AP - December 31st, 2004

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- Viktor Yanukovych announced his resignation as prime minister on Friday, handing Ukraine's pro-Western opposition a symbolic victory, but he vowed to continue his court battle for the presidency of this ex-Soviet republic.

Meanwhile, Viktor Yushchenko, the winner of last week's repeat presidential election, and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili welcomed the New Year side by side on Kiev's Independence Square, the epicenter of mass protests that overturned the political order in this nation of 48 million.

The joint appearance of two politicians who have openly and actively courted the West was certain to further irk the Kremlin, which had strongly supported Yanukovych.

Yushchenko soundly won the court-ordered presidential revote on Sunday, but Yanukovych has refused to recognize the results and said he would challenge them in the Supreme Court. Under Ukrainian law, Yushchenko cannot be declared president until all appeals are exhausted.

Yanukovych's resignation during a New Year's Eve address to the nation was his first significant concession since the election.

``We are still fighting, but I don't have much hope,'' Yanukovych said. ``I will act as an independent politician, as the rightful winner of the legitimate Nov. 21 election.''

Yanukovych claimed victory in that runoff vote, but hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians flooded Kiev's streets to protest massive fraud. After weeks of protests dubbed the ``Orange Revolution'' because of Yushchenko's campaign color, the court ruled that the election was corrupted, annulled Yanukovych's victory and ordered Sunday's revote.

Outgoing President Leonid Kuchma didn't mention Yanukovych's resignation in his televised New Year's address but said ``in 2005, there will be a new president. Every region and every citizen of Ukraine must accept this democratic choice as their own because this person will need your support.''

Yanukovych has seen much of his support fall away since, losing the backing of Kuchma and watching as many of his top advisers desert him. Parliament passed a vote of no-confidence in his government on Dec. 1, but he ignored it, calling it illegal.

When Yanukovych returned this week after taking a leave for campaigning, the opposition blockaded his government headquarters, refusing to let him convene a Cabinet session. The meeting went ahead in another building without him.

``I believe it is impossible to have any position in a state that is ruled by such officials,'' he said, in an apparent reference to Kuchma. ``This is my personal position.''

The resignation would immediately trigger the dissolution of the entire 20-member Cabinet. According to the constitution, Kuchma must formally accept Yanukovych's resignation and appoint a new government within 60 days -- though he is likely to appoint a caretaker until a new president is inaugurated.

Yuriy Kliuchkovskiy, a lawmaker and Yushchenko's ally, called Yanukovych's decision an acknowledgment that his position is ``hopeless.''

``There is his pride. He didn't want to submit his resignation documents to newly elected President Yushchenko, he decided to submit them to President Kuchma,'' he said.

Saakashvili, who was catapulted to power last year in a bloodless revolution that inspired the Ukrainian opposition, made his first stop in Kiev at the opposition's tent camp on Kiev's tree-lined main street. He has displayed his support for Yushchenko by regularly wearing an orange tie.

``I couldn't support you as an official during your revolution, but I was with you and I feel myself again a resident of Kiev,'' Saakashvili, who studied international law in the Ukrainian capital, told the crowd in Ukrainian.

Saakashvili later joined Yushchenko on Independence Square, telling tens of thousands that ``on this square, the future of Europe is being resolved.''

The bitterly fought presidential race in Ukraine increased tensions between the West and Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin rushed to congratulate Yanukovych after his Nov. 21 victory and has accused foreign states of meddling in Ukrainian affairs.

Some Russian politicians have accused the United States of being behind the U.S.-educated Saakashvili's rise to power in Georgia, another former Soviet republic, and of bankrolling the Ukrainian opposition.

The Kremlin has seen its relationship with Tbilisi worsen under Saakashvili, as he has moved to boost Georgia's ties with the European Union and the United States to offset the influence of its giant neighbor.

Yushchenko has pledged to nudge Ukraine closer to the West, making it a priority to pursue a future membership in the European Union. He also has left open the possibility of joining NATO at some point.

Yushchenko, wearing an orange scarf, congratulated his crowd of supporters, telling them, ``We weren't free. Today we are independent. Today we are free.''

