Bosnia-Herzegovina

Serbs given deadline to reveal victims

Threatening “the gravest legal consequences,” Bosnia’s top international official on Wednesday gave Bosnian Serbs six months to reveal the fate of thousands of Muslims missing since the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

Bosnian Serb forces killed up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys when they overran the Muslim enclave in the east of the country at the end of the 1992-95 war.

So far, 5,000 victims have been located in mass graves. But the fate of the others is still unknown.

Paddy Ashdown, Bosnia’s top international administrator, said it had taken too long to discover where they are.

“It is simply unacceptable that getting the truth from the (Bosnian Serb) government is like extracting rotten teeth,” Ashdown said.

Azerbaijan

President’s son elected in ex-Soviet republic

The son of Azerbaijan’s ailing president won an overwhelming victory in elections to choose his father’s successor, according to returns today. But western observers and the opposition alleged there was massive voting irregularities.

One observer said there were so many problems with Wednesday’s election — among them ballot-box stuffing and unmonitored voting — that he stopped trying to record them all.

Violence flared during the vote, with police clashing with protesters twice during an hourslong standoff in the capital, Baku.

With more than two-thirds of Azerbaijan’s 5,111 districts reporting, President Geidar Aliev’s son, Ilham Aliev, had nearly 80 percent of the votes, according to preliminary results posted by the Central Election Commission.

Aliev stood for the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan party after his father — hospitalized in the United States — pulled out of the race less than two weeks ago.

Jordan

Terror suspect blames confession on torture

The assassination suspect of an American diplomat insisted on his innocence in court Wednesday, saying he had been tortured into signing a confession.

Salem bin Suweid, a Libyan citizen, testified in a heavily guarded courtroom along with four alleged accomplices charged with conspiring to carry out terror attacks on Americans and Israelis in Jordan.

The only attack they are alleged to have executed is the killing of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley, shot outside his Amman home Oct. 28, 2002.

The prosecution has put 11 people on trial for allegedly belonging to the conspiracy, but only five are in the military court. The other six are at large.

All five defendants who testified Wednesday rejected the charges and said that they had been tortured into confessing.

Bolivia

President offers gas-export plan

Bolivia’s president went on national television Wednesday to propose a referendum on a gas-export plan that has sparked three weeks of deadly protests across South America’s poorest nation.

President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada said he would let Bolivians decide on the deal. Earlier on Wednesday, thousands of anti-government demonstrators marched in major cities around Bolivia to call on the president to resign, and clashes in the city of Patacamaya killed two people.

“We want to know what the people think,” Sanchez de Lozada said. “We believe (this project) will be very positive for the future of Bolivia.”

Sanchez de Lozada claimed that outrage over the plan was the work of “anarchists and narcos” who want to topple his government.