BBC - Wednesday, 30 April, 2003

The Serbian authorities have charged former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic with organising the attempted assassination of his rival, Vuk Draskovic, three years ago.

Mr Milosevic - who is currently on trial for war crimes at the international tribunal in The Hague - is accused of setting up a group that tried to kill Mr Draskovic in June 2000.

This is the second time in less than a week that the police have filed charges against Mr Milosevic.

He has also been charged with inciting the murder three years ago of the former Serbian president, Ivan Stambolic.

Full story here.

Serbian ultra-nationalist Vojislav Seselj has been charged in connection with last month's assassination of reformist Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

He faces charges of "incitement to terrorism and murder", Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic told a news conference in the capital Belgrade. Mr Seselj is currently in The Hague, awaiting trial on war crimes charges, which he denies.

Mr Mihajlovic said 44 other people had also been charged with similar offences, and that 15 people were directly involved in the assassination plot.

He said that among the detainees were Rade Bulatovic, an aid to former Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, and also former security chief Aco Tomic.

Full story here.

Cuba's recent clampdown on dissidents is alienating Italy, a country historically close to the Caribbean island.

On Tuesday, the Italian lower house approved a motion calling on the government to halt Italy's economic aid to Cuba if dissidents are not freed and executions are not stopped.

Cuba recently jailed 75 dissidents and executed three ferry hijackers.

The motion - sponsored by the centre-right ruling coalition but partially backed by the left as well - also urged the government to seek a EU-wide common position of pressure on Cuba.

The move could be helped by Italy's forthcoming term of EU presidency, scheduled to start on 1 July.

By acting against Cuba's one-party socialist state, Italy's conservative ruling coalition has come yet one step closer to the positions of US President George W Bush.

Full story here.

Claims that the French security services worked with Iraq to disrupt a conference on the widespread use of torture and murder by Saddam Hussein's regime should be investigated by France's parliament, a Labour MP said.

Ann Clwyd says that documents uncovered in Iraq's foreign ministry by a British journalist indicate a co-ordinated effort to undermine a Paris meeting of Indict, the organisation she founded to press for legal action against members of Saddam's regime.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has already pledged to investigate the alleged incident and make a written statement to MPs, she told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Ms Clwyd - an advocate of attacking Iraq to remove its regime - said she had chaired the conference in 2000 which was aimed at raising the profile of Indict in France.

Full story here.

Charges have been filed against ex-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic over the death of a former critic and rival.

Serb police have also filed charges against eight others suspected of being involved in the killing of one-time president of Serbia, Ivan Stambolic.

The body of Mr Stambolic - a friend turned foe of Mr Milosevic - was found last month buried in a ditch. He disappeared in August 2000.

The charges have been sent to the Belgrade district prosecutor's office which will investigate the case before deciding whether to issue indictments.

Full story here.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Opponents of President Fidel Castro said on Wednesday that mass arrests and infiltration by government spies knocked them to their knees, but they expect to rise again on growing discontent with Cuba's crumbling communist state.

Dissidents who survived the worst wave of repression in Cuba in decades said their fragile organizations were decapitated by the round-up of 75 leading dissidents, activists and independent journalists a month ago.

``The dissident movement is practically paralyzed,'' said Vladimiro Roca, who was freed last year after four years in jail for criticizing Castro's economic policies.

``It was a really big blow, but there are enough dissidents out of jail. We are regrouping,'' the son of a founding father of Cuba's ruling Communist Party told Reuters.

Roca said it would take months before disabled dissident groups could raise their heads again.

Western diplomats in Havana wonder whether Cuba's small and divided opposition groups will be able to regain momentum after so many were given severe prison terms of up to 28 years.

The crackdown dealt a devastating blow to a nascent opposition movement that had raised its voice last year calling for democratic reforms to the one-party state while enjoying a rare period of official tolerance.

Particularly shocking was the number of undercover security agents who surfaced at the trials as witnesses to reveal that they had been posing as dissidents, in some case for decades.

``The damage to the dissidents is enormous. I don't know how they will recover now,'' said a European ambassador.

``Who can they trust now, after it turns out that even leading figures were agents for 10 years?'' the diplomat added.

CASTRO LOSES FRIENDS

The jailings, followed by the firing squad executions this month of three men who hijacked a Havana commuter ferry in a bid to reach the United States, brought an outpouring of international criticism, and lost Castro some close friends.

Communist parties in Italy, France and Portugal criticized the repression and Portuguese Nobel prize winning writer Jose Saramago declared that his friendship with Castro had ended because the right to dissent had been suppressed in Cuba.

The Cuban government said the executions were necessary to stop illegal migration to Florida encouraged by Washington.

