AP - February 28th, 2003

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) -- Czech lawmakers elected opposition candidate Vaclav Klaus as president on Friday, succeeding former president and longtime rival Vaclav Havel.

Klaus, of the center-right Civic Democratic Party, won 142 votes in the 281-member parliament, barely surpassing the simple majority needed for a victory. Jan Sokol, the ruling coalition's candidate, received 124 votes. One lawmaker was absent and 14 abstained.

Havel, whose last term in office ended Feb. 2, was barred by the constitution from seeking a third term.

The victory of Klaus, a former conservative prime minister and economist, came as a major blow to the government of Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla. Infighting within Spidla's Social Democratic Party prevented its members from fielding a candidate who would have won broad enough support.

Klaus said he would use the largely ceremonial post to be ``active, but not an activist,'' promising not to interfere in day-to-day politics.

``I also want to assure the citizens of the Czech Republic that in this post I'm prepared not to disappoint any among the 10 million (citizens),'' Klaus said.

Friday's election was the third attempt to replace Havel, the dissident playwright who led the 1989 Velvet Revolution that peacefully toppled the communist regime.

In the two previous ballots, Klaus finished first, but failed to gain the majority required for a victory.

Havel, whose second term in office ended Feb. 2, was barred by the constitution from seeking a third term. He too congratulated Klaus, his longtime rival.

Analysts warned that Sokol's defeat eventually could lead to the fall of Spidla's government.

After the vote, Spidla said the result ``certainly is not a success'' for the ruling coalition.

Klaus, 61, an economist who is credited with reintroducing market reforms to the country, served as Czechoslovakia's Finance Minister after the demise of the communist regime.

He became Czech Prime Minister when Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia on Jan. 1, 1993, and he served as parliamentary speaker from 1998 to 2002.

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Two suspected bombs blasted Spanish and Colombian diplomatic buildings in Caracas on Tuesday, injuring five people less than two days after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused the two nations of meddling in his country's crisis.

Three people, including a 4-year-old girl, were slightly injured at the Colombian consulate, where shards of glass and concrete from the badly damaged facade lay scattered across the street after the blast, at around 2:15 a.m.

Fragments from the explosion at the Spanish embassy cooperation office, about 15 minutes earlier, hurt two people, officials said.

Chavez, whose self-styled "Bolivarian Revolution" promises to ease poverty, accused Spain and the United States on Sunday of siding with his enemies and warned Colombia he might break off diplomatic ties.

Police were still investigating what caused the two explosions. But an official from the DISIP state security police told local radio that a powerful plastic explosive had been placed at the Colombian consulate.

Full story here.

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic has confirmed that he believes an attempt was made last week to assassinate him.

A lorry cut into the path of Mr Djindjic's car as it sped along a main road - a method previously used by Serbian secret police in assassination attempts. Mr Djindjic's driver managed to avoid an accident, and the lorry driver was later arrested.

Four years ago a similar "staged" road accident was targeted at Serbian opposition figure Vuk Draskovic. Four people died, including Mr Draskovic's brother-in-law. Mr Draskovic himself was injured, but survived.

The trail of evidence in that case led to men who had once served with a Serbian Interior Ministry special operations unit. Reports from Belgrade say the same group is rumoured to be responsible for the incident involving Mr Djinjdic.

Police say the lorry which tried to hit the prime minister's car was being driven by a well-known local criminal with the nickname, Bugsy. He has received information on his mobile phone just before the incident that Mr Djindjic's car was approaching, police say.

Full story here.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Serbian ultranationalist leader Vojislav Seselj surrendered to the U.N. war crimes court Monday to face charges that his paramilitary troops committed atrocities during wars in Croatia and Bosnia.

Seselj, a close ally of former President Slobodan Milosevic, took a commercial Yugoslav Airlines flight to Amsterdam, where he was detained by plainclothes policemen and driven off in an unmarked van.

His rights were read out to him at a gate of Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport before he was taken to the U.N. detention unit in a seaside suburb of The Hague.

Full story here.

