its nuclear activities to permit certification.

``It's a strong message to North Korea that they need to comply with their international obligations and agreements,'' Fleischer said.

Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House International Relations Committee, said he fully concurs with Bush's decision.

``It is indisputable that North Korea is today refusing to take steps required under the (1994) Agreed Framework with regard to international inspections of its nuclear facilities,'' Hyde said.

In late January, a CIA report assessed that ``North Korea has produced enough plutonium for at least one, and possibly two, nuclear weapons.''

A North Korean decision to allow broad-based inspections should clear up this point.

Bush signaled his concern about North Korea two months ago when he said the country was part of an ``axis of evil'' together with Iraq and Iran.

There is a growing sense of urgency in Washington for North Korea to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors enter facilities beyond two nuclear reactors that have been under continuous inspection since 1994.

Timing is important because the inspection process is tied to construction of the nuclear reactors. Construction is expected to begin in August.

Key components of the reactors cannot be delivered until inspections are completed, which could take three years or more. The longer the inspections are delayed, the longer it will take for the reactors to become operational.

According to some estimates, a significant portion of the project will be completed by the spring of 2005. If they are to function when they are installed, inspections must begin soon.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said, ``The construction deadlines are moving forward. We've made that clear (to the North Koreans) over the past year every time we've talked about this.''

Secretary of State Colin Powell will review the status of U.S. ties with North Korea when he meets next month in Washington with South Korean Foreign Minister Choi Sung-hong.

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police smuggled guns and explosives past airport security in tests that exposed safety concerns at continental Europe's busiest hub, Frankfurt International, a magazine said Wednesday.

Plainclothes border police managed to get five guns and 15 explosive devices, complete with triggers and cables, through checks at Frankfurt where security has long been regarded as a problem, the weekly Stern said.

The explosives that blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, were smuggled onto the plane at Frankfurt.

Frankfurt airport had a 43 percent failure rate in the security checks, double the rate in similar tests a year ago, the magazine said.

The tests highlighted deficiencies in checks made on passengers and hand luggage just prior to boarding, although concerns about airport security have risen in the wake of the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Despite the magazine's revelations, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said Wednesday the government had boosted security in airports since the September 11 attacks and there was no reason to fear traveling by air.

``We are increasing airline security,'' Schroeder told an air transport conference in Berlin. ``Since September 11, airline traffic is subject to completely different conditions.''

``There is no reason to travel less or not to fly at all as a result of the challenge of international terrorism,'' he said.

ROME, Mar 20, 2002 -- (dpa) Italian Interior Minister Claudio Scajola said Wednesday the shooting of a key advisor of the labor ministry appeared to be the work of left-wing terrorists, linking the "barbaric" murder to extremists who oppose a government reform of the labor market.

Addressing parliament in an emergency session, Scajola said the murder of Marco Biagi was orchestrated by "expert hands and minds" that aimed to "destabilize" democracy.

No on has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place on Tuesday evening as Biagi was returning to his home in Bologna from work.

According to Scajola, 52-year-old Biagi was approached by "at least two" killers as he was about to enter the building's main door. He died on his doorstep after being hit by several bullets shot from close range.

Police experts were analyzing graffiti depicting the five-pointed star of the Red Brigades, which had been carved on the front door. Another graffiti reading "objective centered" and written on a nearby wall was also being analyzed by investigators.

A group calling itself the New Red Brigades claimed responsibility three years ago for the killing of another ministry consultant, Massimo D'Antona. His assailants have not been caught.

The slaying was immediately linked to Biagi's role in government - coming as parliament is about to debate a controversial reform of the labor market. Like D'Antona, Biagi had wanted to relax Italy's rigid labor legislation.

In an editorial published Tuesday morning by the financial newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Biagi had argued that the government's reforms were necessary for Italy to compete with Europe's strongest economies.

Luigi Persico, the magistrate in charge of the investigation, described Biagi's murder as having political overtones.

"It is a signal," he told reporters. "Biagi was a consultant for the Labor Ministry, and the minister was apparently scheduled to visit Bologna tomorrow."

The murder has shocked Italy, with Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Pope John Paul II and politicians from all sides expressing horror at the news.

It also had an immediate effect on the political debate, with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi lamenting a "climax of hatred" surrounding his government's labor proposals. Berlusconi invited left-wing politicians and trade unions to resume dialogue.

Unions have called a two-hour general strike for Wednesday to protest Biagi's killing. An anti-government march scheduled by unions for Saturday was also to be turned into an anti-terrorism protest.

Some of the country's more moderate unions were considering pulling out of a one-day general strike that was expected to take place in late April.

A highly esteemed civil servant, Biagi was also a personal friend and a former consultant of European Union Commission President Romano Prodi.

Biagi had worked with Prodi's labor ministry when the latter was Italian prime minister in the second half of the 1990s. Speaking at a conference in Brussels, Prodi began his speech by saying a dear friend of his had been killed in his home town of Bologna.

"He was called Marco Biagi. He was married with two kids," Prodi said.

Biagi was one of the authors of a government bill that seeks to make it easier for firms to hire and fire workers by reforming unfair dismissal legislation. Trade unions and leftist parties fiercely oppose the bill.

Italy has a deep-rooted history of political terrorism, which climaxed during the 1970s and 1980s. In 1978, the far-left Red Brigades kidnapped and killed a former prime minister, Aldo Moro.

Front page editorials on Wednesday warned of a return of "the years of lead", a reference to that period. In February, a bomb exploded outside the interior ministry. Police have also linked that bombing to left-wing extremists.

The country's secret services had recently warned of the danger of political attacks against trade union and government officials, highlighting the labor ministry reforms as a possible spark for terrorism.

Biagi was until recently protected by police, but his escort was cut back last Autumn to allow police to concentrate on the Islamic terrorist front in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

PODGORICA, Mar 20, 2002 -- (dpa) The hardline pro-independence Montenegrin Liberal Alliance party said Wednesday it was withdrawing support for President Milo Djukanovic's government.

The LS chief, Miodrag Zivkovic, said Djukanovic's "Belgrade agreement" with Yugoslav federal and Serbian authorities last Thursday "defrauded the electoral body".