Havana maintained the jailed dissidents had committed treason by conspiring with diplomats of its longtime foe the United States, where the Bush administration has stepped up support for Castro's opponents who have received U.S.-funded computers, digital cameras and short-wave radios.

Diplomats and dissidents said the crackdown was prompted by discontent over economic hardship and the first nationwide opposition movement, the Varela Project signature drive.

``The arrests and trials were meant to stop the dissidents capitalizing on the growing discontent,'' a European diplomat said. ``There are many reasons Cubans are unhappy: transport, food, lack of horizons. The government's alarm bells went off.''

Cuba's economy has never recovered fully from the collapse of Soviet communism. Foreign investment has dropped to a trickle due to bureaucracy, and tourism, the Caribbean island's main source of foreign currency, slumped last year.

FEW PROSPECTS OF CHANGE

Puffing on a cigar before his computer sent from the United States, veteran rights activist Elizardo Sanchez said the dissident movement was born locally, not in the United States.

``They cut the grass, but the grass will grow again because the economic crisis continues to feed popular discontent,'' he said. ``I've never felt so much solidarity in the streets.''

More than half of the jailed dissidents were local organizers of the Varela Project, whose leader Oswaldo Paya won the European Union's Sakharov human rights prize last year.

``This wave of terror is an attempt to kill the chances of peaceful change in Cuba, but we will continue seeking peaceful reforms,'' Paya said.

Diplomatic observers with years in Havana said Castro could not tolerate criticism of his socialist society born of a 1959 guerrilla revolution and was determined to see it outlast him.

But they said the 76-year-old leader was making it hard for his political successors to stay in control.

``These repressive steps are gradually undermining his government's legitimacy, making any succession difficult,'' a South American diplomat said.

``Each day there is more despair among Cubans because of the lack of future perspectives,'' he said.

Secret KGB archives released in Ukraine show that there were problems with the Chernobyl nuclear plant before the 1986 explosion - the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster.

The 121 documents - dating from 1971 to 1988 - include a report from 1984, which notes deficiencies in the third and fourth reactors, and also the poor quality of some equipment sent from Yugoslav companies.

There are also references to an incident at the plant in 1982, in which small doses of radiation were released.

The explosion on 26 April on the fourth reactor released 100 times the amount of radiation of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki put together.

Between 15,000 and 30,000 people have since died and the United Nations estimates that nearly six million people continue to live in contaminated areas.

Full story here.

A bishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church has been charged with the sexually molesting five teenage boys.

Bishop Pahomije is accused of lewd behaviour and attempts to force intimacy with the boys during last year's visit to a monastery in the southern town of Vranje, about 250 kilometres (155 miles) south of the capital Belgrade.

The bishop - whose secular name is Tomislav Gacic - has strenuously denied any wrongdoing, dismissing the accusations as "lies".

The charges are the first of their kind ever brought against a senior dignitary in the Serbian Orthodox Church - if convicted he faces several years in prison.

Meanwhile, the editor of Novine Vranjske, Vuk Obradovic, claimed to have received death threats after the newspaper had published the boys' testimonies.

Full story here.

Serbian officials have issued another international arrest warrant for Mirjana Markovic, wife of the former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Authorities say they issued the warrant after Mrs Markovic failed to appear in court for the second time earlier this week, on charges of abuses of power during Mr Milosevic's regime.

An arrest warrant was previously issued in connection with her suspected involvement in the murder of a one-time president of Serbia, Ivan Stambolic, who became a strong critic of her husband.

She is thought to be hiding in Russia with her son Marko Milosevic.

Full story here.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A veteran Russian liberal politician, leader of a staunchly anti-Kremlin party, was shot dead Thursday in an attack that Moscow's police chief said was the work of a contract killer.

Sergei Yushenkov, whose Liberal Russia party was founded by exiled business tycoon Boris Berezovsky -- himself at odds with President Vladimir Putin -- died shortly after being shot at close range near his home in northern Moscow, police said.

"It is obviously the work of a professional killer," the Itar-Tass news agency quoted Vladimir Pronin, head of the Moscow police, as saying.

The murder in broad daylight of a key figure in Russia's liberal movement and deputy in the State Duma lower chamber deals a blow to Putin, who came to power on the back of his image as a strong leader capable of dealing with rampant crime.

Interfax news agency quoted police as saying the unknown assailant, armed with a silenced pistol, fired four bullets in Yushenkov's back as the 52-year-old parliamentarian stepped out of his car. The attacker then threw down the gun and fled.

Full story here.

A week after American forces took control of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, more evidence is emerging of the brutality of Saddam Hussein's regime.

BBC correspondents in Baghdad visited one of the most notorious jails where tens of thousands of political prisoners were held - and many were tortured and executed.

Abu Ghraib prison, a huge complex on the outskirts of the capital, is believed to be the largest jail in the Middle East.