BELGRADE , Feb 20 (Tanjug) - The Public Enterprise of PTT Traffic Serbia and Telecom Italy signed in Amsterdam on Thursday a contract on the purchase of Telecom Serbia shares, which made PTT Serbia the owner of 80 percent of Telecom Serbia's shares.

PTT Serbia said that the Italian company had sold all 29 percent of shares in Telecom Serbia for 195 million euros, and PTT Serbia will pay 120 million euros of this amount in four equal installments as of March 2003.

KRAGUJEVAC , Feb 20 (Tanjug) - The renowned German auto manufacturer BMW has sent two letters to the Serbian government and the United States company Nucarco, the signatories of a precontract on setting up a mixed company - the Zastava Motor Works ZMW, warning them that it intends to file charges against them, Tanjug learned on Thursday.

BMW will sue the two parties if they set up this company, since its initials are similar to BMW and would mean abuse of this renowned name.

Prosecutors at the war crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic have shown a secret video which captured him allegedly paying tribute to Serb paramilitaries accused of ethnic cleansing.

The 1997 footage - shot in a paramilitary camp in the Vojvodina region of northern Serbia - was played during the testimony of a former Serb commander who fought in Croatia.

Dragan Vasiljkovic - known as Captain Dragan - told the judges Serb paramilitaries did not act independently but were part of "the security services, the army or the police".

In the video, Franko Simatovic - known as Frenki - recounted how the unit operated 26 training camps and an air squadron to ferry men and material into the territory. Some 5,000 men fought under its command, he said.

It also shows Serbia's former state security chief Jovica Stanisic, who is accused of overall responsibility for the paramilitary units.

Full story here.

SEOUL (Reuters) - An executive of South Korea's Hyundai group acknowledged Sunday his firm had secretly sent $500 million to North Korea, saying the payments secured business rights and also helped bring about a landmark North-South summit.

At a news conference, Hyundai Asan Corp Chairman Chung Mong-hun apologized ``with my head bowed,'' for controversy over the payments, which he said had secured for Hyundai the exclusive rights to seven business projects in North Korea.

But Chung added: ``I also thought that the payments contributed to the summit.''

South Korean President Kim Dae-jung apologized to the country Friday over two-week-old revelations that Hyundai sent cash to Pyongyang in 2000, including $200 million just days before Kim's historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.

But Kim's government has denied allegations that the cash and state loans sent to the North by Hyundai Merchant Marine were used to entice Kim Jong-il to hold the summit in June 2000.

The ``cash-for-summit'' scandal has complicated the transition from Kim Dae-jung to his elected successor Roh Moo-hyun this month and tainted South dealing with North Korea at a time when South-North ties are strained by an international crisis over the North's suspected attempts to build nuclear weapons.

Chung, a son of the founder of the conglomerate, had just returned from North Korea, where Hyundai Asan operates a tourist project that has been the centerpiece of economic projects between capitalist South Korea and the communist North.

Chung declined to provide details on the projects he said were secured by the payments, defending the secrecy as key to maintaining Hyundai's advantage in competition with Western and Japanese firms for business projects in North Korea.

Serbian hardline leader Vojislav Seselj has been indicted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal at The Hague for crimes against humanity.

Mr Seselj, who was a runner up in Serbia's presidential election in December, has been charged for his alleged role in ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Croatia from 1991 to 1993.

The indictment, signed by chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, charges Mr Seselj with a eight counts of crimes against humanity and six counts violations of the laws or customs of war.

Each count is punishable by life in prison.

Full story here.

BELGRADE , Feb 14 (Tanjug) - A warrant for the arrest of former Serbian Radio and Television (RTS) director Dragoljub Milanovic was issued on Friday morning after he failed to appear to serve his prison sentence, Acting Belgrade District Court President Predrag Popovic has told Tanjug.

Milanovic was sentenced to ten years in jail on charges of being responsible for the death of 16 RTS staff during the April 23, 1999 NATO bombing, but he failed to report to the Zabela prison in Pozarevac in the required period.