MINSK, Belarus (AP) -- A prominent opposition figure was sentenced to five years in prison Thursday after being convicted of stealing computers supposedly owned by the U.S. Embassy, a charge Washington labeled spurious and human rights groups called politically motivated.

Mikhail Marinich, who was international economic affairs minister under authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko but joined the opposition in 2001, had pleaded innocent, saying the trial was ``totally lawless.''

When the sentence was announced, relatives and supporters in the courtroom yelled ``Freedom for Marinich! Long Live Belarus!'' The court also ordered $41,000 confiscated from Marinich.

Belarusian security agents arrested Marinich on April 26 and charged him with stealing some 40 computers belonging to the U.S. Embassy in Minsk.

The U.S. Embassy, however, did not report the computers stolen, and a State Department statement presented to the district court said the embassy had no claims against Marinich.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement that the charges against Marinich were spurious.

``The United States condemns this abuse and earlier abuses of the judicial system by the Lukashenko regime to persecute Belarusian citizens for their political beliefs,'' he said.

Marinich's lawyer, Vera Stremkovskaya, said the verdict would be appealed to the Minsk regional court.

The case has raised concerns from the United States and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which sent representatives to watch the proceedings. The International Helsinki Federation human rights group earlier called the charges politically motivated.

Belarus has been branded Europe's last dictatorship because of Lukashenko's stifling of dissent and the persecution of independent media and opposition parties.

Lukashenko also has boosted his authority through a series of elections that international organizations contend were marred by fraud. A referendum in October scrapped presidential term limits, opening the way for him to seek a third term in 2006 and run in subsequent elections.

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- Viktor Yushchenko, fresh from his victory in Ukraine's disputed presidential race, called on his supporters Tuesday to blockade the Cabinet of Ministers building to prevent his opponent from holding a government session.

Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, the Kremlin favorite who has come under increasing pressure to concede defeat to Yushchenko, returned to work Tuesday after taking a vacation to campaign ahead of last Sunday's vote.

The opposition blockaded government buildings for weeks after the fraudulent Nov. 21 vote, preventing Yanukovych and other officials from entering their offices. The country's high court annulled that ballot, forcing Sunday's rerun.

``I ask everyone, especially the people in the tent camp, to strengthen the blockade of the government,'' Yushchenko said, calling for his supporters to turn out on Wednesday.

Oleksandr Ternavsky, Yanukovych's spokesman, said the session would go ahead as planned, and called Yushchenko's move ``completely illegal.''

Under Ukrainian law, the prime minister can retain his post until replaced by the incumbent president or the president-elect.

Yushchenko won 51.99 percent to Yanukovych's 44.19 percent in Sunday's court-ordered rerun of the vote, according to a final preliminary vote tally -- a difference of about 2.3 million votes.

``In principle, we have the result,'' said Yaroslav Davydovych, head of the Central Election Commission. ``I don't know who can doubt it.''

Yanukovych has said he will challenge the results in Ukraine's Supreme Court. He said his campaign team had nearly 5,000 complaints about how the voting was conducted and claimed that 4.8 million people -- more than double the margin of Yushchenko's victory -- had been unable to cast ballots, among them disabled and elderly voters.

Ukraine's parliament approved restrictions on voting at home in a bid to prevent fraud, but the Constitutional Court threw out the restrictions on the eve of the vote. Many people, however, were unaware of the ruling, Yanukovych's campaign said.

Yanukovych's vow to challenge the results echoes Yushchenko's successful move following the Nov. 21 runoff. The court ruling calling for the runoff came amid widespread complaints from foreign monitors that the Nov. 21 vote was unfair; this time, monitors have said they didn't see mass violations.

Yanukovych's team has yet to file an appeal, and the Central Election Commission's Davydovych said that many of the complaints they had received, purportedly from individual voters, were ``printed on the same computer, with the same text, the same envelopes.''

``This is on the conscience of those who do that,'' Davydovych said.