The jail was cleared before the war - some prisoners sent to other jails, others simply murdered. The jailers tried to cover their tracks by burning their files.

Inside the execution chamber, two hangman's ropes are still suspended from the ceiling.

The lives of thousands of Saddam Hussein's opponents - men and women - were brought to an end here. Executions took place every Sunday and Wednesday.

Full story here.

BELGRADE - Secretariat of Internal Affairs in Belgrade announced today that the body of recently missing professor of Chemistry faculty Predrag Polic has been found.

Note: Professor Polic was reported missing after he received several threats from certain "patriotic" elements in Belgrade. Other professors of Belgrade University received them as well.

BELGRADE , Apr 15 (Tanjug) - Arrested retired general and former Yugoslav army chief of staff Nebojsa Pavkovic said during investigation that he had received authorization for the use of a military helicopter for the escape of persons who attempted to murder Serbian Renewal Movement leader Vuk Draskovic several years ago in Budva from former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic.
Serbian government and Ministry of the Interior officials told the editors of Belgrade media that Pavkovic said Milosevic gave the authorization verbally.

WASHINGTON - U.S. commandos in Baghdad have captured Abul Abbas, the leader of the violent Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner Achille Lauro in 1985, U.S. officials said Tuesday.

Abbas was taken by American special operations forces during a raid Monday night on the southern outskirts of the capital city, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

Several of his associates were also detained during raids at several sites around Baghdad, defense officials said. Commandos, tipped off by U.S. intelligence to Abbas' whereabouts, also seized documents — including Yemeni and Lebanese passports — and weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades, officials said.

Full story here.

TIKRIT, Iraq - U.S. Marines overran desperate loyalists staging a last stand Monday at Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s hometown of Tikrit, crushing the last bastion of major Iraqi resistance and effectively bringing to an end the combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The presidential palace was seized without a fight, the military said, and large numbers of U.S. troops were visible in the afternoon in central Tikrit.

Full story here.

American military officials have issued troops with a list of leading 55 Iraqis to be captured or killed. They have handed out packs of playing card-style pictures of the most wanted. The list includes what is left of the so-called "dirty dozen".

This is the name the Bush administration gave Saddam Hussein and his closest officials in autumn 2002 when it was laying the groundwork for prosecutions for chemical attacks, forced deportations, mass killings, torture, and other crimes against humanity.

The list is an illustration of how the country was run - half of the dozen are Saddam Hussein's family members - two sons, three half-brothers and a cousin.

US officials now say Iraqi leaders are trying to escape from the country, while others are believed to be hiding out in Tikrit - the home town of Saddam Hussein's clan.

The following are among Iraq's most wanted:

List of dangerous Iraqi criminals here.

Three members of a gang who hijacked a Cuban ferry last week have been executed, the Cuban authorities say.

The men went on trial on Tuesday for "very grave acts of terrorism," and were convicted and died at dawn on Friday, an official statement broadcast on state television said.

The men faced Cuba's usual method of execution - the firing squad - after their final appeals failed, it said.

Another four men were given life sentences, and three women were given terms of one to five years.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: It is strange that French and Germans who advocate business relations with Cuba and vehemently oppose death sentence are dead quiet today. They were sure not quiet last week when they screamed about initiative from Serbia to reinstate death penalty temporarily for those responsible for Djindjic's assassination. They were "shocked" and immediately start threatening with sanctions to Serbia. So what about Fidel Castro and Cuba today? This is excellent illustration of hypocrisy of gigantic proportions from French and Germans, who run EU BTW, where they openly try to protect Djindjic's assassins and Al Qaeda murderers under cover of respect for human rights. Like we are all equal and should get similar punishment. Desperate Cubans whose lives are endangered constantly by Castro's everyday terror are treated equal to those who murder civilians in the name of bogus political agendas. Castro's message is very clear to the rest of Cubans and that is that all of them will get shot if they try to disobey Castro and leave his Gulag for good. Where are those who constantly criticize America for heaving death penalty to boycott Cuban goods after this merciless execution in the name of preserving Castro's terror in Cuba? They are dead silent, cowering in some cave with bin Laden and thinking how to defame America and save Al Qaeda murderers.

