AP - February 29th, 2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Haiti's beleaguered President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigned and flew into exile Sunday. Gunfire rang out through the capital, and the United States said an international peacekeepers -- including Americans -- would be deployed soon.

The head of Haiti's supreme court said he was taking charge.

U.N. diplomats said key Security Council members would begin to talk Sunday about a resolution to authorize an international force.

Prime Minister Yvon Neptune said at a press conference that Aristide resigned to ``prevent bloodshed.''

At the same news conference, U.S. Ambassador James Foley insisted the United States had not asked Aristide to resign.

``President (Jean-Bertrand) Aristide made a decision for the good of the Haitian people,'' Foley said. ``International military forces including U.S. forces will be rapidly arriving in Haiti to begin to restore a sense of security.''

A jet carrying the ex-leader landed on the island of Antigua for refueling and was headed to South Africa, local radio stations reported. But the government in Johannesburg said there had been no recent contact with Aristide nor an offer of asylum.

Three hours after Aristide's departure, Supreme Court Justice Boniface Alexandre declared he was taking over as called for by the constitution. He urged calm after more than three weeks of violence.

``The task will not be an easy one,'' Alexandre, who is in his 60s, said at a news conference. ``Haiti is in crisis. ... It needs all its sons and daughters. No one should take justice into their own hands.''

Despite Alexandre's declaration that he was in charge, the Haitian constitution calls for parliament to approve him as leader and the legislature has not met since early this year when lawmakers' terms expired.

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said Thursday that three Russian intelligence agents had been arrested in Qatar on suspicion of involvement in the killing of former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev. Ivanov said they were innocent and demanded their release.

Three Russians were arrested in Doha, the capital of Qatar, a week ago, Ivanov said. He accused Qatari officials of failing to report the arrest to the Russian Embassy and refusing it the opportunity to meet with those arrested.

``Attempts by the Qatari authorities to hold the arrested Russian citizens responsible for the attempt on Yandarbiyev's life are totally unsubstantiated,'' Ivanov said in a statement released by the Foreign Ministry. ``They have no relation whatsoever to the incident.''

Yandarbiyev, 51, was killed Feb. 13 when a bomb destroyed his car after he left a Doha mosque where he attended Friday Muslim prayers. His teenage son was wounded.

The Qatari Interior Ministry said Wednesday that two suspects detained for questioning since Feb. 19 had been charged with murder, but so far it has refused to identify them.

Ivanov said that he had sent a special envoy to Qatar, and that the representative had won the release of one of the Russians, who is now staying in the Russian Embassy in Doha.

Ivanov demanded that the Qatari authorities ``immediately release the Russian citizens being held unlawfully and allow them to return to Russia unimpeded.''

He said that the three Russian agents, one of whom had a diplomatic passport, were conducting legal ``information and analytical activities to counter international terrorism.''

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday summoned the Qatari ambassador to Moscow for a second time over the past week to make a formal protest.

Yandarbiyev, Chechnya's acting president in 1996-1997, had lived in Qatar since 2000 and was wanted by Russian authorities for suspected terrorism and links to al-Qaida. Moscow had been seeking his extradition.

His assassination occurred one week after a bombing in the Moscow subway that killed 41 people and wounded more than 100. President Vladimir Putin blamed Chechen rebels for the blast.

VIENNA, Austria - U.N. inspectors have discovered high-tech enrichment equipment on an Iranian air force base, diplomats said Thursday. The find appeared to be the first known link of Tehran's suspect nuclear program to its military.

The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the gas centrifuge system was found at an air base outside of the capital. Such equipment is used to process uranium which can then be used for nuclear fuel or warheads, depending on the level of enrichment.

The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the designs were of a P-2 centrifuge — more advanced than the P-1 model Iran has acknowledged using to enrich uranium for what is says are peaceful purposes. They said preliminary investigations by inspectors working for the International Atomic Energy Agency indicated they matched drawings of equipment found in Libya and supplied by the Pakistani network headed by scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Full story here.

Italian police say they have arrested a top leader of the Calabrian mafia - believed to be the country's most notorious organised crime group.

Giuseppe Morabito, 70, was arrested in a village in southern Calabria region.

He had been at large for 12 years, on suspicion of running an international drug smuggling ring.

His arrest is the second blow in a month to the Calabrian mafia, following the police seizure of thousands of kilogrammes of cocaine in January.

Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu on Wednesday praised the police force, saying Mr Morabito was "one of the most dangerous crime bosses in Italy".

Full story here.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's hardline judiciary closed down two leading newspapers on Wednesday for publishing a letter in which reformist lawmakers accused Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of heading a system that abused people's rights.

The liberal Sharq and Yas-e No dailies were sealed by order of the Tehran Prosecutor's Office, journalists at the newspapers said. It was not clear how long the newspapers would be banned from publishing, they said.