Pressured by the European Union, Djukanovic and Prime Minister Filip Vujanovic signed the traety with Belgrade officials to keep their tiny republic in a union with Serbia for at least three years after parliaments of both republics and the federation ratify it.

The agreement would also change the name of the country from Yugoslavia to Serbia and Montenegro, giving no clear timeframe for the "harmonization" process of the two allienated federal republics.

Djukanovic's Victory for Montenegro coalition took a less than convincing victory on its pro-independence platform at early elections last April.

It was eventually forced to run a minority government on support of the secessionist hardliners from the LS, whicjh gave it the parliamentary edge though remaining out of the cabinet.

In the parliament of 77, Djukanovic's Victory for Montenegro coalition holds 36 seats, the LS six and ethnic Albanian parties two more seats, in the so-called "sovereignist", pro-independence bloc.

The group favoring a joint state with Serbia, the Together for Yugoslavia coalition, has 33 seats.

It remains unclear what Djukanovic may do next - his options appear limited to political trade with the LS, an attempt to strike a support deal with Together for Yugoslavia or new early elections.

Following the Belgrade agreement, Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica said the agreement was expected to get ratification by June.

PODGORICA - The Montenegrin Liberal Alliance (LS) no longer supports the minority government of Filip Vujanovic because the prime minister and President Milo Djukanovic violated the agreement with the LS on a referendum on Montenegro's future state status by signing the agreement with Serbia on restructuring relations, LS political leader Miodrag Zivkovic said on Wednesday.

"The LS has decided to make this move because the state leadership of Montenegro and the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS), represented by Milo Djukanovic and Filip Vujanovic, signed the agreement on restructuring relations between Serbia and Montenegro on March 14, and there is no dilemma here, agreed to a new state community organized on new federal principles," Zivkovic specified at a press conference.

WASHINGTON - US State Department Ambassador in charge of war crimes issues Pierre Richard Prosper said on Wednesday he had personally informed Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica about the fact that the United States was not satisfied with the degree of Belgrade's cooperation with the Hague-based war crimes tribunal and that Washington expected him, as the president, to take appropriate moves to that end.

BELGRADE - Persons indicted by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague will not surrender to this court, Democratic Party (DS) Vice President Cedomir Jovanovic said on Wednesday.

Speaking to Belgrade B92 television ahead of March 31, the deadline given by the US administration for the extradition of those indicted for war crimes, Jovanovic said that "after everything that (the suspects) have done in this country, it would be meaningless to demand from them to respect the moral code which calls for an individual act to avoid the sufferring of the community."

BELGRADE - A member of the leadership of the Democratic Party (DS), headed by Serbian Premier Zoran Djindjic, Goran Vesic, on Wednesday called on Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica to resign out of moral reasons "after all that the military security service has done over the past five months regarding the Perisic case".

BELGRADE - DOS Presidency chairman Zoran Djindjic has said he does not see how he can continue cooperating with Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica on national security issues unless Yugoslav Army security department head General Aco Tomic is replaced.

"As long as Tomic holds this office, which is an insult to the government of the Republic of Serbia in view of his behaviour, I can see no way for cooperation with President Kostunica on any national security issue," Djindjic, who is also Serbian Premier, said after the late Tuesday DOS Presidency session.

He said that the DOS Presidency had decided "no longer to deal with the relations between the Democratic Party of Serbia and DOS" but with economic, social and institutional reforms and to show that this is its priority.

PODGORICA - The Montenegrin Liberal League (LS) told the US Ambassador to Yugoslavia William Montgomery Tuesday that the LS will withdraw its parliamentary support to the minority government of Premier Filip Vujanovic.

LS political leader Miodrag Zivkovic, spokesman Slavko Perovic and parliament Speaker Vesna Perovic pointed out to Montgomery that the agreement on reforming the relations between Serbia and Montenegro denies to the Montenegrin people their right to decide their own future.

BELGRADE - Momcilo Perisic on Tuesday tendered his resignation to the office of Serbian deputy premier, sending a letter to this effect to Premier Zoran Djindjic. Perisic, who is also a DOS member of the Yugoslav parliament, said that he would not invoke immunity in the espionage accusation proceedings.

BELGRADE - Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica said he would resign if the Serbia-Montenegro agreement on their new state is not ratified by the parliaments.

The trial period for the new state opens prospects for survival and gives breathing space to Serbia, as the agreement envisages that, should Montenegro subsequently decide to pull out, Serbia will be the successor state as regards Kosovo-Metohija, Kostunica told a press conference.

Everything has been done through this agreement to protect Serbia's integrity, as has been done earlier for southern Serbia, Kostunica underlined.

Editor's commentary: That would be something! Just imagine Nazi dictator resigning! Too bad that is not reality and will never happen because all Nazi dictators must be removed forcefully. For them "live by the sword, die by the sword" is a way of life.

PODGORICA - Montenegro's Social Democratic Party (SDP) spokesman Novak Adzic has told the Monday issue of the Podgorica daily Vijesti that his party will leave the coalition with the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and Filip Vujanovic's minority government.

"Since the DPS Main Board has publicly said it supports the Belgrade agreement, it is becoming increasingly likely that this party MPs will vote for it at the republican parliament. In this case, we will leave the government, because we will have nothing to do there any more," Adzic said.

PODGORICA - Spokesman for the opposition Liberal Alliance (LS) of Montenegro Slavko Perovic told Tanjug on Monday that the party had not altered its stand that the "Belgrade agreement is dangerous for the realisation of the independent Montenegro project." "We have agreed in the party to wait for a few more days and thoroughly analyse the new situation," Perovic said and added that the "Liberals will disclose their final stand on the support to the (Montenegrin) minority government in the next few days."

