World
"So we can implement the Mitchell plan," Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat issued a call for an immediate end to all forms of violence in the Middle East. But a Palestinian teenager was seized by police as he tried to board a bus in northern Israel with a 22-pound bomb, and a Palestinian court sentenced a father of nine children to death for collaboration with Israeli authorities - the sixth such person to be convicted in two days. The Mitchell plan calls for an Israeli-Palestinian truce, a cooling-off period, and resumption of peace negotiations. (Story, page 1.)
In a partial breakthrough, government and ethnic-Albanian negotiators in Macedonia agreed to make the latter's language official in areas when at least 20 percent of the population is Albanian. The deal was the first easing of an impasse in weeks of painstaking peace talks. But Prime Minister Ljubco Georg-ievski said government forces should recapture territory held by Albanian insurgents because "it would be shameful" to sign a treaty while the land is "occupied by terrorists."
"You are guilty of genocide," a UN war crimes tribunal judge told a former Bosnian Serb general, the first European to be convicted of such an offense since World War II. Radislav Krstic held "superior authority" over the Serb forces who, in July 1995, attacked the town of Srebrenica, designated by the UN as a haven for Muslim refugees. An estimated 8,000 Muslim males of fighting age later were found murdered. Krstic was sentenced to 46 years in prison, the harshest sentence yet imposed by the tribunal at The Hague.
Bowing to "the vote of the people," Iran's Supreme Leader officially recognized President Mohamad Khatami's June 8 landslide reelection victory. But Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned him not to stray from "the path of Islam." Khatami, who is to take the oath of office Sunday, is expected to press ahead with his reformist agenda despite a legacy of bitter struggle with the hard-line clerical establishment. The latter opposes liberalizing Iran's rigid society.
Protests against unpopular new tax increases turned violent across Guatemala, resulting in scores of injuries and 83 arrests. The focus of anger was a hike to 12 percent in the sales tax, which went into effect this week. In a town 115 miles west of Guatemala City, demonstrators burned the mayor's house, a radio station, government offices, and a bank. Above, a marcher wears a mask of tape and nails in Guatemala City, where police dispersed rock-throwing protesters.
Rescue crews located more than 600 residents of a storm-battered Indonesian island who'd been missing and were considered possible casualties of Tuesday's flooding and landslides. The number of dead from the storm damage also was lowered from 64 to 35 on the basis of more reliable information. But further rescue efforts on Nias were hindered by a lack of heavy construction equipment.
