Today's Story Line:

March 13, 2000

In the wake of last year's independence referendum, East Timor dissolved into chaos and violence. Indonesian military officials claimed hotheaded militias were responsible. A four-part Monitor investigation reveals at least one Indonesian unit was under orders to kill civilians (page 1).

Another case of alleged war atrocities will go to trial today in The Hague. Bosnian Serb General Radislav Krstic is accused of overseeing the massacre of thousands in the town of Srebrenica in 1995 (this page).

The Iranian press is one of the key battlegrounds between conservatives and reformists. The shooting of a prominent editor yesterday in Tehran, underscores this tension (page 7).

David Clark Scott World editor

REPORTERS ON THE JOB

*CELLULAR BORDERS: In the new borderless Europe you are not meant to be able to tell when you are crossing a frontier. And indeed, when Peter Ford took a train from Brussels, Belgium, to The Hague this past week, there were no customs officials. No immigration posts. No symbols of either nation state to mark his passage. But he could still tell when the waterlogged Belgian meadows outside turned into waterlogged Dutch meadows. Suddenly, the little message on his cellphone screen showing which system was in use changed from 'Belga Proximus' to 'NL PTT '[Netherlands Posts and Telecommunications]. "In the new millennium, it's the telecom companies that draw the lines, not diplomats," says Peter.

Let us hear from you.

Mail to: One Norway Street, Boston, MA 02115 via e-mail: world@csmonitor.com

(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society