Editor's commentary: The only thing left to do is to leave parliament and call for extraordinary elections because Montenegrin voters who gave their votes to LS and Djukanovic did so because of their promise to renew Montenegrin statehood. Some worthless agreement signed in Belgrade last week has only legitimized and legalized current state of chaos in FRY. Absolutely nothing has changed and only goal was to postpone independence referendum for three years. It is reasonably to believe that after 3 years there will be another postponement and so on and this state of chaos will last for the next 20 years. Politicians like Djukanovic, Kostunica and Djindjic will keep their positions and live in luxury while people will continue to suffer and massively emigrate from FRY. FRY is not currently even a candidate for EU so wasting 3 more years will only further deteriorate chances of people in Serbia and Montenegro to join EU and raise their living conditions substantially. Similar thing was promised to Kosovars in 1999 and three years period expires in July of this year. Everyone is again urging Kosovars to wait for another three years without any explanation. If extraordinary elections are not called in Serbia in April or Kostunica's party, a major obstacle for reforms and cooperation with the Hague tribunal, removed from DOS then Kosovars have full right to seek independence as well as Montenegrins because it is more than obvious that they have no reasons to be oppressed by Kostunica's fascist party who just want to create Greater Serbia and nothing else. Couple of questions for Javier Solana:

1. What will be the official language (languages) in "Serbia and Montenegro" state?

2. What will happen with Montenegrin Church? Will it be recognized officially?

3. Is it a democracy if future president of this new state is elected by members of parliament, not by voters similar to Milosevic's election in 1997?

4. What happened to basic democratic principle that people vote on important issues like independence?

VIENNA, Mar 18, 2002 -- (dpa) Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has been on a week-long unannounced visit to Austria, according to the magazine Profil.

Lukashenko had been invited by the President of the Austrian Olympic Committee Leo Wallner, who is head of the Casinos Austria firm, the report said.

Casinos Austria runs casinos on all five continents as well as in Australia.

Lukashenko is generally shunned by European Union politicians, who accuse him of human rights violations.

Profil said he had not had any meetings with Austrian government officials.

The report, in the edition of Profil due out Monday, did not make it clear whether Lukashenko was still in Austria at the weekend.

On Thursday, Lukashenko scored three goals when he played in an Austria-Belarus ice-hockey charity match in Innsbruck, the magazine said.

The report said Casinos Austria hoped for business advantages from the visit.

A director, Gerhard Skoff, was quoted as saying: "If Belarus wants to set up a casino, this will improve our hand."

Editor's commentary: It seems that Lukashenko's new role model is California governor Gray Davis who recently legalized gambling in order to secure his reelection. Rumors are that gamblers will be able to vote in casinos this November, no need to interrupt wasting their hard earned money and ruining their families.

BEIJING, Mar 19, 2002 -- (dpa) The Chinese government on Tuesday accused Taiwan Vice President Annette Lu of attempting to "split China" and building tension in cross-Strait ties by visiting Hungary and Italy this week.

"We are strongly opposed to visits by political figures of Taiwan," foreign ministry spokeswoman Zheng Qiyue told reporters.

Lu was "making use of visits to other countries to split China" and her visit could "create new tension in cross-Strait relations", Zhang said.

Zhang also slammed the European Union for supporting observer status for Taiwan in the World Health Organization, saying membership of all United Nations bodies is "limited to sovereign countries".

"China wishes to express strong indignation and resolute opposition to another interference in China's internal affairs," she said of the EU support.

"Taiwan, as a sovereign province of China, has no right to attend the organization."

Lu plans to attend a March 21-23 meeting of Liberal International (LI) in Hungary.

It will be the first time in 30 years that a vice president of Taiwan will officially lead a delegation to Europe to participate in an international conference.

London-based LI, a worldwide federation of liberal groups, invited her to lead a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) delegation.

Lu is scheduled to speak at the opening ceremony and talk about Taiwan's democracy, economic freedom and respect for human rights.

She will also make a stopover in Italy on her way to Hungary, Taiwan's foreign ministry said.

Taiwan and China split in 1949 following a civil war, but Beijing regards the island as a renegade province that must be brought back to the fold, by force if necessary.

Editor's commentary: Freedom of movement is interference in China's internal affairs!? It seems that people who live in Taiwan and their democratically elected leaders are supposed to be under "house arrest" or should we say "island arrest". It is impossible to believe that Kofi Annan and UN are letting this sort of repression going on quietly without any repercussions. What would happen if FRY authorities decide to ban Montenegrins and their political leaders from traveling abroad for the same reason? UN is too much tolerating abusive behavior of Chinese communist government, one of the worst human rights violators in the world.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- A Serbian deputy prime minister has been arrested by military police on suspicion of passing secret documents to a U.S. diplomat that could implicate Slobodan Milosevic at his war crimes trial, officials said Friday. The diplomat also was detained -- and at one point reportedly was held with a bag over his head.

The U.S. Embassy lodged a protest, saying the diplomat was ``arbitrarily arrested and held incommunicado for 15 hours.'' Declaring that the American was ``physically assaulted,'' State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States was ``outraged.''

``We are forcefully protesting these actions by the Yugoslav military to the Yugoslav civilian authorities,'' Boucher said. ``In addition to our concerns about our diplomat, we're also concerned about this apparent move against an elected Serbian civilian official.''

The Yugoslav military identified the diplomat -- who was set free on Friday -- as John David Neighbor.

Police from the military secret service also detained Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Momcilo Perisic, a former military commander, said Perisic's aide, Nebojsa Mandic.

Perisic's detention in a Belgrade restaurant appeared to catch government leaders by surprise and suggested Milosevic, Yugoslavia's former president, still wields influence among hard-line military commanders opposed to providing evidence to the U.N. war crimes tribunal.

Milosevic is on trial at The Hague for his alleged role in Yugoslav troops atrocities in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia during the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

A military statement said Perisic was detained on suspicion of ``espionage.''

A military source told The Associated Press that Perisic was apprehended while allegedly handing over secret army documents that ``could link Milosevic with war crimes.''

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic said he saw Perisic briefly after detention and Perisic told him ``he was set up'' and was not passing any secret documents to the U.S. diplomat.

Djindjic blasted the arrests as ``a first-rate scandal'' and said the military secret service has ``gone out of control.''

The U.S. diplomat ``was detained with a bag over his head, had no translator nor a lawyer,'' Djindjic said.

More military and police vehicles than usual were sighted on Belgrade streets after nightfall. Djindjic sought to lessen tensions, telling reporters: ``I wouldn't describe this as an apparent coup attempt.''

