Monday, 3 June, 2002, 09:30 GMT 10:30 UK

UN attacked over Kosovo record

UN policies in Mitrovica are harshly criticised

By Nicholas Wood BBC correspondent in Pristina

The United Nations has been accuse

d of failing its mandate in Kosovo, effectively allowing the region to be split into Serb and Albanian enclaves.

Pakistan offers India peace talks

Extending an olive branch to India, the Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has offered to hold unconditional talks with prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to resolve the tense military standoff between the two nuclear armed rivals. He also welcomed moves by the Russian president Vladimir Putin to mediate between them. Both Musharraf and Vajpayee are currently in Kazakhstan, for a 16 nation Conference on Interaction and Confidence building measures in Asia, which begins on Tuesday. However any hopes the two leaders will actually meet face to face have been ruled out by India. Vajpayee has demanded an end to cross border raids by Islamic militants. The rising tensions over Kashmir have raised the spectre of an all out war in the region.

After a brief period of calm the situation in Kashmir has exploded once again

Protesters clashed with police in Srinagar in the Indian controlled area of Kashmir. Police responded to stone throwing with tear gas. Along the line of control splitting the contested territory there have been steady exchanges of fire, mainly shelling. Tension is still very high, with a total of a million soldiers from the two sides massed on the border. New Delhi is accusing Islamabad of failing to clamp down on and even feeding cross border terrorism. And the climate of fear is spreading. At New Delhi airport westerners are leaving as quickly as they can, in many cases on the advice of their governments. Some commentators are describing the current stand-off situation as the worst since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

Court decision could increase Middle East tension

A Palestinian High Court in Gaza on Monday ordered the release of Ahmed Sa'adat, the head of the Popoular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The PFLP claimed responsibility for the assassination of an Israeli cabinet minister last October. They claimed the attack was to avenge the killing by Israeli forces of Sa'adat's predecessor. Judges ruled there was no evidence to link the radical leader with the murder of Tourism Minister Rehavim Zeevi. Scores of PFLP supporters gathered outside the court demanding the decision be immediately ratified by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat but that would deal a blow to diplomatic efforts in the region. At around the same time US envoy George Tenet met Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to push peace talks. Sa'adat's release could also highten tensions in the Palestinian territories.The Israeli army is continuing its raids in the West Bank city of Nablus.Hundreds of Palestinians have been rounded up for questioning. The Israeli leadership has warned if Sa'adat is set free, retaliations could follow.

Vilnius site contains secrets of Napoleon's 1812 debacle

A site in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius has turned out to be one of the largest mass graves of Napoleonic soldiers ever discovered. It is believed to contain the remains of at least 2,000 members of Napoleon's Grand Army who died 190 years ago during the tragic retreat from Moscow back to Germany. A joint French-Lithuanian team of scientists completed excavation work in April after construction workers, digging trenches to lay telecommunications cables, uncovered a 100-square-metre ditch filled with bones. One of the team said, "This is the first case we know of such a burial and therefore such an excavation of French army soldiers. We don't have any knowledge of such burials in France." Anthropologists and historians hope the remains will help them learn more about one of the most dramatic episodes of the Napoleonic wars: the ill-fated 1812 Russian campaign which claimed nearly half a million lives. Initial studies support contemporary accounts of the suffering endured by the French soldiers and their allies from many parts of Europe. Some skeletons were hunched up in unusual positions suggesting the soldiers froze to death. While clothing and coins found in the grave will most probably remain the property of Lithuania, the fate of the human remains is less certain. While some of the men came from provinces that were part of the French empire, that is not true for others, including German and Polish soldiers.

ITALIAN

Homepage