Caution: Should be considered armed and dangerous and an escape risk. If you have any information concerning this person, please contact your local police station or the nearest Serbian embassy or consulate.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- President Kim Dae-jung said Friday his government was aware of illegal payments to North Korea ahead of a historic 2000 summit but allowed the money to go through in the interest of peace on the peninsula.

Kim, who leaves office on Feb. 25, also apologized for the scandal, which has embarrassed his government in its final days and intensified criticism of his ``sunshine'' policy of engaging North Korea -- a diplomatic overture that helped him win the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize.

``I am really sorry for causing deep concern to the Korean people owing to the controversy,'' Kim said in a nationally televised speech. ``As a person, I feel miserable and my heart is aching.''

Kim denied that he or his government made any of the payments.

The Hyundai business group has admitted giving North Korea $186 million shortly before the summit but claims the money was part of its business deals in North Korea that include tourism, railways and an industrial park. The money was borrowed from a South Korean state-run bank.

Lim Dong-won, the government intelligence chief at the time of the summit and now Kim's national security and unification adviser, said on the same broadcast that he received a request from Hyundai in June 2000 for assistance in the payment to North Korea.

He said Hyundai made the payment to North Korea on June 9, 2000, with the help of the National Intelligence Service. But Lim said the deal was not reported to ``higher levels,'' without elaborating. The summit was held in Pyongyang June 13-15.

``At the time, we judged that the projects, when realized, would contribute to economic benefits and easing tension on the Korean Peninsula,'' Lim said.

Opposition lawmakers claim the money was given to the communist North -- possibly from South Korea's government -- as ``payment'' for the talks, Kim's crowning feat.

In his speech, Kim did not admit that he or his government made any payments, but he said that Hyundai made the transfers with the government's knowledge. Kim said he accepted the move, even though it was in violation of South Korean law.

``Since it has become an open, public issue, I think the government should disclose details and that I as the president should take responsibility,'' he said.

Kim said that because of the nature of relations between North and South, initiatives sometimes have to be conducted ``outside the framework of laws.''

``I take responsibility for this situation. But I earnestly hope that our people will understand my innermost feelings about the thing I did, out of my desire to promote peace and our national interest,'' he said.

Kim said Hyundai paid the money in return for its right to push seven major projects in North Korea, including railways, power generation, communications, tourism and an industrial park.

``The government thought those projects are for peace and our national interest and accepted (the payment), though it creates problems with the existing laws,'' the president said.

The president also defended his ``sunshine'' policy but that it yielded ``various results,'' more than anything else an easing of tension on the Korean Peninsula that helped South Korea successfully stage the World Cup and the Asian Games.

He also mentioned increased foreign investment, a lessening of antagonism between North and South, and the opening of a cross-border road.

THE HAGUE , Feb 12 (Tanjug) - Witness for the prosecution, former chief of the military intelligence security service, General Aleksandar Vasiljevic, said on Wednesday at the trial of former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, that members of a unit of Serbian Radical Party (SRS) leader Vojislav Seselj had participated in the execution of Croat prisoners at the Ovcar farm, near Vukovar, on November 1991.

Vasiljevic said that this unit, dubbed "Seselj's or Chetnik Unit," was commanded by Miodrag Lancuzanin, nicknamed Kameni. The witness pointed out that in documents this unit is described as a unit, rather than a Territorial Defence unit, meaning that in question is an "improvised Territorial Defence which acts as a paramilitary unit."

LONDON (AP) -- European efforts to prevent war in Iraq have upset many Iraqi exiles anxious for the end of Saddam Hussein's rule. Still, key opposition figures believe the 11th hour effort will fail and that Saddam's days are numbered.

``I cannot understand their position,'' Ahmad Barmani, a representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Paris, said of French, German and Russian calls for a diplomatic solution to the crisis. ``They want to let Saddam stay in power.''

France, Russia and Germany issued a joint declaration Monday calling for strengthened U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq to disarm Saddam without firing a shot.

The proposal has heightened tensions between the European allies, who are resisting military action, and the United States, which says Saddam is almost out of time and must be disarmed.

Sabah Mukhtar, an Iraqi lawyer and former legal adviser to the Iraqi National Oil Company, said the Americans, Saddam and the Europeans are ``playing a political game.''