We should also ask ourselves if there was a coincidence when former Nazi dictator Kostunica abolished death penalty in Serbia, supposedly to help faster integration of Serbia with EU. Now it seems very obvious that he did that to spare himself, his men and the rest of war criminals and mafia in Serbia from the sentence they all deserve in full for crimes they have committed against humanity and that is death sentence. Extraditing war criminals and speeding up economic and political reforms was and is far more important for Serbia but Kostunica and his gang never moved one finger in that direction. Today, he and his gang of murderers are making laughing stock out of Serbian government and the world fully protected by EU run by France and Germany. The right question for Serbia today is whether integration with EU is the right direction at all. The other scandalous example of EU hypocrisy and dictatorship of France and Germany was regarding war with Iraq when members of EU and future candidates for membership in EU were openly threatened by France and Germany. No one in Europe today needs this kind of dictatorship and open blackmail. Spain and Bulgaria don't need this kind of intimidation in order to defend French and German interests in doing business with various terrorist and criminal regimes around the world. We do not need this kind of EU or UN where criminals and terrorists are running the show under cover of forced equality and understanding for evildoers. They always have some excuse for their evil deeds and they expect that the rest of us should understand them and forgive them. No more mercy, no more Mr. Nice Guy, it is time to get rid the world of all Saddams, Castros and Kims for good. We are paying too big price in human lives for letting them continue their evil work. Where were those hypocrites cursing America for war with Iraq when Saddam executed 250,000 of Iraqis for rebelling against him, where were they when Kim Jong Il caused two million people to die from artificial starvation in North Korea, where were they to tell Castro not to send his people to Angola, not to take Cuban milk and send it to Vietnam while Cuban babies are dying, to tell Castro not to execute people who want to live in freedom. Some hypocrites are asking question: "Who is next?", worried after recent Saddam's demise that some other tyrant in the world might end up in the same way. The answer is simple: "They are all next because we can't discriminate against any of them." That is in full compliance with forced equality policy they preached so much about. World Freedom Tour continues!

Two former close associates of ex-Yugoslav president Vojislav Kostunica, have been arrested as part of the investigation into Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic's murder.

Former army intelligence chief Aco Tomic and Rade Bulatovic, Mr Kostunica's security adviser, were detained late on Tuesday for alleged links with a criminal gang accused of organising the assassination.

The two men are the first officials close to Mr Kostunica to be arrested since the 12 March assassination.

A statement by the Serbian Government said Mr Bulatovic and Mr Tomic had had "meetings" and "arrangements" with the main organisers of Mr Djindjic's assassination.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: One unsuccessful military coup attempt was not enough for former Nazi dictator Kostunica and his war criminals gang so they finally lost their patience and ordered hit on Djindjic. What a loser and what a scum stands behind him! Kostunica is undoubtedly the man with the strongest motive behind Djindjic's assassination because he has lost absolutely everything thanks to Djindjic. Criminal gang who got paid to assassinate Djindjic had nothing against him, they were just executioners. Real criminals are those who planned and ordered assassination, Kostunica and his war criminals gang. The best thing would be to entirely ban three political parties DSS, SRS and SSJ whose programs represent pure evil and hatred and whose members are criminals. To free Serbia it is necessary to put these monsters behind bars and ban them from political power forever.

We should also not forget Stambolic's assassination organized and ordered by Slobodan Milosevic and his wife Mira Markovic. The only one who had any motive to kill Stambolic were two of them and their political parties SPS and JUL. Stambolic was removed from political scene in Serbia thanks to Milosevic in 1987 and he had no political enemies except Milosevic himself. Those who order political assassinations of their political opponents must be jailed and ban from politics forever which means SPS and JUL should be banned as political organizations in Serbia.

Aca Tomic and Rade Bulatovic arrested

BELGRADE , April 9 (Tanjug) - As part of their probe into the assassination of Premier Zoran Djindjic, the Serbian Ministry of the Interior (MUP) said on Tuesday they had arrested former head of army intelligence General Aca Tomic and former security advisor to the Yugoslav president Rade Bulatovic, Serbian TV RTS reports.

The police announcement said that Bulatovic and Tomic were arrested because members of the MUP's Department for fight against organized crime had established that the two men were seen with leaders of the Zemun clan Miodrag Lukovic Legija and Dusan Spasojevic Siptar during the period prior to the assassination of Djindjic.

UNITED NATIONS - Iraq's U.N. ambassador said Wednesday "the game is over" — and that means the war is over.

Mohammed Al-Douri expressed hope that the Iraqi people will now be able to live in peace.

His comments were the first admission by an Iraqi official that U.S.-led forces had overwhelmed Iraqi forces after a three-week campaign.

"My work now is peace," he told reporters outside his New York residence. "The game is over, and I hope the peace will prevail. I hope the Iraqi people will have a happy life."

Full story here.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Jubilant crowds swarmed into Baghdad streets Wednesday, dancing, looting, defacing images of Saddam Hussein as U.S. commanders declared that his regime's rule over the capital had ended.

"The capital city is now one of those areas that has been added to the list of where the regime does not have control," Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks at U.S. Central Command in Qatar.

Even as they encountered sniper fire from roving bands of holdout fighters, Marine and Army units swept through the city, seizing or destroying buildings that once housed some of Saddam's most feared security forces. Marine tanks rolled into the commercial center, greeted by people cheering and waving white flags.

