In a concession to President Slobodan Milosevic the UN administrator for Kosovo announced yesterday that he would allow the holding of Yugoslav elections in

In a concession to President Slobodan Milosevic, the UN administrator for Kosovo announced yesterday that he would allow the holding of Yugoslav elections in the Serbian province and that Nato and the UN mission would try to provide security for the ethnic Serb population intending to vote. In a concession to President Slobodan Milosevic, the UN administrator for Kosovo announced yesterday that he would allow the holding of Yugoslav elections in the Serbian province and that Nato and the UN mission would try to provide security for the ethnic Serb population intending to vote.
Bernard Kouchner warned that the Yugoslav presidential, parliamentary and local elections called for 24 September would not be free, fair, democratic or non-violent, and did not comply with any international standards.In Belgrade yesterday, Serbian police raided the headquarters of a student-based opposition movement, Otpor, which has spearheaded resistance to President Milosevic.Dr Kouchner would not say whether Serb political officials from President Milosevic’s Serbian Socialist Party would be allowed to campaign in Kosovo, how polling stations might be set up or whether the province’s estimated 105,000 Serbs would be able to vote only in certain areas. “We have no time to achieve in 15 days what it has taken us all 15 months,” he said, referring to the time it has taken the international community to prepare for municipal elections due to be held in Kosovo on 28 October.Officials from Mr Milosevic’s party announced Serbs would be able to vote in 500 polling centres, a claim derided by Dr Kouchner as “farcical and a provocation”.The Yugoslav decision puts further pressure on the already hard-pressed UN administration in Kosovo, which is part of Serbia. Fifteen Serb prisoners, including several accused of genocide, broke out of a UN-guarded jail in Mitrovica on Saturday, a severe embarrassment to the UN. Two were recaptured but several were reported yesterday to have crossed into Serbia proper.Mr Kouchner announced that he had suspended the head of the facility..

Swiss investigators searching for the loot of the late Nigerian dictator General Sani Abacha yesterday launched a scathing attack on their country’s banking system, and accused Britain and the United States of being part of a huge money-laundering operation. Swiss investigators searching for the loot of the late Nigerian dictator General Sani Abacha yesterday launched a scathing attack on their country’s banking system, and accused Britain and the United States of being part of a huge money-laundering operation.
In a separate aspect of the report, the Swiss arm of one City institution, J Henry Schroder Bank, was among several banks criticised.Switzerland’s watchdog, the Federal Banking Commission, spent 10 months trying to find an estimated $3bn pilfered by General Abacha, Nigeria’s President from 1993 to 1998. Switzerland had frozen $670m and returned $66m to Nigeria, and Britain has also been asked formally to freeze funds.The main banking regulator in Switzerland was shocked at the ease with which General Abacha and his family were able to move their shady money across frontiers. “The fact alone that significant funds of dubious origin from the close entourage of the former Nigerian President Sani Abacha were deposited in Swiss bank accounts is disturbing and damaging to the reputation of Switzerland’s financial sector,” said the report.But the Abacha affair “is not a problem of purely Swiss nature”, it added.

“The funds came, as well as from Nigeria, also from countries such as the United States, Britain and Austria. Funds were transferred from Swiss banks to banks in the US, Britain, France, Luxembourg and Liechtenstein.The watchdog cited the J Henry Schroder Bank and five others for “minor infractions” Luxembourg has frozen about $650m, Liechtenstein over $100m. The Swiss regulators said Britain, Germany and France were dragging their heels finding General Abacha’s money, which Nigeria claims was stolen from the country’s central bank.But even the Swiss watchdog admits its banks were the worst offenders. “In six banks, violations and organisational shortcomings were serious enough to give rise to countermeasures on the personnel and the organisational level,” the report said. Prosecutors in Geneva have begun a criminal investigation.Switzerland has been criticised for providing a haven for the ill-gotten gains of the former president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, and the Haitian dictator Papa Doc Duvalier. Although the country claims procedures have been tightened up, it is clear from the Swiss watchdog’s report that gaps remain.General Abacha died in 1998, allegedly from a heart attack, but a year later his two sons were still depositing large sums in Switzerland.Credit Suisse Private Banking accepted $214m from General Abacha’s sons, accepting an introduction from a long-standing client and failing to note they were “politically exposed” although it should have been alerted by their age, their nationality and the sums involved, the report said.A Geneva judge has indicted two people, including Abacha’s son Mohammed, in connection with a money-laundering investigation launched here He is in jail in Lagos charged with murder..

George W. Bush made a disparaging remark about a reporter from The New York Times that was picked up by a live microphone

George W. Bush made a disparaging remark about a reporter from The New York Times that was picked up by a live microphone.
As Bush stood on the podium waiting for music to finish today, he turned to running mate Dick Cheney and used an obscenity to describe reporter Adam Clymer in the nearby press area. Cheney agreed with Bush’s assessment.Both men thought their remarks were off-mike. When asked about the comment at a brief airport news conference in Allentown, Pennsylvania, late Monday, Bush said: “I regret that a private comment I made to the vice presidential candidate made it through the public airways.”Asked if he felt he owed Clymer an apology, Bush did not answer directly, only saying, “I regret everybody heard what I said.”Karen Hughes, Bush’s spokeswoman, said the remarks were “a whispered aside to his running mate. It was not intended as a public comment.”Clymer said: “I’m disappointed in the governor’s language.”Cheney refused to discuss it “The governor made a private comment to me.