``They are waiting to see who is going to blink first,'' Mukhtar said.

The French, Germans and others want the inspectors to be given more time to verify that Iraq has destroyed chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, as it is required to do under resolutions dating from the 1991 Gulf War.

If that approach works, however, it could still leave Saddam in power -- something that the opposition opposes.

``Unfortunately the position of some of the European countries gives the impression to the Iraqi people that these countries are trying to prevent Saddam from being overthrown,'' Barmani said.

Nevertheless, Barmani said he believes that war ``is inevitable.''

``It's too late for Germany, France and Russia to stop the American machinery of war,'' he said.

U.S. officials have rejected the French-German plans and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called them ``a diversion'' from efforts to make Iraq comply with U.N. weapons inspectors.

Barmani and other opposition figures like Nabil Musawi, the spokesman of the opposition Iraqi National Congress in London, said eliminating Saddam's weapons of mass destruction was not the Iraqi opposition's top priority.

The Iraqi people, they said, were more concerned with overthrowing Saddam because of his repressive regime.

Musawi accused French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of failing to condemn Saddam's human rights record, and said Saddam should be overthrown and stand trial for crimes against humanity.

``This matter of weapons of mass destruction is not important to the Iraqi people,'' said Barmani, a Kurd. Thousands of Kurds were killed in chemical attacks in 1988 by Saddam's troops.

Six major opposition groups formed a 65-member steering committee during a conference in London last month to formulate policies and facilitate communication between Iraqi dissidents and the international community.

The opposition hopes the committee will form the core of a transitional government if the United States topples the Iraqi regime.

BEIJING (AP) -- A Chinese court convicted U.S.-based dissident Wang Bingzhang of spying and terrorism on Monday and sentenced him to life in prison, the government announced. Activists abroad called the charges politically motivated and appealed for Wang's release.

Wang, 55, a Chinese citizen, was arrested after police said they found him tied up in a temple July 3 in what Chinese authorities called a ransom plot. However, pro-democracy activists suggested he was abducted in Vietnam by Chinese agents after he secretly met with Chinese labor leaders in Hanoi.

A court in the southern city of Shenzhen convicted Wang of spying for rival Taiwan from 1982 to 1990 and plotting bombings and assassinations in China, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The report -- the first public Chinese accusation linking Wang to terrorist acts -- didn't offer any evidence to support the charges and gave no indication that any attack was carried out.

``The sentence demonstrates the barbarous character of the Chinese government,'' said Timothy Cooper, international director for the Free China Movement, an activist group in Washington. ``We believe that he is innocent of all charges that he's been convicted of and we believe he should be freed.''

The group appealed to the U.S. government to ``exert all its influence'' to win Wang's release.

Xinhua alleged that Wang plotted with others to ``spread terrorism.'' It said he told one man to carry out explosions and an unspecified assassination in 1999 on China's National Day holiday, which is Oct. 1.

The report said Wang was accused of telling Taiwan authorities that he had stored a large quantity of dynamite on the mainland to blow up roads and bridges.

Xinhua said Wang also was accused of plotting to blow up the Chinese Embassy in Thailand.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the Chinese Foreign Ministry said they had no immediate comment on the case.

Wang's daughter said his family hadn't decided what their next step would be.

``I just heard the news. We don't know what we're going to do at this point. I'm going to talk to my family,'' Wang Qingyan said by telephone from San Gabriel, Calif.

In Hong Kong, activists tried to leave a letter protesting Wang's conviction at the central Chinese government's liaison office but were blocked by about 50 police who surrounded the building, according to a member of the group. Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule in 1997 but is still governed separately.

The group of about 10 activists scuffled briefly with police, said activist Lau San-ching. He said they burned the protest letter after being blocked from delivering it.

Wang Bingzhang was visiting Hanoi with two other dissidents when they were reported missing in June.

Chinese authorities said they found all three in southern China's Guangxi region, which borders Vietnam, while they were investigating a kidnapping case. Wang was apparently taken to Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, where he was formally charged on Dec. 5.