Civilians gestured to the Americans with V-for-victory signs. "We were nearly mobbed by people trying to shake our hands," said Maj. Andy Milburn of the 7th Marines.

At police stations, universities, government ministries, the headquarters of the Iraq Olympic Committee, looters unhindered by any police presence made off with computers, furniture, even military jeeps. One young man used roller skates to wheel away a refrigerator.

"Thank you, thank you, Mr. Bush," some of the looters shouted. An elderly man beat a portrait of Saddam with his shoe, while a younger man spat on the portrait.

Even as the populace seemed suddenly to feel free of Saddam's control, U.S. officers said their forces faced continued resistance, fierce but disorganized, from small groups of holdout pro-Saddam fighters. The U.S Central Command reacted cautiously to the euphoria and chaos in Baghdad.

Elsewhere in the capital, however, U.S. forces steadily expanded their reach, securing a military airport, capturing a prison, setting fire to a Republican Guard barracks. They are now operating in every quadrant of the city.

Maj. Gen. Buford Blount II, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, visited a command post set up at the New Presidential Palace, overlooking the Tigris River in central Baghdad. Col. David Perkins, whose 2nd Brigade was at the command post, told Blount his forces can go anywhere in the city and meet only sporadic sniping.

The Iraqi government's efforts to sustain its public relations campaign collapsed. State television went off the air Tuesday, and on Wednesday, foreign journalists said their "minders" — government agents who monitor their reporting — did not turn up for work.

Also, there was no sign of Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, whose daily briefings have constituted the main public face of the regime during the war.

Full story here.

SEOUL (Reuters) - A prominent U.S. expert on North Korea said on Tuesday the communist country's economy is not collapsing but has already collapsed, and Seoul needs to do more to prepare for the debt burden it will inevitably have to bear.

Many experts have long said the North Korean economy was on the verge of collapse, hampered by decades of rigid central planning and hit by floods and drought in the 1990s.

But speaking at a conference on South Korea's aim to become a business hub for Northeast Asia, Stephen Bosworth said North Korea's economic plight was greater now than when he started his assignment as U.S. ambassador to Seoul in 1997.

``The North Korean economy is not collapsing,'' said Bosworth, who was ambassador until 2001 and is dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in the United States.

``The North Korean economy has collapsed. It is no longer performing in any fashion which can be described as approaching that of a modern economy.''

He said industrial production was at best 30 percent of what it was in 1992 and energy production was probably less than that.

The North says it has restarted a nuclear reactor at the heart of suspected atomic arms plans to produce electricity now Washington and its allies have halted heavy fuel oil shipments.

Washington says the reactor is too small to help energy consumption in a country of 23 million people. It halted the shipments after U.S. officials said Pyongyang had admitted having a covert nuclear plan, something the North denies acknowledging.

DEBT WILL SIT ON SOUTH'S BOOKS

``Not only can they not produce electricity in anything approaching the scale that they need, but they have almost no ability to transport electricity,'' Bosworth said. ``The national grid has basically collapsed.''

Bosworth said the grim picture north of the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone that bisects the peninsula meant North Korea would continue to be a burden on South Korea's economy, which he said had recovered strongly from the 1997-98 financial crisis.

``One way or another -- either as a result of sudden reunification or as a result of a long gradual process of engagement -- South Korea will be transferring substantial amounts of economic resources to the North,'' he said.

He said Seoul should plan economic policy and borrowing with North Korea in mind rather than just South Korean modernization.

``Because the one thing that North Korea is going to need above everything else is capital. Either suddenly and abruptly or over a long period of time,'' he said.

``And that capital is going to have to come in from outside the Korean peninsula and those borrowings are going to have to be carried on the South Korean balance sheet.''

Last month, North Korea's parliament approved a budget that would raise defense spending by 15.4 percent, although no absolute figures were given. South Korea puts the North's per-capita gross national product at $706 in 2001 compared with $757 the year before and $9,000 in the South in 2001.

The nuclear standoff between North Korea and the United States has had an impact on the South's economy, helping to reduce foreign investment in the first quarter of this year and putting international ratings agencies on their guard.

Thomas Byrne of Moody's Investors Service told reporters on the sidelines of the same conference he was encouraged by signs China was seeking to do more to defuse the nuclear crisis.

Moody's cut its A3 long-term ratings outlook on South Korea's foreign and domestic currency-denominated debt in February to negative from positive because of North Korea.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Communist Cuba on Monday sentenced at least 36 of 78 dissidents charged with opposing President Fidel Castro to 12 to 27 years in prison in the toughest political crackdown in decades.