The Yugoslav Foreign Ministry said the developments ``could seriously hamper relations between (our) two countries.''

A joint statement by the Serbian and Yugoslav governments said: ``The manner in which this case was handled casts doubt on whether the military and its security services are under civilian control.''

A ranking Serbian government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Cabinet had convened an emergency session Friday, and Perisic's apartment and office had been searched by military agents.

He described the detention as a warning from ``a clique of military hard-liners what will happen if we continue with our policy of cooperation with The Hague war crimes tribunal.''

Milosevic was ousted and turned over to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands by the leadership of Serbia, the dominant Yugoslav republic. The same leadership remains under pressure from the West to hand over other politicians who have been indicted by the tribunal but faces opposition from hard-liners.

Perisic served as Yugoslavia's chief of staff during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia, but was sacked by Milosevic in 1998 on the eve of NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia for criticizing the Kosovo campaign against ethnic Albanian militants conducted by Milosevic.

Perisic commanded Yugoslav troops during the opening stages of wars in Croatia and Bosnia in the early 1990s. He was sentenced in a Croat court in absentia to 20 years in prison for ordering the shelling of the towns of Sibenik and Zadar.

Perisic was fired a few months before NATO's 78-day air attack against Yugoslavia. Before the strikes, Perisic had met top NATO commanders, including U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark. He had been criticized by Milosevic's hard-liners as ``too pro-American.''

PODGORICA, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Independence forces claimed betrayal Friday and threatened to topple Montenegro's government over a deal that keeps the republic in a union with Serbia.

There was also loud criticism of the plan in Serbia, where opponents said it effectively wipes Yugoslavia off the map, replacing it with a loose union of two republics. Many critics said the plan for the confederation, adopted Thursday, would be unworkable.

The agreement foresees Serbia and Montenegro becoming semi-independent and holds open the possibility of full independence three years down the road, should either republic choose to leave the confederation.

Serbia and Montenegro will share a defense and foreign policy, but will run separate economies, currencies and customs services. The name Yugoslavia will be replaced by Serbia and Montenegro.

The European Union, whose foreign policy chief Javier Solana mediated the accord, has insisted that Serbia and Montenegro remain united to avoid further political instability in the Balkans. Solana said the accord would pave the way for eventual EU membership.

The EU also has agreed to recognize the two nations as independent states if the union is dissolved.

Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, who faced sharp criticism in Montenegro for giving up a planned independence referendum, predicted the plan would win parliamentary approval. He said he would continue working for independence but suggested that international good will was worth the concessions.

But he was criticized Friday by his coalition partners for allegedly caving in to pressure from the European Union.

``This represents a betrayal without parallel in modern European history,'' said Slavko Perovic, head of the pro-independence Liberal Party.

``The agreement is unacceptable, and our party will pull out of the coalition if the accord is ratified by parliament,'' said Ranko Krivokapic of the Social Democratic Party, another key Djukanovic ally.

If the two coalition partners withdraw their support, the Montenegrin government could collapse, leading to parliamentary elections at a time when many pro-independence voters are upset with Djukanovic.

Djukanovic said Friday that local elections in Montenegro would be held May 15. The vote could show whether Djukanovic's party has lost support because of his decision to step back from immediate independence.

Dozens of independence-minded Montenegrins protested against the deal in Podgorica, their capital. In a leaflet distributed to the media, protesters demanded ``to exercise their right to vote on Montenegrin independence.''

In Belgrade, the Serbian capital, Serbian Justice Minister Vladan Batic expressed dissatisfaction with at least part of that republic's leadership, which had favored maintaining present ties with Montenegro. With a population of more than 9 million -- almost 15 times that of Montenegro -- Serbia has dominated Yugoslav policy-making.

``This imitation of a nation cannot survive long,'' Batic said. ``This kind of loose union does not exist anywhere in practice, or even in political theory.''

Some independent analysts also expressed doubt that the plan would work.

``The proposed economic arrangements ... will be both inefficient and expensive,'' said Nebojsa Savic, head of an economic research institute in Belgrade. ``In practice, the union will have overlapping customs, banking and tax systems.''

But some top politicians in both republics praised the deal.

``This will be a good arrangement if it is implemented correctly,'' Finance Minister Bozidar Djelic told reporters. ``Serbia will achieve all the economic preconditions to function as a sovereign state -- its own customs service, central bank and fiscal policy.''

Montenegro's pro-Serb Socialist National Party celebrated the survival of a joint state, saying it would benefit both entities.

``Within three years, the new state will stabilize itself and demonstrate its efficiency,'' declared party leader Predrag Bulatovic. ``There will be no need for referendums on independence.''

LONDON, Mar 13, 2002 -- (dpa) British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Tuesday there is "overwhelming and compelling" evidence of Iraq developing weapons of mass destruction.

He told parliament in London that the regime in Baghdad "represents a severe threat to international and regional security as a result of its continuing development" of such weapons.

In a debate during which speakers voiced concern about possible military action in Iraq, Straw said the international community's most pressing demand was for Baghdad to re-admit United Nations weapons inspectors.

BERLIN, Mar 12, 2002 -- (dpa) German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's re-election bid has not been going well - and the latest news stinks. Literally.

Schroeder's Social Democrats (SPD) in Cologne have admitted taking 520,000 marks (232,000 dollars) in what appear to have been bribes linked to a deal for a huge garbage incinerator.

The funds were laundered through secret Swiss bank accounts before being sent back to Germany and divided into smaller tranches to evade party finance laws.

When the scandal broke earlier this month SPD leaders in Berlin declared it a local affair and pretended there would be no impact on Schroeder's bid to win re-election on September 22.

But this position swiftly crumbled even though there is no evidence Schroeder or other SPD leaders are involved.

SPD Secretary General Franz Muentefering, admitted at a news briefing Monday: "We don't know how much money there was and where it came from."

Police and state prosecutors have seized documents from SPD offices in Cologne and are gearing up probes in other several cities. The drumbeat of revelations thus looks likely to continue for coming months.