``(They were closed) because they did not obey an order from the Supreme National Security Council not to publish the letter to the supreme leader,'' Issa Saharkhiz, a liberal journalist and former deputy culture minister, told Reuters.

The letter to Khamenei was sent by some 100 reformist legislators in protest at the disqualification by a hardline watchdog of more than 2,500 candidates for parliamentary elections on Friday.

The scathing six-page epistle accused Iran's absolute Islamic leader -- public criticism of whom is a criminal offense -- of allowing his appointees to ``violate the legitimate freedoms and rights of the people'' in the name of Islam.

The letter was distributed by lawmakers at a news conference on Tuesday attended by dozens of local and foreign journalists.

But state radio, television and the official IRNA news agency carried no reports on the letter and only Sharq and Yas-e-No, out of dozens of daily newspapers in Iran, dared to publish it.

Sharq journalist Abdorreza Tajik said about 10 journalists and technical staff were still inside the newspaper building, which had been surrounded by judiciary officials to prevent Thursday's edition from circulating.

Sarakhiz said the order by the Supreme National Security Council, the country's top decision-making body on security matters, had been communicated to local media orally on Tuesday.

``This is a restriction of press freedom and is condemned,'' he said.

Around 100 newspapers have been closed down in the past four years and many journalists and publishers have been jailed. Paris-based rights group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) last year said Iran had more journalists behind bars than any other country in the Middle East.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Nobel peace prizewinner Shirin Ebadi said Tuesday she would not vote in Iran's parliamentary election this week because of the mass disqualification of reformist candidates.

``I will not vote myself because I don't know those who have been qualified. I'm not ready to vote for someone I don't know,'' the human rights lawyer said in an interview with Reuters.

``The first principle of democracy is that people should have the right to vote for anyone they want,'' she said, adding that the exclusion of some 2,500 contenders by a panel of hard-line clerics had ``damaged people's freedom to vote.''

BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro (AP)-- Slobodan Milosevic's Socialists said they would back a pro-democratic government, but set a high price for that support -- an end to extraditions of Serbs to the U.N. war crimes tribunal.

``We are ready to support new coalition government,'' Ivica Dacic, a top official of the Socialist Party of Serbia, said Monday. ``We are ready to begin negotiations.''

Dacic's remarks came after two parties, the pro-Western G17 and monarchist Serbian Renewal Movement, separately agreed Sunday to join a minority coalition led by Vojislav Kostunica, a conservative who succeeded Milosevic as president of Yugoslavia.

The move paved the way for formation of a Serbian government, ending weeks of deadlock in the wake of Dec. 28 elections. Still it left the republic vulnerable. If extraditions are halted, key western financial and political support might be lost.

The Socialists faded into virtual insignificance following Milosevic's demise in 2000 and now they control only 22 seats in the 250-seat parliament. Still, their support is crucial because the elections left no clear winner.

Dacic said that his party would support a pro-democratic minority government only if ``other parties position themselves along our basic principles,'' including the Socialist demand that no more Serbs be extradited to the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. Milosevic is among suspects being tried by the court for his alleged role in the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

In Brussels, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Monday he predicted ``a lot of difficulties'' for any future government in Serbia-Montenegro that included Milosevic's socialist party.

``We don't think this is a decision that goes in the right direction,'' Solana told reporters. ``I don't think it will help very much the political and economic relationship with the international community. There will be a lot of difficulties.''

Solana said the EU ``would prefer very much that the government in Serbia-Montenegro has the same values and same direction as the government before.''

Kostunica, who heads the Democratic Party of Serbia and is expected to be Serbia's next prime minister, also opposes such extradition because he considers the U.N. court anti-Serb.

The Democratic Party of the outgoing prime minister, Zoran Zivkovic earlier dropped out of talks with three other reformist groups and bitterly opposes any pact with the Socialists.

Iran's reformist president has urged Iranians to vote in elections later this week, to stop conservatives from winning control of parliament.

President Mohammad Khatami said despite many pro-reform candidates being barred, voters should pick candidates with views close to their own.

He said a low turnout could mean a minority gaining control of Iran, which would not be in its interests.

The BBC's Jim Muir, in Tehran, says the president had taken an "unusual step".

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: "Reformist" scam seems to be now fully exposed. Although most of "reformist" candidates are not even participating in elections, leader of "reformists" is calling for people to vote for hard liners!? For quite some time many wondered about these "reformists" and their true intentions. Although they support democratic process and opening of Iran to the world at the same time nuclear weapons program continued at high speed. Now it is clear that "reformists" were only meant to distract West and UN enough to give them precious time for building nuclear installations and get necessaryequipment from Russia. While WMD are still to be found in Iraq, WMD are ready and operational in neighboring Iran. Unless there is another revolution in Iran this year than the only way of removing nuclear threat from Iran today will be another military operation in Persian Gulf.

One of Europe's last symbols of Cold War-era division has finally been removed, more than a decade after the fall of the Berlin wall.