In a clear message to Washington that Cuba will not tolerate its efforts to build up a dissident movement on the island, 14 courts across the country convicted the dissidents of ``working with a foreign power to undermine the government'' and gave them sentences ranging from 12 to 27 years in jail.

Cuba's best known dissident, poet and journalist Raul Rivero, 57, and economists Martha Beatriz Roque and Oscar Espinosa Chepe got 20 year sentences, the Cuban Human Rights Commission said.

``This is so arbitrary for a man whose only crime is to write what he thinks,'' Rivero's wife Blanca Reyes told reporters after the sentence was given behind closed doors. ``What they found on him was a tape recorder, not a grenade.''

Prosecutors had asked for life sentences for a dozen of the 78 jailed dissidents, among them Roque, leading dissident Hector Palacios, opposition labor activist Pedro Pablo Alvarez, and Ricardo Gonzalez, editor of Cuba's only dissident magazine. But Palacios, 62, and Alvarez were sentenced to 25 years and Gonzalez to 20 years.

In other sentences on Monday, journalist Hector Maseda received 20 years, activists Osvaldo Alfonso and Regis Iglesias 18 years, Marcelo Lopez 15 years and Efren Fernandez 12 years.

Independent journalist Omar Rodriguez Saludes was given 27 years in prison, the longest sentence.

The trial of civil disobedience advocate Oscar Elias Biscet began on Monday in the Havana neighborhood of La Vibora where police cordoned off the court house.

ONE-DAY TRIALS

The crackdown began on March 18 with arrests and house searches. That was followed last week by one-day trials in court rooms filled with Communist Party members and security agents while only three close relatives of the prisoners could attend, the wives said.

In all, 78 people were arrested and 71 have been convicted while seven trials are still underway. The Cuban government does not announce sentences but the Cuban Human Rights Commission was able to gather information on 36 sentences on Monday, most from relatives.

Half the 78 dissidents on trial had organized a signature drive to petition for reforms to Cuba's one-party socialist state. The effort was known as the Varela Project, which united Cuba's small, divided dissident movement into the first major internal challenge to Castro's rule in four decades.

``The trial was unfair. He met his lawyer five minutes before it started and had no time to study the charges,'' said Claudia Marquez, wife of Osvaldo Alfonso.

The wives have three days to appeal, but said they had little hope the sentences would be shortened. ``These terms were dictated by President Castro. In Cuba there is only one voice,'' said Reyes.

Government informants who had infiltrated dissident groups testified against the prisoners.

U.S. diplomats were surprised to learn that Manuel David Orrio, who had led a meeting of opposition journalists at Cason's house last month, testified against Rivero and said in court testimony that he was a state security agent.

Western diplomats and foreign journalists were barred from the trials. International rights organizations accused Castro of trying to knock out his political opponents while world attention was focused on Baghdad.

U.S. AMBASSADOR'S ROLE

The Bush administration had stepped up active support for the dissidents, who would meet in the residence of the top U.S. diplomat in Havana, James Cason.

Cason, in Miami on Monday, said the harshness of the sentences showed Castro's government was concerned about a growing opposition movement and was bent on preserving the one-party political system.

``The Castro regime has shown that it is willing to risk even the ire of the international community to maintain its central role,'' Cason told a meeting of a Cuba study group run by the University of Miami.

``I think it is tragic, sad and unwarranted,'' he told a reporters later. ``In Cuba today, activities considered normal in any other country will result in life in prison,'' he said.

Castro, in power since a 1959 revolution, denounced Cason last month for turning the American mission into an ``incubator of counter-revolution'' and threatened to close the U.S. Interests Section. Havana and Washington do not have formal diplomatic relations.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Phil Reeker called on Cuba to release the dissidents, saying the government's actions were ``an appalling act of intimidation against those who seek freedom and democratic change in Cuba.''

BASRA, Iraq - Ali Hassan al-Majid, dubbed "Chemical Ali" by opponents of the Iraqi regime for ordering a poison gas attack that killed thousands of Kurds, has been found dead, a British officer said Monday.

One of the most brutal members of Saddam's inner circle, al-Majid, in his 50s, led a 1988 campaign against rebellious Kurds in northern Iraq in which whole villages were wiped out. An estimated 100,000 Kurds, mostly civilians, were killed.

Full story here.

Chipping away at the vestiges of Saddam Hussein's power, U.S. forces encircled Baghdad on Sunday and began flying into the capital's airport. British forces in the south made their deepest push into Iraq's second largest city.

A hulking U.S. C-130 transport plane landed at the Baghdad international airport, carrying unknown cargo but weighted with symbolism and tactical importance. The arrival presaged a major resupply effort by air for U.S. troops, dependent until now on a tenuous line stretching 350 miles to Kuwait.

U.S. officials declared Baghdad cut off from the rest of Iraq.