President Leonid Kuchma, in the runup to Sunday's vote, urged both candidates to accept the official result and not appeal. And the Council of Europe, the continent's top human rights watchdog, called on Yanukovych on Tuesday to accept defeat.

``I call on all parties to accept the verdict of the ballot box and to refrain from rhetoric which may fuel division in Ukraine,'' said Terry Davis, the council's secretary general.

Ukraine's east-west divide has deepened during the protracted election campaign. The Russian-speaking, heavily industrialized east backed Yanukovych, while cosmopolitan Kiev and the nationalistic west supported Yushchenko.

The bitterly fought campaign also frayed ties between the West and Russia. The Kremlin is nervous about the eastward expanding EU and NATO, and Russian President Vladimir Putin personally campaigned for Yanukovych in the first two rounds of voting in November. He also had congratulated Yanukovych after the fraud-marred second round, ignoring western complaints that the vote was rigged.

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday harshly criticized European observers in the weekend's elections in Ukraine and in Uzbekistan.

``It would be a serious exaggeration to present the opinion of Western observers about the elections in both Uzbekistan and Ukraine as truth in the latest instance,'' Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said in a statement.

Yushchenko, who draws much of his support from nationalist western Ukraine where anti-Russian feeling is high, has aimed to bring this sprawling nation of 48 million closer to the West, without alienating giant neighbor Russia.

Yushchenko said his first mission would be a trip to Moscow to try to improve relations.

``I must show Russia that our earlier ties were deformed, they were formed by Ukrainian (business) clans,'' Yushchenko was quoted as saying in an interview published Tuesday in Russia's Izvestia newspaper.

``We can and must turn this page if we are friends and are prepared to look one another in the eye.''

Yushchenko said both countries needed a better working relationship.

``Russia is Ukraine's neighbor. It is better to argue twice with your wife than once with your neighbor,'' Yushchenko told Izvestia, adding that the two nations share Slavic roots, family links, culture and language.

KIEV, Ukraine (AP)-- Ukrainian Transport Minister Heorhiy Kirpa, a supporter of the trailing candidate in Sunday's presidential election, was found dead in his house from a gunshot wound Monday, a spokesman for the nation's railways said.

Local media speculated that Kirpa's death was a suicide but officials did not confirm that. The Unian news agency reported that a gun was found near his body.

A duty officer in Kiev's police headquarters told The Associated Press that Kirpa was found wounded. When asked whether Kirpa had committed suicide, the officer would not comment.

Kirpa's death came a day after a presidential election rerun in which opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko held an insurmountable lead over Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Opposition figures claimed that Kirpa allocated trains to ferry Yanukovych supporters to vote at multiple polling sites in Nov. 21 presidential balloting that eventually was annulled by the Ukraine Supreme Court.

That overturning of the election led to Sunday's rerun.

Kirpa's body was found in his country house just outside the Ukrainian capital, spokesman Eduard Zanyuk said.

``The man has passed away. An investigation will clear up the circumstances,'' Zanyuk told The Associated Press.

Kirpa, 58, was a top-ranking official in the Social Democratic Party United, led by Viktor Medvedchuk, the former chief of staff of outgoing President Leonid Kuchma. He was appointed by Kuchma in 2002.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russia has restricted rights to such an extent that it has joined the countries that are not free for the first time since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, Freedom House said Monday, marking Moscow's march away from the Western democracies it has embraced as diplomatic partners.

``This setback for freedom represented the year's most important political trend,'' the U.S.-based non-governmental organization wrote in its annual study, Freedom in the World 2005.

Freedom House noted increased Kremlin control over national television and other media, limitations on local government, and parliamentary and presidential elections it said were neither free nor fair.

``Russia's step backward into the 'Not Free' category is the culmination of a growing trend under President Vladimir Putin to concentrate political authority, harass and intimidate the media, and politicize the country's law-enforcement system,'' Executive Director Jennifer Windsor said in a statement.

``These moves mark a dangerous and disturbing drift toward authoritarianism in Russia, made more worrisome by President Putin's recent heavy-handed meddling in political developments in neighboring countries, such as Ukraine.''