The Chinese government has said the other two dissidents -- Yue Wu and Zhang Qi -- were cleared of involvement in Wang's activities. Xinhua had earlier said that Wang's trial was closed because it involved state secrets.

Though a Chinese citizen, Wang has permanent residency status in the United States.

He was a medical student in China when he started speaking out against the communist government and was jailed twice. He went into exile in Canada in 1979 and, in the 1980s, lived in New York, where he published the pro-democracy magazine China Spring and organized the Chinese Alliance for Democracy.

Wang slipped into China in 1998 without permission, saying he planned to organize a Chinese Democracy and Justice Party to press for free elections and civil liberties. He was caught and deported. Some of the charges were linked to that clandestine visit.

Two of the Bulgarian medics tried in Libya's HIV case told about "tortures" they were put through during the inquest in an interview for the Bulgarian National Radio. Nurses Valya Chervenyashka and Nasya Nenova said they were beaten, tortured with electricity, deprived of food and water.

Nenova said she attempted suicide "to end her agony." The nurse revealed that she cut her veins, as she could not endure the "permanent tortures." "The beating used to last all day long," Nenova said. She aslo claimed the interrogators forced her confession.

The Bulgarian National radio said it also disposes of the torture testimonies of the other Bulgarian medics tried in Libya.

The relatives of the six Bulgarian medics now demand that the torture complaints of the detained be tabled in the UN Commission on Human Rights. The chairmanship of the commission was recently taken over by Libya, the relatives reason. They insist Bulgaria's Foreign Ministry has not protested in an appropriate manner over the alleged torture of the arrestees. According to Chervenyashka's husband Emil Uzunov, Bulgaria notified the United Nations about the alleged tortures with a non-paper instead of official document.

During the latest visit of Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Passy in Tripoli it emerged that the Criminal Court in Benghazi, which should hear the case against the Bulgarian medics was not able to form a panel of judges and that stalls the trial.

The six Bulgarian medics have been charged with intentionally infecting some 400 Libyan children with HIV and have been detained for almost four years already.

Hague - During his testimony, General Vasiljevic said that from May of 1992 until the end of war in former SFRY over 13,000 officers from YPA served in militaries of Republika Srpska (RS) and Republika Srpska Krajina (RSK).

A key military adviser to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has told the UN war crimes tribunal there was a direct link between Mr Milosevic and Serb nationalists fighting in Croatia in 1991-95.

The witness, General Aleksandar Vasiljevic, told the Hague tribunal that Serbian units could not have fought in Croatia in the early 1990s without presidential approval.

During the examination, prosecutors also produced what could be key documentary evidence, in the form of letters from Croatian Serb leaders asking Mr Milosevic to put pressure on the Yugoslav Army to assist them.

General Vasiljevic said the 1993 letter, signed by the leader of the breakaway republic of Serb Krajina Milan Martic, showed that the Croatian Serbs believed Mr Milosevic controlled the Yugoslav Army as well.

Full story here.

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The World Court took a decisive step Monday toward settling a decade-long legal battle between Yugoslavia and Bosnia by paving the way for a landmark genocide hearing on the Bosnian war.

The United Nations (news - web sites)' top court said it had rejected a Yugoslav challenge to its jurisdiction that would have prevented its judges from hearing a case brought by Bosnia against its neighbor in 1993, accusing it of genocide.

The case has been mired in a series of legal challenges for the last 10 years. Bosnia plans to seek hefty compensation from Belgrade if the Hague (news - web sites)-based court rules that Yugoslavia was responsible for genocide in the 1992-95 conflict.

Full story here.

Tehran, 2 February 2003 (RFE/RL) -- State news media in Iran report that a conservative Islamic court has sentenced two opinion pollsters to jail for issuing public opinion data that was disapproved of by authorities.

The reports say the two directors of the Ayandeh Polling Institute -- Abbas Abdi and Hossein Ghazian -- are to serve seven- and eight-year terms, respectively.

Both pollsters already have spent three months in solitary confinement awaiting trial. They were detained after they published a public opinion survey last September which found that three-quarters of Iranians wanted Tehran to resume a political dialogue with the United States.