"We do control the highways in and out of the city and do have the capability to interdict, to stop, to attack an Iraqi military forces that might try to either escape or to engage our forces," said Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Full story here.

BASRA, Iraq (AFP) - British tanks rolled into the centre of Basra and surrounded the local Baath Party headquarters, effectively taking control of Iraq's southern metropolis.

"We control the vast majority of the city," British military spokesman Colonel Chris Vernon said here. "But there are some places we don't control, for example the old city."

Vernon told reporters that British tanks had moved into the city centre, the south and the north.

As the troops and tanks made their way towards the centre, locals poured out into the streets to greet their advance, many of them waving and cheering, others standing silently on pavements as the tanks passed.

By late afternoon, the British forces had surrounded the local Baath Party headquarters in the heart of the city, a reporter for the Arabic language Al-Jazeera television station in the city reported.

"There have been instances where Fedayeen fighters wearing the black suits and red head-dresses have picked up a child to give themselves cover after firing at us.

Full story here.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Substantial numbers of coalition troops were near the center of Baghdad on Saturday and had no plans to pull back, a U.S. Central Command spokesman said.

"As of this morning, coalition forces are actually in the city of Baghdad," said Navy Capt. Frank Thorp. "As we moved into the city, we saw sporatic fighting, we've actually moved through the republican guard divisions to pretty much the center of the city."

"We have substantial forces now moving into the city," he said.

Asked if the U.S. Army's V Corps and the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force were on a probing mission, Thorp said, "they're not coming out."

"That's not the intent to come back out," he said. "They're in Baghdad."

Thorp said the best way to classify the situation in the city is that it was under control despite sporadic fighting.

"We'll continue to operate where we find opportunities to move forward, we'll move forward," he said. "Its been a steady deliberate pace as we move forward."

Full story here.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The House of Representatives passed a supplementary budget amendment excluding France, Germany, Russia and Syria from taking part in US-funded reconstruction bids in Iraq, because they opposed the US-led war in Iraq.

The Kennedy amendment stipulated "that none of the funds made available in the bill for reconstruction efforts in Iraq may be used to procure goods or services from any entity that includes information on a response to a Request for Proposal (RFP) that indicates that such entity is organized under the laws of France, Germany, the Russian Federation, or Syria."

"This amendment sends a signal to our allies that we appreciate those who support us in our time of need and remember those that have sought to thwart coalition efforts to defeat Saddam Hussein's regime," Nethercutt said of his measure.

"The coalition of the unwilling should not participate in reconstruction with US tax dollars," he added.

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NEAR BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces seized control of Baghdad's international airport on Friday, their biggest prize so far in a 16-day-old war to overthrow President Saddam Hussein.

"We control the airport. It's a big area with a lot of buildings that need to be cleared, but it's ours," Colonel John Peabody, commander of the Engineer Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, told Reuters.

Military analysts say Saddam International Airport is a key objective for U.S. forces, who can use it as a forward operating base in any battle for the ancient, sprawling city of five million people. Peabody said the runway was in good condition.

The advance puts the capital within range of ground-based rockets and guns brought by U.S. troops from Kuwait, but it was unclear how soon an offensive on the city would be launched.

The U.S. military said 320 Iraqi foot soldiers had been killed in fighting for control of the airport, just 12 miles southwest of the center of Baghdad.

They said dozens of Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery, troop carriers and trucks had been captured or destroyed.

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Coalition forces have captured at least part of the Iraqi capital's international airport, correspondents with US troops at the scene report.

Infantry backed by light tanks moved into the airport - 20 kilometres (12 miles) south-west of the city centre - after a fierce bombardment on Thursday evening, a correspondent for the US network ABC said.

Large explosions rocked both the city centre and the airport district shortly afterwards in what appeared to be coalition air strikes.

The BBC's Paul Wood, who is in the Iraqi capital, says that Thursday's developments mean the battle of Baghdad has indeed begun.

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LAKE HAVASU, Ariz. - A former oil worker who went partially blind and suffered nerve damage while being held hostage in Iraq in 1990 has received $1.75 million in damages from Iraqi funds frozen by the U.S. government.

Jack Frazier, 65, was one of 178 former hostages who successfully sued the Republic of Iraq for illegally detaining them before the 1991 Gulf War. The former hostages were awarded a total of $93 million.

Frazier was working for Bechtel Corp., which was building a crude oil refinery in Iraq in August 1990, just before Iraq invaded Kuwait. He said he and co-workers were awakened on Aug. 18, 1990, and detained in the empty U.S. ambassador's home. Soldiers would not let anyone out for medicine, he said.

Because he couldn't get insulin, Frazier went blind in one eye and lost 60 pounds. His muscles and nerves began failing. He has no sensation from his knees to his toes or from his fingertips to his elbows.