The report accused Putin of exploiting the terrorist seizure of a school in southern Russia to ram through what Freedom House called the dismantling of local authority.

In the wake of the September attack, which killed more than 330 people, Putin introduced a plan to end the election of governors by popular vote and the election of legislators in individual races. Currently, the 450 seats in the lower house of parliament are equally split between those filled through party lists and those contested in district races.

The Russian Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on the report, which said that Russia had reached its lowest point where political rights and civic freedoms are concerned since 1989.

Grigory Yavlinsky, a former member of parliament with the liberal Yabloko party, said Russia has been ``not-free'' for more than a decade now.

``Today in Russia there are no independent mass media, no independent court, parliament, business. There is no public control over special forces and police. There are practically no elections which are not controlled by the authorities,'' he said.

Freedom House said that on balance, the world saw increased freedom in 2004: 26 countries showed gains while 11 showed decline. Of the world's 192 countries, it judged 46 percent free, 26 percent not free, and the rest partly free. Eight rated as the most repressive: Burma, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Turkmenistan.

The NGO said that only Central and Eastern Europe had seen ``dramatic progress'' over the past year. It noted that Bosnia-Herzegovina's rating had improved following the first elections organized entirely by Bosnian institutions.

In the Middle East, Freedom House rated just Israel as free. Five countries in the region, including Jordan and Yemen, are partly free, and 12 are not free. It said the territories occupied by Israel and run by the Palestinian Authority were not free.

Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Qatar registered modest gains, Freedom House said.

It registered democratic gains in the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine, where popular protests forced the cancellation of the results of fraudulent elections in the past 13 months.

``The positive experiences in Georgia and Ukraine indicate that democratic ferment and nonviolent civic protest are potent forces for political change,'' Windsor said. ``They also reinforce freedom's gradual global advance.''

The former Soviet republics of Belarus, Armenia and Lithuania saw setbacks -- the first two due to the authorities' increasingly harsh response to dissent, and the latter because of ``worrying questions about the full autonomy of Lithuania's political leadership'' in the wake of President Roland Paksas' impeachment amid allegations of influence by the Russian mafia.

Freedom House, a Washington-based, nonpartisan group, was founded nearly 60 years ago by Americans concerned about threats to democracy. It conducts advocacy, research and training to encourage and nurture democracy.

NEW YORK - After winning re-election and "reshaping the rules of politics to fit his 10-gallon-hat leadership style," President George Bush for the second time was chosen as Time magazine's Person of the Year.

The magazine's editors tapped Bush "for sharpening the debate until the choices bled, for reframing reality to match his design, for gambling his fortunes — and ours — on his faith in the power of leadership."

Time's 2004 Person of the Year package, on newsstands Monday, includes an Oval Office interview with Bush, an interview with his father, former President George H. W. Bush, and a profile of Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove.

In an interview with the magazine, Bush attributed his victory over Democratic candidate John Kerry to his foreign policy and the wars he began in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"The election was about the use of American influence," Bush said.

After a grueling campaign, Bush remains a polarizing figure in America and around the world, and that's part of the reason the magazine selected him, said Managing Editor Jim Kelly.

Full story here. Time Person of the Year 2004 here.

LONDON (AP) -- Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with TCDD, the most harmful known dioxin and one contained in Agent Orange, a scientist who analyzed his blood said Friday.

The tests showed the TCDD was pure and must have been concocted in a laboratory, lead investigator Abraham Brouwer told The Associated Press. The tests, confirmed by three labs in the Netherlands and Germany, also confirmed that Yushchenko's blood contained 100,000 units of the poison, the second-highest concentration on record.

Doctors announced last weekend that the 50-year-old Yushchenko was poisoned with a dioxin chemical that left him disfigured, but Brouwer told the AP that his team has now zoned in on TCDD, the most hazardous of all the dioxins.

There are hundreds of dioxins and they are usually produced inadvertently during manufacturing processes that use chlorine, such as those for herbicides, paper and pulp bleaching. Waste incinerators also produce dioxins.

