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The world in brief
Compiled from Times wires For first time, East Timor votesDILI, East Timor -- Voting began early today in landmark elections that will pave the way for East Timor to become the first independent nation of the new millennium. Former resistance leader Xanana Gusmao is the overwhelming favorite to win the ballot, seen as the culmination of a quarter-century struggle for nationhood. His only opponent, Francisco Xavier do Amaral, said he is resigned to coming in second. Polling stations were quiet early in the day. Many people in the capital, Dili, said they were planning on going to church before casting their vote. But election officials expect turnout to be high across the tiny territory, which split from Indonesia in August 1999 after a U.N.-organized referendum. "It feels great to be electing our first president ever of the country," Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta, who won the 1996 Nobel peace prize, said after leaving a polling station. Official results will be announced Wednesday, but initial results should be available by Monday. Milosevic associate diesBELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- An associate of ex-President Slobodan Milosevic died Saturday, two days after shooting himself in the head to protest passage of a law that would have allowed his arrest and extradition to the U.N. war crimes tribunal. Vlajko Stojiljkovic, 65, Serbia's interior minister in charge of police under Milosevic, had been indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. Stojiljkovic shot himself Thursday in front of the federal parliament hours after passage of an extradition bill for suspects sought by the court. Stojiljkovic never recovered from a deep coma and died at 9:30 p.m. despite intensive reanimation measures, said Branko Djurovic, head of the Belgrade hospital emergency ward. The Hague court indicted Stojiljkovic for alleged crimes against humanity during the 1999 Kosovo war, when about 800,000 Kosovo Albanians were driven from their homes and hundreds were killed by Serbian security forces. He is one of about 20 suspects believed to be in Yugoslavia. Ban on U.S. ships in Hong Kong liftedHONG KONG -- China has lifted the latest ban on the visits of U.S. warships to Hong Kong, the American consulate said Saturday. In March, Beijing had rejected a request for an April 5-9 visit to Hong Kong by the USS Curtis Wilbur, a guided missile destroyer belonging to the U.S. Seventh Fleet based in Yokosuka, Japan. No explanation was given for the lifting of the ban. Beijing did not give a reason for the ban, but it came after the Chinese government objected to a U.S. decision to let Taiwan's defense minister, Tang Yiau-ming, attend a private defense convention in the United States in March. Russia pulls back from GeorgiaMOSCOW -- A day after launching what it called a peacekeeping operation, Russia retreated Saturday from a volatile buffer zone near the separatist Georgian region of Abkhazia following sharp protests from Georgia and the United Nations. Russian officials had said they moved into the upper Kodori Gorge on Friday to re-establish a security checkpoint. But a day later, they said their "patrolling" had been completed. Georgian officials denounced the Russian operation as an invasion. The United Nations observer mission in the region described it as "aggressive" and "combative" and demanded withdrawal. A spokesman for the U.N. mission confirmed Saturday that the Russians had withdrawn. Russia clears U.S. poultryMOSCOW -- Russia will lift its month-old ban on U.S. poultry on Monday, now that U.S. officials have satisfied Russian demands for tighter control over the quality of American chicken exports, the Russian agriculture minister announced. The ban has clouded relations between the two countries ahead of President Bush's visit to Russia next month. Chicken is the top U.S. export to Russia, bringing in $600-million to $700-million a year.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
