World Scene

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Karadzic trial to start without him

THE HAGUE | The trial of Radovan Karadzic - one of the most significant war crimes cases to emerge from Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II - is to start Monday without the defendant present.

The Bosnian Serb leader’s boycott of the opening is a blow to survivors who hold him responsible for tens of thousands of deaths during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

The trial of Karadzic’s former political mentor Slobodan Milosevic ended without a verdict after he died in 2006.

Like Milosevic, Karadzic, 64, is charged with genocide - one count for the 1995 murder of 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica and a second for the Bosnian Serb campaign of ethnic cleansing against the country’s Muslims and Croats. There are nine other charges including extermination, persecution and taking peacekeepers hostage.

Karadzic faces a maximum life sentence if convicted.

Two suspects are still sought by the court - wartime military chief Gen. Ratko Mladic and a former leader of rebel Serbs in Croatia, Goran Hadzic.

ISRAEL

Palestinians protest at Al-Aqsa mosque

JERUSALEM | Israeli police firing stun grenades faced off Sunday against masked Palestinian protesters hurling stones and plastic chairs outside the Holy Land’s most volatile shrine.

Israeli riot police behind plexiglass shields marched toward young men covering their faces with T-shirts and scarves, sending many running for cover into the Al-Aqsa mosque, a Muslim shrine in the compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

Protesters holed up in the mosque for several hours, dispersing before nightfall. Nine police officers were lightly wounded and 18 protesters were detained, police said.

A visit to the site in 2000 by Ariel Sharon, then an Israeli opposition leader, helped ignite deadly clashes that escalated into the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada.

Sunday’s disturbances were rooted in calls from Muslim leaders to protect the Islamic sites from what they said were Israeli plots to damage them or let Jews pray in the compound. There was no evidence to support either claim. Palestinians are also angry about stalled peace talks and Israeli construction in east Jerusalem and the West Bank.

TUNISIA

Voters seen likely to return Ben Ali

TUNIS | Tunisians voted Sunday in an election almost certain to extend the rule of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the 73-year-old who has run the North African country for more than two decades.

International rights groups say the government ensured a landslide victory by harassing the opposition, an allegation Mr. Ben Ali denied.

Western governments view mainly Muslim Tunisia as an ally in the Arab world and a moderate bulwark against Islamist extremism.

Many voters credit Mr. Ben Ali with making Tunisia - which attracts millions of European tourists each summer - one of the most prosperous and stable states in a region that suffers from poverty and political turmoil.

The president came to power in 1987 when doctors declared his predecessor, Habib Bourguiba, unfit after more than 30 years of rule. Mr. Ben Ali won the last election five years ago with 94.4 percent of the vote.

SUDAN

Darfur abductee in good health

KHARTOUM | A kidnapped French aid worker in Darfur is in good spirits and was being given food and water, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Sunday.

Gauthier Lefevre was captured in Sudan’s troubled west on Thursday.

“The breakthrough is that we’ve actually spoken to Gauthier - very briefly,” ICRC spokeswoman Tamara al-Rifai said. “He said he was in good health, they were giving him food and water and he seemed to be in good spirits,” she said.

Two women from the Irish aid agency Goal were recently released after more than three months in captivity. They described mock executions and said their kidnappers wanted money.

Observers worry that even rumors of ransoms being paid - and the fact the Sudan government had not yet arrested any of the kidnappers - would encourage more abductions, threatening the world’s largest humanitarian operation. Two U.N.-African Union peacekeepers remain in captivity after almost two months.

From wire dispatches and staff reports