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© St. Petersburg Times, published October 3, 2002
Bosnian Serb leader guilty of war crime
THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Abruptly reversing course at the Yugoslav tribunal Wednesday, a top Bosnian Serb wartime politician pleaded guilty to persecuting non-Serbs in the 1992-1995 Bosnian war.
In exchange, prosecutors dropped genocide and all other war crimes charges against Biljana Plavsic, the first Serb leader to admit responsibility for atrocities.
Plavsic, 72, one of the highest-ranking officials to come before the U.N. tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, pleaded guilty to one count of crimes against humanity, an offense punishable by up to life imprisonment.
Speaking to the court by video link, the 72-year-old Plavsic looked somber and pale.
"I plead guilty," she answered plainly when asked to respond to the charge.
The U.N. judges then ruled that Plavsic could remain outside the tribunal's custody until she is summoned for sentencing in December.
JERUSALEM -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat appealed Wednesday to one of his toughest critics -- President Bush -- to block a U.S. law that calls for moving the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to disputed Jerusalem.
"It is a catastrophe. We can't stay silent," Arafat said of the measure passed by the U.S. Congress.
Bush signed the bill into law, but views it as advisory rather than mandatory, and says he has no plans to move the embassy to Jerusalem, where Palestinians seek to establish a capital in the eastern part of the city.
In another development, Arafat's Fatah movement has dropped the idea of prodding the Palestinian leader to relinquish some power by appointing a prime minister. The Fatah campaign had been the most serious political challenge to Arafat in years, but the effort was sidetracked during Israel's 10-day siege of Arafat's compound, which ended earlier this week.
FUKUOKA, Japan -- Japanese diplomats on Wednesday provided the first detailed accounting of the deaths of eight of their nationals who were kidnapped by North Korea beginning in the late 1970s, and revealed that another missing Japanese woman was living and married to a U.S. military defector.
The reported causes of death ranged from suicide to automobile accidents and heart disease -- for a woman of 27. The accounts were greeted with widespread disbelief in Japan.
News of the U.S. serviceman, meanwhile, provided information on a man the U.S. government knew little about save for the fact that he was living in North Korea.
Relatives of the disappeared held widely broadcast news conferences Wednesday evening to angrily denounce the North Korean explanations.
"My first impression is that the facts were hastily made up and that they were just piling up lies," said Takuya Yokota, the younger brother of Megumi Yokota, who was kidnapped in 1977 at age 13.
BEEF IMPORTS REINSTATED: France lifted its 6-year-old ban on British beef imports Wednesday, ending a bitter dispute that has strained relations with London. The government's decision followed the recommendation of the French food safety standards agency that the meat was free of mad cow disease and no longer posed a health threat.
ANTIDRUG AIR CAMPAIGN RESUMES: The United States will resume a campaign to help Colombia track and force down drug flights, officials from both countries said Wednesday.
The program was suspended in April 2001 in Colombia and Peru after a Peruvian warplane mistakenly shot down a missionary flight over the Amazon, killing an American woman and her infant daughter.
Colombian warplanes will intercept drug flights based on intelligence from the United States, Gen. Hector Velasco, Colombian air force commander, said Wednesday.
He said operations are expected to resume this month.