There are reports of a list with names of about 40 SPD members involved in the affair. "I haven't seen any such list," declared Muentefering before flying to Duesseldorf on a damage limitation bid.

The news weekly Der Spiegel warned the affair was going to cause big trouble for Schroeder in an election year. An opinion poll for the N24 TV news network showed 61 percent of voters believe the scandal will harm Schroeder's re-election chances.

"This is a super-meltdown," said unnamed SPD officials quoted by Der Spiegel.

The SPD imbroglio comes as the main opposition Christian Democrats are recovering from a slush fund affair in which former chancellor Helmut Kohl admitted taking 2.1 million marks.

For Schroeder, the SPD scandal is only the latest item on a long list of woes clouding his bid for another term.

Topping Schroeder's problems is German unemployment which is 10.4 percent, or 4.3 million. Schroeder - in a rash moment - promised voters after his election in 1998 that he would reduce joblessness to 3.5 million by 2002.

For conservative challenger Edmund Stoiber these figures are key campaign ammunition and he repeats them at every chance followed by the allegation the SPD is the party of economic incompetence.

Germany's weak economy is indeed a further drag on Schroeder. GDP grew by a sickly 0.6 percent last year and is expected to rise by about the same in 2002.

The head of Deutsche Bank AG - Germany's biggest bank - warned Monday that Germany was at the bottom of the European heap when it came to growth.

"Economic development will place Germany near last place in the euro-zone," said Deutsche CEO Rolf Breuer.

Schroeder blames September 11 and the global slowdown. But Stoiber asks why other European countries have not suffered such steep declines.

A further embarrassment for Schroeder is the latest financial debacle of the Holzmann construction company.

In a widely publicized move shortly after his election, Schroeder pressured banks to bail out the nearly bankrupt Holzmann concern.

Workers in hardhats cheered Schroeder and the move symbolized the new center-left government's determination to intervene and not merely to let capitalism run its course.

But now Holzmann is again in the brink after running up total losses of 2 billion euros (1.75 billion dollars).

All of the above is reflected in opinion polls. The chancellor has trailed Stoiber in every poll since the Bavarian premier was named conservative candidate early this year.

A ZDF German TV poll on Friday gave Stoiber's Christian Democratic alliance (CDU/CSU) 41 percent, compared with 37 percent for Schroeder's SPD. An Emnid poll showed a tighter race with 39 percent for the CDU/CSU and 38 percent for SPD.

As if SPD weakness was not enough, Schroeder's even bigger worry is that his Greens coalition partner appear headed to election day disaster.

The Greens have seen their share of the vote plunge in all 18 federal, state and European elections since 1998. Current opinion polls give the Greens a miserable 4 to 6 percent.

This would not be enough for majority with the SPD and if the Greens fail to clear the 5 percent hurdle they will be tossed out of parliament under German election law aimed at keeping out marginal parties.

BRUSSELS, Mar 12, 2002 -- (dpa) European Union governments Monday rebuked China on its human rights record but said they would not table a special resolution criticizing Beijing at the United Nations Human Rights Commission starting this month in Geneva.

A statement by EU foreign ministers issued on Monday said the bloc remained deeply concerned at "serious violations of human rights in China and lack of progress in a number of areas."

While EU governments accepted Beijing's concerns over alleged acts of terrorism inside China, "the fight against terrorism should be pursued with full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms," ministers cautioned.

The EU statement chided China on its treatment of pro-democracy activists, proponents of free trade unions and followers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Governments were deeply concerned also at "restrictions against unofficial churches and religious groups as well as deprivation of religious and cultural rights in Tibet and Xinjiang," the statement added.

But ministers said the EU was not going to table its own anti- China resolution at the Geneva Human Rights Commission.

EU countries would however vote in favor of any such resolution tabled by other states and vote against China's time-honored - and successful - effort to stop the resolution through a "no-action motion," they said.

PARIS, Mar 11, 2002 -- (dpa) A group of experienced mountaineers Sunday scaled the Eiffel Tower in Paris, unfurling a banner that read "Freedom for Tibet - Peace for Tibet".

Firefighters said the protest action over China's control of Tibet began before dawn.

The mountaineers climbed the section between the first and the second floor of the 300-meter-high tower, a Paris landmark and a popular tourist attraction. The up to 20 political activists later descended using the staircase.

The action came after China on Saturday rejected an appeal by the United States to open up a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who has been living in exile in India since 1959 after China seized control of Tibet.

The Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 Paris International Exhibition commemorating the centenary of the French Revolution.

SYDNEY, Mar 10, 2002 -- (dpa) An Australian deported from China told Saturday of a beating by Chinese police after his arrest last week during a Falun Gong protest in Tianamen Square.

David Rubacek, 24, was one of nine Australian Falun Gong followers put on a plane after the Beijing protest by the spiritualist sect that China has outlawed.

Rubacek, speaking outside the Chinese Consulate in Sydney, said that members of the group were interrogated for six hours before being deported.

"I was wearing this tie around my neck, and they wanted to get me out of the seat so they just grabbed it and yanked it, but they yanked it so hard it just snapped, and so they just grabbed me by the suit and they got me up and one of them just started hitting me in the head," Rubacek told Australia's ABC Radio.

"It must have lasted about a minute, and eventually they got me on the ground, and they hit me to the back. They pushed my head into the ground."

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said Sunday his country would not allow U.N. weapons inspectors to return.

``Iraq's rejection of the teams of spies to return back to Iraq is firm and won't change,'' Ramadan was quoted by the official Iraqi News Agency INA as saying, referring to the weapons inspectors.

``Iraq is fully convinced that there is no need for them (the inspectors) to return,'' Ramadan said. ``They had carried out vicious spying activities in Iraq for more than eight years.''

Ramadan's remarks came after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri ended a meeting in New York Thursday aimed at allowing the inspectors to return Iraq. Another meeting is set for April.

U.N. arms experts, searching for weapons of mass destruction, worked in Iraq several years before they left the country on the eve of U.S.-British bombing campaign in December 1998. They have not been allowed in since.

Late Saturday, Iraqi Deputy Premier Tareq Aziz said talks between Iraq and the United Nations should put as much importance on lifting sanctions and ending no-fly zones as on sending back weapons inspectors.

