Bosnia-Herzegovina

Official penalizes Serbs in massacre probe

Bosnia’s top international official on Friday removed two high-ranking Bosnian Serb officials for obstructing an investigation into a wartime massacre, and he threatened to fire more officials if they fail to cooperate.

Bosnian Serb authorities were ordered last year by the top human rights court in Sarajevo and by Bosnia’s international administrator, Paddy Ashdown, to review the massacre of up to 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica and submit a report.

The report was supposed to explain what happened to those missing after the fall of the eastern Muslim enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995 at the end of Bosnia’s 3 1/2-year war.

Ashdown removed from office the Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Serb army, Gen. Cvjetko Savic, and Dejan Miletic, the head of the Bosnian Serb bureau for cooperation with the U.N. war crimes tribunal based in The Hague, Netherlands, for failing to cooperate with the so-called Srebrenica Commission.

BEIJING

U.S. hands over banker

A fugitive Chinese banker accused of helping embezzle $485 million from his state-owned bank was returned to China on Friday by U.S. authorities under a promise that he won’t be executed, the U.S. government said.

The handover of Yu Zhendong was unusual for the United States and China, which have no extradition treaty but are trying to improve cooperation.

The case against Yu would be by far the largest embezzlement ever publicly disclosed by Chinese authorities. The Bank of China is one of China’s four biggest commercial banks.

Yu, 41, is accused of embezzling the money in 1992-2001 from the Bank of China with the help of two co-workers, according to a statement issued by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing.

South Africa

Voters propel ANC toward victory

The governing African National Congress on Friday celebrated its most decisive election victory in a decade of multiracial democracy, while the party that gave South Africa apartheid headed toward political obscurity.

With results reported from more than 95 percent of polling districts, the ANC had just under 70 percent of the parliamentary vote, assuring President Thabo Mbeki a second term.

The New National Party, which presided over half a century of white minority rule, was dealt a heavy blow in South Africa’s third all-race election. Party support had already tumbled from 20 percent in 1994 to just under 7 percent in 1999. Now, with less than 2 percent, it appeared destined to be little more than a regional party.