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Monday November 19, 12:42 AM Spanish al-Qaeda cell directly involved in US attacks: judge A Spanish investigating judge charged eight suspected members of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network arrested in Spain with preparing and carrying out the September 11 attacks on the United States. Judge Baltasar Garzon accused the group of being "directly involved with the preparation and carrying out of the attacks perpetrated by the suicide pilots on September 11". They were remanded in custody in Madrid charged with offences including "a terrorist attack against people" related to the US incidents. Garzon said he had based the charges on ...

Ramsey Clark to Be Milosevic Adviser By Associated Press November 17, 2001, 5:28 PM EST THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- The U.N. war crimes tribunal is allowing a former U.S. attorney general to be a legal adviser to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. The tribunal said Ramsey Clark, a civil rights activist who was attorney general under President Lyndon Johnson, and British attorney John Livingston will be granted full privileges of defense council to meet and advise Milosevic, who is awaiting trial on war crimes charges in Kosovo and Croatia. The decision, adopted Thursday, means Milosevic will be able to hold ...

<p>SKOPJE, Macedonia -- Ethnic Albanian rebels have clashed with Macedonian security forces in the tense northwestern region.</p> <p>Macedonian police claimed that rebels opened machine-gun and grenade-launcher fire on a checkpoint near the village of Preljubiste, just outside the tense area where three policemen were slain earlier this week.</p>

Paris Club forgives two thirds of Yugoslav debt By Gordana Filipovic BELGRADE, Nov 16 (Reuters) - The Paris Club of lending countries has written off two thirds of the $4.5 billion owed to it by Yugoslavia, raising hopes of reviving the country's war-ravaged economy. Serbian Finance Minister Bozidar Djelic told Reuters in an interview the United States, Britain, France and other creditors would write off 51 percent now and up to 66 percent later in tandem with International Monetary Fund (IMF) reforms. "This is a historic event for Serbia and Yugoslavia," Djelic told Reuters in an interview by phone from ...

US Attacks Put Spotlight on Bosnia Muslim Community By Daria Sito-SucicGORNJA MAOCA, Bosnia (Reuters) - This idyllic Bosnian village seems a world away from the rubble of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But Muslims here say outsiders treat them with increased suspicion after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.``I have never fired a bullet, and they call me a terrorist,'' said Abdulah, a bearded 27-year-old who last year moved to the northern village of Gornja Maoca with his wife and three children for a life devoted to their religion.But some local people regard him and ...

ARAB supporters of Osama bin Laden drew diagrams of an attack on a skyscraper in advance of the September 11 attack on New York, according to a neighbour in Kabul. Several families from the Arab world, as well as from Turkey and Bosnia, lived in a three-storey complex in the Shahr-e Now district of the Afghan capital. According to papers found in the homes, which were abandoned on Monday, the Arabs studied how to make explosives and bombs and other sabotage techniques as well as computing and foreign languages. Bashir Soshal, an English teacher, said: "One of the Arabs was ...

SKOPJE, Macedonia -- A new group of militants declared a "highest alert" in ethnic Albanian areas of Macedonia on Thursday and warned government forces to keep out. "All such forces will be attacked without warning if they try to enter (ethnic) Albanian areas," the self-styled Albanian National Army said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press. Declaring that "no international pressure would convince us to drop our weapons," the group urged former ethnic Albanian guerillas to join its ranks. The strength of the militants was unclear. Earlier this week it claimed responsibility for the killings of three police officers ...

A False Choice for Kosovo And the Real Choice for the Balkans Two days from now, denizens of Kosovo will have the opportunity to vote for a "legislative assembly" of that occupied province, likely believing that they are exercising their right to choose a government. Not "citizens," mind you, for to be a citizen one must first have a country, and even the UN/NATO occupiers are not ready to declare Kosovo an independent state &#150; yet. Furthermore, since little or no serious proof is required that a voter resided in Kosovo before the war (and even if they did, that ...

U.N. sacks two Bosnia police for assassination plot SARAJEVO, Nov 15 (Reuters) - The U.N. mission in Bosnia said on Thursday it had sacked two police officerswho conspired to assassinate moderate Muslim leader Fikret Abdic in 1996. U.N. spokesman Stefo Lehmann said the officers from the Bihac police administration in northwestern Bosnia were disqualified with immediate effect from any police work. Lehmann said the U.N. policing mission had found that the two policemen, together with others, developed a plan in February 1996 to kill Abdic for a promised 100,000 German marks ($45,110). "Their attempts to assassinate Mr Fikret Abdic ...

November 14, 2001 Documenting a Death Camp in Nazi Croatia By NEIL A. LEWIS WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 — Officials of the United States Holocaust Museum said today that they had discovered and preserved a cache of decaying documents and artifacts from one of the lesser-known but most brutal concentration camps of World War II. The camp, known as Jasenovac, was operated in Croatia by the Ustasha, the Nazi puppet government. The artifacts were found deteriorating in a building in Banja Luka in the Serbian part of Bosnia last year, officials said. Peter Black, the museum's chief historian, told reporters today ...