TCDD was an element in Agent Orange, a herbicide sprayed by U.S. troops during the Vietnam War to clear dense vegetation and expose their enemy. The herbicide became infamous after being linked to myriad health problems in veterans and villagers.

The poison, chemically known as tetrachlorodibenzoparadioxin, usually occurs mixed with other dioxins produced by the same processes.

However, the investigation led by Brouwer at BioDetection Systems in Amsterdam found Yushchenko was poisoned with pure TCDD, not a mixture.

``That excludes a huge number of sources,'' said dioxin expert Dr. Arnold Schecter, a professor of environmental Sciences at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Dallas who was not involved with the investigation.

``If it's pure TCDD, that means it could only be labs that buy or sell TCDD (for research purposes), government biological or chemical weapons units or a clever chemist,'' Schecter said.

Brouwer said he agreed that the search for the source of the poison can now be focused on those three possibilities.

Most people living in Europe and North America have some level of several dioxins or dioxin-like poisons in their bodies, experts say. The pattern and concentration of those gives clues to the source, whether chiefly from an incinerator, factory or other location.

Brouwer, also a professor of environmental toxicology at the Free University in Amsterdam, said all the other dioxins found in Yushchenko's blood were at levels normally found in people from his region. None was elevated, except for TCDD, which means that even if the poison originally came from a factory or incinerator it must have been purified in a lab afterward.

TCDD is synthesized by labs in Europe, Russia and the United States for use as a benchmark sample in tests measuring dioxin levels. Several labs around the world may also purify TCDD for research purposes. It is not used in any commercial products.

Yushchenko, who faces Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych in a repeat presidential election on Dec. 26, fell ill after having dinner with Ukrainian Security Service chief Ihor Smeshko and his deputy, Volodymyr Satsyuk, on Sept. 5.

Yushchenko complained of a headache about three hours after the dinner, and by the next day had developed an acute stomach ache. He later developed pancreatitis and gastrointestinal pain, as well as a severe backache.

About three weeks after his first symptoms, Yushchenko developed the disfigurement that is the hallmark of dioxin poisoning.

Yushchenko told the AP on Thursday that he is convinced he was poisoned at the dinner.

``It was a project of political murder, prepared by the authorities,'' Yushchenko said. The dinner ``was the only place where no one from my team was present and no precautions were taken concerning the food,'' he said.

The question of how long Yushchenko will be sick and what kind of illnesses he may suffer remains unclear. Everybody reacts slightly differently to the chemical.

``The pain, diarrhea and fatigue will be much better in a few months,'' Schecter predicted, adding there are likely to be lingering health risks.

TCDD poisoning raises risk of heart attack, cancer, diabetes, muscle aches and fatigue. It weakens the immune system, making victims more vulnerable to infections and can make some people highly irritable.

On average, the concentration of TCDD in the body halves every 7-10 years. Regular follow-up blood tests on Yushchenko in the next six months or so will indicate how quickly his body is eliminating the poison.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba put up several huge billboards near the U.S. mission on Friday with pictures of abused Iraqi prisoners and American soldiers pointing a rifle at children, in response to a U.S. Christmas display in support of imprisoned Cuban dissident.

Two billboards with photos of hooded and bloodied inmates at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, a swastika and the word "fascists" in bold red letters were erected across the street from the U.S. diplomatic mission, where the display of Christmas lights includes the number 75, in reference to 75 pro-democracy activists imprisoned for lengthy terms last year.

Another billboard faces the back of the building, with large photos of U.S. soldiers searching and pointing a rifle at children, presumably in Iraq.

A U.S. diplomat called the billboards fanatical and hyperbolic.

"There couldn't be a better contrast: the U.S. wishing Cubans happy holidays, Frosty waving at passers-by and an effort to prompt discussion on human rights on the one side, and screaming Cuban government billboards on the other," he said.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: Castro exposed and showing his true face of hatred and oppression. Instead of wishing good to Cubans and people around the world he decided to spread evil for Christmas. No need for his marathon speeches anymore, we heard and saw enough today. Time to go little tyrant!