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HAVANA (AP) -- Cuba pressed forward with its harshest crackdown on dissent in years, scheduling trials for dissidents rounded up across the island and reportedly seeking life sentences for at least 10 of them.

At least 78 dissidents have been arrested since March 18, accused of working with U.S. diplomats to subvert Fidel Castro's government and of being mercenaries in the pay of Washington.

Rising tensions with the United States have coincided with a string of hijackings by Cubans trying to leave the communist island. On Wednesday, gunmen forced a Cuban ferry to head toward Florida; the boat remained adrift Thursday morning. Two airliners were recently hijacked to Key West, Fla., one on March 19 and a second on Tuesday.

As international criticism of the crackdown increased, the wives of several dissidents complained Wednesday that their husbands had been unable to consult with attorneys and had not even seen the prosecution's written case against them.

``I feel so defenseless!'' said Elsa Pollan, whose husband, Hector Fernando Maseda was going on trial Thursday. ``Where can I find someone to defend my husband?''

Prosecutors are seeking life sentences for 10, including opposition political leaders Osvaldo Alfonso Valdes and Hector Palacios, who were being tried together with Maseda and three others, said veteran activist Elizardo Sanchez.

A three-page list compiled by Sanchez's Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation lists 78 confirmed defendants and the sentences sought for each. Several Cuban exile groups have distributed slightly longer lists.

All agree, however, that prosecutors are seeking life behind bars for dissident economist Marta Beatriz Roque, who was being tried Thursday with several others at a different Havana courthouse.

Roque was one of four leaders of a now defunct opposition umbrella group known as Concilio Cubano. They were sentenced to 3 1/2 to 5 years following a closed-door trial in 1999 that was widely condemned abroad.

The four were convicted of incitement to sedition for written documents distributed to the international media that criticized a major Communist Party document and called on foreign companies not to invest in the Caribbean island. The last of the group, Vladimiro Roca, was released last May. Roque served about two years.

Trials were also beginning on Thursday for dissidents from other parts of the country, ranging from the westernmost province of Pinar del Rio to Santiago in the far east.

Trial was scheduled Friday in Havana for independent journalist Ricardo Gonzalez, who recently launched the first general interest magazine of its kind, and Raul Rivero, the nation's best-known journalist working outside Cuba's state-controlled media and a delegate to the Inter-American Press Association.

According to Sanchez's lists, prosecutors are seeking a life sentence for Gonzalez and 20 years for Rivero.

The Cuban government has provided no information about the trials and it was unknown if international journalists would be granted access.

Authorities here have accused those arrested of being traitors and mercenaries for the U.S. government.

Cuban Parliament speaker Ricardo Alarcon said Monday that authorities had sufficient evidence to try the dissidents, adding that most nations had laws ``to defend their sovereignty.''

The crackdown began when Cuban officials criticized the head of the American mission in Havana, James Cason, for his active support of the island's opposition.

Accusations that the detainees engaged in treason and are mercenaries ``only show the repressive nature of the Castro regime and its fear of any sign of opposition to its ironclad rule,'' Roberto Zimmerman, spokesman for the U.S. State Department's Latin America bureau, said in Washington on Wednesday.

The Cubans ``are being tried for exercising their rights of freedom of expression and association,'' said Zimmerman.

The roundup followed several years of relative government tolerance for dissidents. During that time, the opposition grew stronger, more organized and more daring.

Those arrested included independent journalists, directors of non-governmental libraries, members of opposition political parties and volunteers for the Varela Project, a pro-democracy petition drive.

BELGRADE , April 2 (Tanjug) - The Serbian Radio-Television (RTS) reported on Wednesday that Serbian police had arrested former RTS director Dragoljub Milanovic, who was on the run.

The RTS said that a comprehensive investigation into the assassination of Serbian premier Zoran Djindjic had established that members of the Zemun Clan were hiding and guarding Milanovic.

Bosnian High Representative Paddy Ashdown has clamped down on the Bosnian Serb Republic over an arms-to-Iraq scandal, hours after the Serb head of the country's three-member presidency quit over the same issue. Chairman Mirko Sarovic resigned on Wednesday after reportedly being implicated in the sale of aircraft parts to Baghdad.

Mr Ashdown, who had been expected to remove Mr Sarovic if he had not resigned, announced that he was abolishing the Bosnian Serb defence council.

"With war now under way in Iraq, it is impossible to overstate the seriousness of this affair," he said. "These activities could very easily have placed the stability of this country in jeopardy," he added.

Mr Ashdown also ordered that the words "state", "independence" and "sovereignty" be erased from the Serb republic's constitution.

"Too many people in the Serb Republic believe that the Serb Republic is a state rather than an entity," he said, quoted by the Bosnian Serb news agency SRNA.

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