Robert Fisk: What will the Northern Alliance do in our name now? I dread to think... 'Why do we always have this ambiguous, dangerous relationship with our allies?' 14 November 2001 It wasn't meant to be like this. The nice, friendly Northern Alliance, our very own foot-soldiers in Afghanistan, is in Kabul. It promised &#150; didn't it? &#150; not to enter the Afghan capital. It was supposed to capture, at most, Mazar-i-Sharif and perhaps Herat, to demonstrate the weakness of the Taliban, to show the West that its war aims &#150; the destruction of the Taliban and thus of Osama ...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - Prosecutors with the U.N. war crimes tribunal have charged former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic with genocide in Bosnia - perhaps the most serious accusation against him so far. The latest indictment was filed last week, prosecution spokeswoman Florence Hartmann said Monday. It must be confirmed by a judge before Milosevic is summoned to the court to plead. It was the third case filed against the ousted Yugoslav leader. So far, Milosevic has refused to cooperate with the tribunal - which he calls illegal - or to enter a plea to charges of war crimes in ...

War on terrorism skipped the KLA James Bissett National Post U.S. President George W. Bush has made it clear the war against terrorists will be unremitting and relentless. Even those countries affording shelter to terrorists will not be spared. These words come too late for the Serbs, Gypsies, Jews, Turks and other non-Albanians who have been driven from their ancestral homes in Kosovo by the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army. It is too late as well for Macedonia, which has been forced by the United States, the European Union and NATO to yield to all the demands of the Albanian terrorists ...

<p>SKOPJE, Macedonia -- Ethnic Albanians angry at a special forces action have abducted more Macedonian civilians after clashes killed three policemen overnight.</p> <p>It was the first serious violence since Macedonia's peace accord was signed in August and its Western overseers were scrambling to contain the crisis before it spiralled out of control. "We will do all we can today to calm the situation and get the political process back on track," an EU diplomat told Reuters on Monday. Bloodshed erupted on Sunday after special police units crossed unguarded cease-fire lines and secured an alleged mass grave site for exhumation while arresting a number of former ethnic Albanian guerrillas.</p>

SKOPJE (Reuters) - Twenty-five Macedonians were abducted on Monday after their bus was stopped by ethnic Albanian militants but another group of 13 seized the night before have been freed, police said. The incidents as well as overnight clashes between security forces and ex-guerrillas triggered by a police operation to secure a "mass grave" site without liaising with international monitors have put a summer peace accord in jeopardy. Three police troops were killed in fighting near the site late on Sunday night and two others were wounded. A state police general who asked not to be named said eight of ...

SKOPJE - Dozens of heavily armed Slav-Macedonian crack policemen, in armored personnel carriers, yesterday secured the location of a suspected burial site believed to contain the bodies of six Slav-Macedonians. Police sealed off a wide area in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) near the northwestern city of Tetovo, banning civilian vehicles from using the road leading to the site believed to contain the bodies of the Slav-Macedonians allegedly abducted by ethnic Albanian militants earlier this year. A Slav-Macedonian police commander who refused to give his name said his group was charged with guarding the perimeter since some ethnic ...

Sunday November 11 4:33 PM ET Macedonia Peace Process Lurches Into Crisis By Mark Heinrich TREBOS, Macedonia (Reuters) - Macedonia's peace process lurched into crisis on Sunday when security forces entered ex-rebel territory to secure a ``mass grave'' and seized ethnic Albanians for wartime offences and arms possession. Hours later, at least 12 Macedonian civilians were taken hostage by armed men who stopped their cars as they were passing through a mainly ethnic Albanian village not far from the suspected grave site, police sources told Reuters. ``There is shooting in the vicinity,'' one source said. The Macedonian nationalist speaker of ...

A tale of the tumblin’ tumbleweeds 02/13/02 By ANITA BURKE Transient tumbleweeds are a mounting problem at Cindy Jones’ ranch Another problem related to last summer’s irrigation restrictions is blowing in the wind — tumbleweeds. However, no answers are readily available for people battling the drifts of weeds. Brisk winds Thursday blew mounds of weeds onto Malin cattle rancher Cindy Jones’ property from neighboring fields left untended because of the lack of water. “On the fence along the road out, they’re piled as tall as my truck,” Jones said. The bushy, dried weeds also filled her corral and were ...

Outside Probe of Firefighter Deaths Added to Farm Bill Published in the Herald-Republic on Thursday, February 14, 2002 By TOM ROEDER YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC An outside investigator would probe the deaths of U.S. Forest Service firefighters under a provision added Wednesday to the Senate Farm Bill. An amendment inspired by the July 10 Thirtymile Fire that killed four Central Washington firefighters was added to the bill by Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell. It would require the Department of Agriculture Inspector General to investigate Forest Service fatal fires, something that is now done by the Forest Service itself. "I think it ...

9th Circuit Appeals Court Hears Cliff Gardener Case Sierra Times : 02.15.02 SAN FRANSICO - The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments from Ruby Valley rancher Cliff Gardner Tuesday, as well as assistant US attorney(s) representing the Forest Service. Gardner has been in a running battle with the forest service over grazing and water rights that have been a part of the family ranch since before the turn of the century. "I was very gratified that the ninth circuit granted me oral argument, they must have taken another look at our defense strategy. It has implications ...