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) -- Bucharest mayor and reformist opposition candidate Traian Basescu won an unexpected victory Monday in Romania's presidential runoff election, ending a decade of rule by successors to this country's former communist regime.

Basescu, former ship captain, vowed to fight widespread corruption, restore press freedoms and prepare Romania to join the European Union by 2007. He has also said he supports social reform, including greater rights for gays -- a stance that drew heavy criticism from the country's powerful Orthodox Christian Church.

He defeated Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, who was supported by outgoing President Ion Iliescu, Romania's leader for 11 of the past 15 years since the revolution that deposed former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

Iliescu said the elections were fair and confirmed that Romania now has a working democracy.

Nastase called Basescu and conceded defeat after final results showed Basescu had won 51.23 percent of Sunday's vote, compared with Nastase's 48.77 percent. Nastase said his defeat was ``the decision of the Romanian people and I respect it.''

In his victory speech, Basescu said he would strengthen ties with the United States and Britain to guarantee Romania's security, while also seeking good relations with Russia and other former Soviet states.

``The top priority is to fight corruption,'' Basescu said, calling graft a risk to ``state security.'' He said he would free state institutions from political interference and ``put them to work on behalf of the citizens.''

The elections were generally orderly, although there were reports of intimidation toward observers, according to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which had 15 monitors watching the vote Sunday.

In Bucharest, Basescu took part in a rally Monday night near the Parliament, where around 7,000 of his supporters gathered to celebrate. He promised to free state institutions from political control.

``Police, prosecutors, judges will do their jobs'' without politicians telling them what to do, he said.

The opposition is seen by many Romanians as less connected to the communists who ruled until the 1989 revolution, and less tainted by corruption and political foul play.

However, Nastase's Social Democracy Party had overseen a period of economic growth, and the opposition, in four years in power until 2000, proved unable to reform a system riddled with corruption.

By law, the president names a prime minister, who then needs to be approved by a vote in parliament. Basescu said Monday he would appoint his Justice and Truth Alliance party colleague Calin Popescu Tariceanu as prime minister.

Nastase's party won 189 of 469 seats in parliamentary elections, also held Sunday, while Basescu's Alliance party won 161. Neither has enough seats to form a majority, but possible coalition deals were already taking shape Monday.

A small political party that initially had supported Nastase's Social Democrats deserted the losing candidate, and was later mentioned by Basescu as a possible coalition partner.

The Humanist Party issued a statement Monday saying it ``reaffirmed its political independence,'' adding that its deal with Nastase was only an electoral alliance and not a governing pact.

Basescu, 53, said he wanted to form a government from his Alliance party, the Humanists and an ethnic Hungarian party, while avoiding any dealings with the extreme nationalist Greater Romania Party criticized by foreign governments.

VIENNA, Austria - Dioxin poisoning caused the mysterious illness of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko, a doctor said Saturday, adding that the poison could have been put in his soup.

"There is no doubt about the fact that Mr. Yushchenko's disease has been caused by a case of poisoning by dioxin," Zimpfer said.

"We suspect involvement of an external party, but we cannot answer as to who cooked what or who was with him while he ate," Zimpfer said, adding that tests showed the dioxin was taken orally.

The picture combo shows Viktor Yushchenko in file photos dated March 28, 2002, left, and Dec. 6, 2004, right. The Ukrainian opposition leader and presidential candidate's mysterious illness that scared his face was caused by dioxin poisoning, doctors said Saturday Dec. 11, 2004, in Vienna, Austria.

Dioxin — one of the contaminants found in Agent Orange — is formed as a by-product from industrial processes such as waste incineration, chemical and pesticide manufacturing and pulp and paper bleaching.

Exposure to the toxin can lead to chloracne — a type of adult acne that Zimpfer has said can take a long time to clear.

Full story here.

Turkey has deported two North Korean diplomats accused of smuggling drugs, Turkish officials say.

They said the two men - named as Ryang Thae Won and Kim Son Jin - were caught in a police raid in Istanbul on Sunday.

They are alleged to have been in possession of large quantities of Captagon - a synthetic amphetamine-type stimulant.

