Bosnia: Troops search home of war-crimes fugitive

NATO-led troops in Bosnia raided the home of Radovan Karadzic on Tuesday, searching for clues that might lead to the capture of the world’s top war crimes fugitive.

NATO-led peacekeepers said in a statement that their soldiers raided a house in Pale “that is suspected of being associated with an illegal smuggling network in Bosnia and Herzegovina” as well as with Karadzic.

Karadzic has been a fugitive since 1997. Also eluding custody is Gen. Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb wartime military commander. Both have been indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, on charges of war crimes and genocide.

Karadzic, a psychiatrist by profession, led the Bosnian Serb government during the 1992-95 Bosnian war in which 200,000 people were killed.

The U.S. government has offered $5 million for information leading to Karadzic’s arrest. NATO has made several unsuccessful attempts to capture him.

Argentina: President calls early election

President Eduardo Duhalde on Tuesday moved up presidential elections by six months to March, saying he wanted to boost international confidence in efforts to resolve Argentina’s worst economic crisis in history.

Duhalde said fast-forwarding a presidential ballot originally set for September 2003 is the right step to restoring order to Argentina, which has been unable to mount a swift recovery.

Duhalde is lobbying the International Monetary Fund for $18 billion in credit to repay debt owed to multilateral lenders this year and next. The Washington-based lending agency said Tuesday it was preparing to send several teams to Argentina to study support for the tottering economy.

Some $22 billion in credits were halted by the IMF last December just before the Argentina crisis exploded into street riots that forced President Fernando de la Rua to resign. The riots left 29 people dead.