``Singling out the question of inspectors is wrong,'' Aziz told reporters.

``There are many items (the United Nations should discuss): the sanctions, the no-fly zones and the continuous aggression and violation of international law by the United States and United Kingdom,'' Aziz said.

``All these matters should be addressed, not just one item. The focus is on one subject (the return of inspectors) as if it were the only concern.''

NO-FLY ZONES

The United States and Britain are enforcing no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq, set up soon after the 1991 Gulf War to protect a Kurdish enclave in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from possible attacks by Baghdad forces.

Sanctions were imposed on Iraq in August 1990 as punishment for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The United States wants U.N. inspectors to return to check if Baghdad is developing weapons of mass destruction.

Speculation is mounting that an Iraqi refusal could trigger a U.S. assault on Iraq aimed at toppling President Saddam Hussein.

Aziz told Germany's Welt am Sonntag newspaper Sunday that the United Nations was not interested in weapons inspection but rather in overthrowing Saddam.

``The American president has made clear that the case of Iraq is not about the fight against terrorism and not about arms control,'' he said. ``In disregard for our sovereignty, he wants to eliminate the regime of President Saddam Hussein and create an armed opposition to fan a civil war.''

The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday that the U.S. administration has told the Defense Department to prepare, on a contingency basis, plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries including Iraq.

Sunday, Secretary of State Colin Powell told CBS television the contingency report was not a precursor to imminent U.S. action but was simply ``sound, military conceptual planning.''

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- A power struggle in Yugoslavia deepened Saturday after President Vojislav Kostunica's party announced it would boycott key ruling coalition meetings.

Kostunica's Democratic Party of Serbia, a key member of the ruling alliance, the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, announced the boycott late Friday after refusing to endorse a draft law on cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands.

The party said it would withdraw from all meetings of Serbia's presidency, which includes party leaders of all alliance members and shapes most Yugoslav policy.

In a statement, Kostunica's party said it had ``no intention of giving false legitimacy to the decisions passed by other parties.''

Dragan Marsicanin, the party's deputy president, said Saturday that it had not left the coalition but only decided to boycott presidency meetings.

But Serbia's Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic, said the Democratic Party of Serbia had ``abandoned'' the coalition and warned that the 18-party alliance might push lawmakers from the Yugoslav president's party out of the federal and Serbian parliaments.

Kostunica's party holds 45 of 250 seats in the Serbian parliament, eight of the 130 seats in the federal parliament's lower chamber and one of 40 in its upper chamber. Djindjic and his allies control 131 seats in the Serbian parliament.

The two are rivals and have clashed in the past over the U.N. tribunal that is prosecuting former Yugoslav political and military leaders accused of war crimes during the country's violent breakup in the 1990s.

Djindjic, whose party is the largest in the coalition, supports the law on cooperation with the court in The Hague. He engineered the extradition of former President Slobodan Milosevic to the tribunal last year, while Kostunica fiercely opposed it.

Kostunica's party's rejection of the law led to the collapse of Yugoslavia's federal government last year. Yugoslavia comprises two republics, the small Montenegro and the much larger Serbia.

Friday's announcement marked the third time that Kostunica's party has boycotted the coalition's meetings. The previous disputes were resolved after long and complex negotiations.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- An Iranian Revolutionary Guards general and eight other Iranians have been arrested by Afghan forces and handed over to U.S. authorities, an Afghan politician said Saturday.

The politician, Afghan royalist Izzatullah Wasafi, said the officer, whom he identified as a Gen. Razavi, was leading an Iranian group clandestinely distributing money and arms to allies in western Afghanistan when they were seized by Afghan forces last Tuesday.

A day later, at a midnight meeting with Wasafi and others, the governor of Kandahar province abruptly decided to hand the men over to the U.S. military when he learned they were Iranians, Wasafi said.

A U.S. military official confirmed Friday that an Iranian group was being held and interviewed at Kandahar's airport, an American base where scores of suspected members of the al-Qaida organization and the Afghan Taliban are also detained, The New York Times reported. The newspaper did not identify the military official.

There was no immediate public reaction from the Iranian government to the detention. American officials have complained repeatedly that Iran was working in western Afghanistan to undermine the new U.S. influence in this country.

The basis for the U.S. detention of Iranian nationals in a third country and the Americans' plans for them could not be determined immediately. The U.S. military command at the Kandahar base has routinely refused to discuss its detainees.

Wasafi, who said he had been involved in tracking the Iranian group's activities, said it included three Iranian border guards and five other members of the Revolutionary Guards -- a trusted Iranian military corps tied closely to supreme Iranian religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He said three Afghans serving as the Iranians' guides also were apprehended in the operation, which he described as a trap set by a militia commander in Shindand, in Herat province 105 miles east of the Iranian border.

The commander pretended he was interested in the Iranians' offer of money, but when the group approached a meeting point the commander's soldiers fired off warning shots, stopped the three vehicles carrying the 12 men and took them into custody, according to this account.

Now, Wasafi said, he fears that the pro-Iranian governor of Herat, Afghan warlord Ismail Khan, may take action against the Afghans who rounded up the agents, possibly touching off armed clashes in the region.

``Ismail Khan may get pushed by the Iranians to take out these people or whatever. He probably will do something about this,'' Wasafi said.

A militia commander from western Afghanistan told The Associated Press that Iran is sending ``money, food and other things'' to certain armed groups in the region.

``There are some commanders under the governor of Herat who are supported by Iran,'' said the militia leader, Walid Jan Agha from Farah, the province bordering Herat on the south. He said he had come here to warn the Kandahar provincial governor, Gul Agha Shirzai, of the Iranian involvement. Shirzai also bears regional responsibility for Farah and other southwestern provinces.

Shirzai's spokesman, Yusuf Pashtun, has said Iranian operatives were sending arms and cash to certain commanders in western provinces, an area of traditional Iranian influence. But the new Afghan leadership, installed after the U.S.-led war ousted the previous Taliban regime last December, generally has sought a cooperative relationship with its western neighbor, and played down the issue of Iranian interference in Afghanistan.