Full story here.

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Top war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic is getting about $520 a month in pension payments from the Serbia and Montenegro military, the Belgrade daily Blic reported Wednesday.

The paper said the money, which is more than double the average monthly wage in Serbia, was picked up regularly by a member of the fugitive Bosnian Serb general's family.

Serbia's pro-Western president Boris Tadic was quoted as saying Monday that Mladic's family was legally entitled to the money under Serbian law. Paying the pension did not mean Belgrade had any idea of his whereabouts, he stressed.

Hague tribunal chief prosecutor Carla del Ponte says Mladic is sheltered in Serbia by elements in the army in Serbia, a charge Belgrade strongly denies.

Tadic said Mladic's pension was being collected ``...probably by his son or some other member of his family.''

``Even if Ratko Mladic were convicted right now for war crimes, members of his family would have the right to the pension,'' he said in a Banja Luka newspaper interview Monday.

Mladic has been indicted by the Hague court for the killings of over 7,000 Muslim men and boys in the Srebrenica massacre of July 1995 and for the siege of Sarajevo during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

Bosnia's international peace overseer Paddy Ashdown blasted Bosnian Serb authorities last week when he found out they had kept Mladic on their paybooks until two years ago.

Speaking in The Hague Monday, the U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, Pierre-Richard Prosper, said Belgrade had shown ``zero cooperation'' with the United Nations tribunal, and singled out Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.

He said three generals indicted by the tribunal and living openly in Serbia were overdue in the Hague, but Kostunica had refused to have them arrested and extradited.

The West in 2004 moved to break what it calls the ``support network'' of Mladic and his wartime political chief and fellow fugitive Radovan Karadzic, by cutting financial support and freezing assets of alleged helpers and some family members.

During the Bosnian war, Belgrade backed the Bosnian Serb Army, which had been created from units of the Yugoslav National Army stationed in Bosnia when the conflict broke out.

Blic said several other fugitives indicted by the tribunal were also receiving police and army pensions from the state.

Only former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic, the first serving head of state to be indicted for war crimes by the United Nations, was getting no money, Blic added.

Milosevic has been on trial since February 2002. Mladic was indicted for genocide in Bosnia in 1995 but has been on the run only since about 2001.

THE HAGUE (Reuters) - A top U.S. envoy accused Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica of not doing enough to arrest leading war crimes suspects on Monday, saying Belgrade had shown ``zero cooperation'' with The Hague war crimes tribunal.

The U.S. Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues, Pierre-Richard Prosper, said Serbia's lack of cooperation with the U.N. court was jeopardizing plans to wrap up trials in 2008 and that the court's lifespan might have to be extended.

Former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic is among key figures wanted by the international war crimes court along with several Serbian army and police generals accused of crimes against ethnic Albanians in the 1999 Kosovo conflict.

``There is zero cooperation and the Prime Minister bears responsibility for this. He is making the situation more difficult for the Serbian people because he is not asking his (security) services or requiring his services to go arrest the fugitives,'' Prosper said on a visit to The Hague.

Kostunica has said he is willing to ask fugitives in Serbia to surrender but not forcibly hand them over to The Hague court.

Kostunica has said that extraditing such men, seen by many as national heroes, could threaten the stability of the country. Serbia's pro-Western president Boris Tadic and Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic say that is an empty pretext for his inaction.

``The generals now need to come to The Hague,'' Prosper said after meeting tribunal deputy prosecutor David Tolbert.

A recent opinion poll showed most Serbs oppose handing three generals over to The Hague to face Kosovo war crimes charges, even if the country continues to pay a price internationally for its defiance of the United Nations tribunal.

KIEV, Ukraine - The Supreme Court declared the results of Ukraine's disputed presidential run-off election invalid and ruled Friday that the run-off should be repeated by Dec. 26, bringing cheers from tens of thousands of opposition supported massed in Kiev's main square.

The ruling, made after five days of hearings by the court's 18 justices, was a major victory for opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko, who had rejected the government's demands that an entirely new election be held.

Full story here.