A metal fence that has separated the Italian town of Gorizia from its Slovenian neighbour Nova Gorica since 1947 has been dismantled in a gesture to mark the former Yugoslav republic's impending EU membership.

Crowds of people gathered to watch the two towns' mayors dismantle the remaining stretch of fencing.

Full story here.

A nine-year old Tajik girl has been stabbed to death in the Russian city of St Petersburg by suspected skinheads.

Police said a group of youths armed with knives and bats attacked the girl on Monday night, stabbing her 11 times. Her father and an 11-year old boy were also hospitalized with head wounds. The attack was being widely seen in Russia as racist in origin.

St Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko, who described the attack as "bestial", said they must combat any manifestations of nationalism in the city.

Full story here.

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) -- Ino Ardelean knew he could get into trouble for reporting on dubious links between Romania's ruling Social Democracy Party and prominent businessmen, but he never imagined waking up in a hospital with a broken jaw.

Now he thinks he should have seen the warning signs: bad-mouthed by two publications that support the ruling party; cold-shouldered at party news conferences; a fellow journalist quitting after threats were made to his father-in-law's business.

On Dec. 3, Ardelean was severely beaten while on his way home from his office at the national daily Evenimentul Zilei.

He was one of 16 Romanian journalists physically assaulted last year -- a wave of violence that is putting the Romanian government in conflict not only with media critics, but with the United States and European Union.

Their judgment of Romania's attitude to free speech, clean government and the rule of law matters more than ever as the impoverished country of 22 million seeks to attract foreign investment and negotiate its way into the prosperous European Union.

The attacks on journalists have drawn criticism from advocacy groups and U.S. Ambassador Michael Guest, who see press freedoms in the ex-communist country shrinking dramatically.

Noting the ``striking brutality'' of the attack on Ardelean, Guest warned that the Romanian government's response would help shape ``our judgments as to how strongly anchored the rule of law is in this country.''

After 40 years of communist rule and state-controlled media ended in 1989, Romanians enjoyed an explosion of free speech. But press freedoms have proved fragile, especially in this election year.

Journalists are sometimes sued for libel and hit with huge fines that would take them years to pay off. Many practice self-censorship. Business leaders are hostile to reporters who expose corruption, and it is common for journalists to receive anonymous threats.

Romania isn't the only ex-communist country where government and business have difficulty tolerating free speech. But ``The situation in Romania is particularly worrying us,'' said Robert Menard, general secretary of Reporters Without Borders.

He said Romania was the only candidate for EU membership ``where there are such serious problems with freedom of expression.''

Violence against journalists sometimes gets scant attention from the Romanian media, where rivalries are rife and economic survival often means overlooking reports that could damage the government.

TV stations and newspapers rely on government advertising and have large debts to the state, which often are forgiven in exchange for favorable coverage, media analysts allege.

President Ion Iliescu immediately condemned the attack on Ardelean. However, Prime Minister Adrian Nastase criticized the attack three weeks later, and only after the U.S. ambassador spoke up. Romania's Press Club ignored the subject of violence against journalists at its annual gala, held days after the attack on Ardelean.

Even foreign-owned media have been subject to government pressure, senior journalists say.

Three journalists at Romania's biggest private radio station, Europa FM, resigned last year, accusing its French managers of pressuring them to report more favorably on the government.

Six journalists resigned from their jobs at BBC's Romanian section in London and Bucharest to protest the firing in November of its most prominent journalist, whose reports were known to have annoyed the government.

Last month, state-financed national television canceled a talk show, citing poor ratings. The show's host said the government had accused it of giving the opposition too much air time.

Also in January, parliament ruled that the government should appoint the board that runs Dilema, one of Romania's most prestigious independent weeklies, which receives public funding. Twelve of its journalists quit in protest and said they would start their own newspaper.

As for Ardelean, he is suing the government and police for $1.5 million, saying they neglected their duties by failing to arrest any suspects in the assault on him.

The Serbian parliament has elected a reformist as speaker after a number of attempts since the December polls.

Dragan Marsicanin of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) was elected with the support of the Socialists, once the party of Slobodan Milosevic.

He is expected to nominate DSS leader Vojislav Kostunica as prime minister.

Full story here.

Editor's commentary: This looks very familiar with events in Germany in 1933 when Hitler took over Bundestag and later declared himself a dictator. Nazi Kostunica has very nicely manipulated greedy bastards and crooks from G17 and managed to get support from quislings Ilic and Draskovic. Like in 1997 and 1999 Draskovic once again wants to support those who wanted twice to assassinate him. Government is not yet formed and new elections are strong possibility. If that doesn't happen then possibility of civil war in Montenegro will rise significantly this summer because DSS, SPS and SRS want to dominate union state at any cost and crush Djukanovic and his ruling party. Whatever happens it will be a hot summer in Serbia and Montenegro.