Gov. Shirzai initially did not realize that the group brought in from the west and put in the Kandahar city jail were Iranians, not just another group of suspected Taliban, Wasafi said. ``Then my father told him, `Do you realize who these people are?' It was 12 o'clock at night.'' The Afghans immediately asked the Americans to take charge of the detainees.

Wasafi, 43, and his father, Azizullah, 75, are longtime supporters of the Afghan king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, who is scheduled to return from European exile around March 19. The Wasafis have lived in Los Angeles and New York the past 19 years.

Izzatullah Wasafi said he believed the detainees were not the only Iranians recruiting western Afghans to Tehran's banner. ``I'm sure there are still others. They will carry on.''

BELGRADE, Mar 7, 2002 -- (dpa) A car driver escaped with a haul of 5.6 million euros (4.87 million dollars) on Wednesday in Serbia's largest robbery, local media reported.

The car, a Fiat, was being used to transport the cash.

When it arrived at an underground garage at the Delta bank headquarters in New Belgrade in the morning, one security guard and a policeman went to deliver part of the cash while the driver remained behind with four policemen, the bank said in a statement.

When the guard returned, he found no car, no driver and no policemen.

No other details were immediately available.

KIEV, Mar 7, 2002 -- (dpa) A Ukrainian woman running for parliament took her clothes off on television in an attempt to woo voters, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday.

Housewife and mother of two Elena Solad, 28, said she performed a striptease act in a television campaign spot to demonstrate that "I am a natural person without complexes or pretensions".

Solad is running for a seat in a southern electoral district.

If elected, she intends to support legalized prostitution and the use of marijuana.

Editor's commentary: We all hope that Janet Reno who runs for Florida governorship will not attempt this.

MOSCOW, Mar 7, 2002 -- (dpa) Russia on Thursday lashed back at criticism by the U.S. State Department of its human rights record.

Authors of the department's annual report had reverted to old prejudices "as if the events of September 11, 2001, had never happened and the international community had not united in the fight against terrorism," the Foreign Ministry in Moscow retaliated in a statement.

It said attacks on Russia's conduct in Chechnya are particularly odious and accused "certain circles" in Washington of using the subject to undermine Russian-U.S. relations, the Interfax news agency reported.

Russia regards its more than two-year-old campaign against Chechen rebels and foreign mercenaries in the separatist republic as an anti-terrorist operation.

The State Department's annual report on human rights violations was most critical of North Korea, Iran and Iraq, but Russia and China also featured prominently.

The Russian ministry rounded off its response with a tip for the United States to look at rights issues in its own backyard, "including capital punishment".

Editor's commentary: What about those whose rights are violated by totalitarian FSB government? Detailed analysis of those abuses is coming soon and in the meantime you can check out full reports for 2000 and 2001 as well as our analysis for 2000:

MOSCOW, Mar 7, 2002 -- (RFE/RL) The bodies of four young Chechen men, all local residents, were found in an abandoned house in the town of Argun on 2 March, AP reported on 5 March, quoting the deputy head of the town's administration, Aslanbek Ismailov.

The bodies had bullet wounds in the head and chest, and bore marks of torture. Ismailov rejected claims by the military commandant that the men were killed during recent fighting, pointing out that no such fighting has taken place. Chechenpress.org gave the names of the young men on 5 March and reported that they were detained by Russian troops on 2 March and taken to the local military commandant's office, where they were shot and their corpses dressed in military fatigues in an attempt to "prove" that they were supporters of Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov.

AS LOCAL RESIDENTS DEMAND THAT MASS GRAVE BE EXCAVATED

Some 200 women staged a demonstration on 4 March outside the Military Prosecutor's Office in Argun to demand that a date be set for the excavation of a recently discovered mass grave, chechenpress.org reported on 5 March.

The Salvation Army has won the right to continue operating in Moscow after a long court battle. The international Christian charity was banned from Moscow last year after a local court ruled it was a "paramilitary grouping".

But Russia's Constitutional Court has now overturned the verdict, allowing the Salvation Army, whose uniforms and badges are a trademark in their evangelical charity work, to return to the city.

Earlier, the organisation had suggested the real cause of the conflict in Moscow was the organisation's refusal to pay bribes.

Full story here.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Defiant members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual group hijacked state television in a northeastern Chinese city to show a film protesting a government crackdown on their faith, locals said on Thursday.

Reports of the television protest, one of Falun Gong's most audacious, emerged as China detained seven foreign adherents on Tiananmen Square for protesting Beijing's campaign against the group it calls an evil cult.

State television broadcasts in Changchun were interrupted on Tuesday evening by footage of Falun Gong's U.S.-based leader Li Hongzhi and a film accusing the government of staging a self-immolation of alleged adherents in Tiananmen Square last year, locals said.

``There was a brief blackout and then there was Li Hongzhi speaking, banners saying Falun Dafa is good,' and there was a news analysis about the Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident which indicated that it was planted by the government,'' a television viewer in Changchun told Reuters.

The footage lasted about 50 minutes before normal state television programming resumed, he said.

It was one of the most daring protests by Falun Gong, whose once regular demonstrations in Tiananmen Square have petered out in the last year since the government arrested group leaders and sent thousands of followers to ``re-education'' camps.

However, foreign adherents have kept up their campaign with a string of protests on the square -- the latest coming on Thursday right in front of the building where the National People's Congress, China's parliament, was holding its annual meeting.

Police whisked away the foreigners, at least three of whom were Australian, after the latest of several protests in recent months by foreigners who were swiftly expelled from the country.

POLICE INVESTIGATE

Police in Changchun had arrested a local man in connection with the television incident, the Changchun Evening newspaper said, without offering more details.

Changchun residents said they believed the incident was the work of underground Falun Gong practitioners still active in the city, but it was unclear how they managed to penetrate the local cable TV network.

Changchun, a city of 1.3 million people, is Li Hongzhi's home town and thousands of people there remain faithful to the self-styled spiritual leader, they said.

Officials at the city's police department and state-owned Changchun Cable Television Corporation, the city's biggest cable broadcaster, declined to comment on the incident.

But a city government official told Reuters a police circular sent to city hall said high-ranking officials and investigators from the Ministry of Public Security in Beijing had been sent to Changchun to investigate the incident.

The television protest was the group's latest effort to fight back against a fierce state media campaign to discredit the group, focusing on the self-immolations in which a 12-year-old girl and her mother died.

Falun Gong denies they were true adherents and accuses the government of setting up the incident.

FOREIGNERS DETAINED

The foreign demonstrators were detained on Tuesday at a police station where they sat in a circle and meditated, a witness said.

``I heard this one man telling the Chinese police about their rights of protest and expression according to the Chinese constitution,'' he said.

``I saw the banners that belonged to them spread out on a table. They were banners for Falun Gong -- some were purple and yellow.''

Kati Vereshaka, a spokeswoman in Australia for the Falun Gong which is also known as Falun Dafa, identified three of the detained protesters as her cousin Mihai Molnar, his wife, Candice, and Greg March, all from Melbourne.

Vereshaka said she had asked the Australian Foreign Ministry and the Australian embassy in Beijing to intervene.

``They are now trying to get in contact,'' she said. ''Hopefully, they will be released soon because they have done nothing illegal,'' Vereshaka told Reuters.

``They went there to appeal on behalf of the Chinese Falun Gong practitioners. All they did was unfurl a banner saying Falun Dafa is good in Chinese characters.''

There was no immediate comment from the Australian embassy or from the Chinese government.

China expelled 53 Westerners last month and 35 foreign Falun Gong members in November for similar protests.

China branded Falun Gong an evil cult in 1999 after thousands of followers shocked the government with a mass protest demanding official recognition of their faith around the Beijing leadership compound near Tiananmen Square.

Falun Gong says more than 1,600 followers have since died as a result of abuse in police custody or detention centers.

The government says only a handful have died, mostly from suicide or natural causes. It blames Falun Gong for the deaths of at least 1,900 people by suicide or refusing medical treatment.

THE HAGUE -- Serb forces sliced off limbs, split open skulls and gouged out the eyes of Kosovo Albanian villagers during a crackdown in Kosovo in 1998, a witness told Slobodan Milosevic's war crimes trial Thursday.

Serb forces murdered and mutilated ethnic Albanians in September 1998 as Belgrade launched an offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) separatist guerrilla campaign in the disputed province, the Hague war crimes court heard.

``People were mutilated,'' said Kosovo Albanian human rights activist Sabit Kadriu, who visited the site of atrocities in the north-western Cicavica region of Kosovo in September 1998.

Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader charged with crimes against humanity in Croatia and Kosovo and genocide in Bosnia in the 1990s, listened impassively as the 41-year-old witness chronicled a catalog of grisly killings in the southern Serb province.

``It was really terrible.... There were young people who were mutilated. They had stuck their eyes out and they had cut off parts of their bodies,'' Kadriu said. ``The crime was committed with knives.''

Among the atrocities Kadriu discovered while working for the Council for the Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms, a local group which provided information on Kosovo's atrocities to the tribunal in 1998, were bodies of people whose skulls had been cracked open.

``They had been hit on the head with a hammer and their brains were scattered all around,'' he said. In some cases it was difficult to identify the corpses found after such attacks.

Locals told him Serb forces in camouflage, green or blue uniforms had attacked and killed villagers. Some of them had worn handkerchiefs over their faces.

GREATER SERBIA

The silver-haired former Serb leader is accused of spearheading the deportation of 800,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo between March and June 1999 as part of a grand strategy to create an ethnically pure ``Greater Serbia.''

Prosecutors have asked witnesses to outline the build-up to NATO intervention against Serb forces in Kosovo and the 1999 mass expulsion of its majority-ethnic Albanian population.

On trial since February 12, Milosevic has vigorously cross-examined witnesses. The trial started with evidence on Kosovo and will later move on to tackle indictments on Croatia in 1991-92 and the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Milosevic, who was extradited in June from Belgrade by the reformists who defeated him in 2000 elections, has declined to plead and judges entered not guilty pleas on his behalf.

The KLA started a campaign of violent resistance to Serb rule in the mid-1990s which brought Kosovo to widespread Western public attention and ultimately drew NATO into the conflict.

The province has been under U.N. control since NATO's bombing campaign drove out Serb forces during Milosevic's rule.

Earlier this month veteran ethnic Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova was elected president of Kosovo in a vote that marked a major step toward self-rule in the Yugoslav province.

Kosovo's final status remains to be determined at a future date. Ethnic Albanians overwhelmingly want independence, while the province's Serb minority insist Kosovo should be reintegrated into Yugoslavia and Serbia, its dominant republic.

A Swiss court has convicted the former Kremlin business manager, Pavel Borodin, of money laundering and fined him $177,000.

Borodin - once one of the most powerful men in Russia - was accused of accepting illegal payments from the companies in return for the contracts, and of laundering the money in Swiss bank accounts.

Full story here.

At a news conference in London, Mr Berezovsky presented what he said was evidence that the bombings were the work of the Russian security service, the FSB.

The Russian tycoon showed part of a French documentary at the news conference which linked two bombings in Moscow and one in Volgadonsk with an attempted attack in Ryazan, 200 km (125 miles) south-east of Moscow.

He also has the backing of a Russian explosives expert, ex-FSB member and former director of the Russian Conversion Explosives Centre, Nikita Chekulin, who says that before the bombings, security services purchased large amounts of the explosive Hexogen, said to have been found at Ryazan.

Mr Berezovsky says the fact that no-one has ever been brought to justice for the bombings is further proof that they were not the result of Chechens.

The tycoon said that the subsequent campaign in Chechnya aided Mr Putin's rise to power.

Full story here.

PODGORICA - In a letter US senator Bob Dole has sent to Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, he expressed his belief that the United States administartion would accept the will of Montenegro's people, the Montenegrin state TV said late on Monday. With the help of your allies in the Congress and Pentagon, we are ready to do everything that is possible to persuade the Washington administration to recognise the results of a democratic Montenegrin referendum and welcome Montenegro into the community of nations, former US vice-president Bob Dole said.