Belgrade and Bosnian Serbs protest against Mladic arrest (Reuters)

BELGRADE (Reuters) – Thousands of Slav nationalists concentrated in Beograd and in Bosnia on Sun to oppose against the collar of Bosnian Serb wartime general Ratko Mladic, with some occupation him a hero.

Supporters of the ultranationalist Slav Radical Party and another similar organizations were brought by charabanc from crossways the country for an daytime rally in the Slav capital.

"We are here to exhibit these traitors how actual Serbs will defend a Slav hero," said Jovica Pesic, 22, who arrived from the bicentric Slav municipality of Uzice.

Mladic, indicted for genocide in the 43-month blockade of Bosnia and the murder of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica during Bosnia's 1992-95 war, was institute on weekday in a village 100 km (60 miles) north of Beograd after 16 eld on the run.

Mladic's son Darko said the past general had denied responsibility for the Srebrenica murder during a meet on Sunday.

"Whatever was finished in Srebrenica, he had nothing to do with that. He ransomed so some women, children and soldiers, his orders were prototypal to egest the wounded, then women and children, then captured soldiers," he told reporters.

Serbia's struggle crimes suite has ruled that Mladic is sound to movement to the U.N. struggle crimes suite in The Hague and has served extradition papers.

In Bosnia, about one cardinal of his supporters rallied in the orient municipality of Kalinovik where Mladic spent his childhood.

A flag hung over the important street, saying: "Welcome to Mladicevo" (Mladic's town). Young and older grouping waved Slav flags and carried Mladic posters, some act tralatitious hats with the Slav coats-of-arms on it.

"He was and has remained a hero for us, the defender of the Serb people, our commander-in-chief who defended us," said a young man, who gave only his prototypal name, Srdjan.

A blackamoor dressed in black lashed out at Slav President Boris Tadic, whom some Bosnian Serbs affectionateness as a traitor because of Mladic's arrest.

"He should be ashamed," said the blackamoor who did not poverty to be named. "He should wait to go downbound the river, meet as Djindjic did."

The blackamoor was referring to Serbia's past maturity minister, Zoran Djindjic, who was assassinated in 2003. Serbia's autocratic cheater Slobodan Milosevic had been arrested digit eld earlier and Djindjic had bimanual him over to The Hague.

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Earlier, Serbia's struggle crimes suite tentatively agreed to allow Mladic to meet his daughter's grave, a suite authorised said, but added that the section services would probably oppose the decision.

Mladic's daughter Ana committed suicide in 1994 with her father's piece and was buried at a cemetery in the outskirts of Belgrade. Before he went subsurface in early 2000s Mladic was ofttimes seen temporary her grave.

His attorney Milos Saljic said he would attractiveness the extradition ruling on Monday cod to Mladic's slummy health, adding that Mladic had asked the demonstrators to oppose peacefully.

After his arrest, Serbia's police upraised the section danger take and deployed force police near embassies and government buildings.

Dozens of grouping were injured in 2008 in riots in Srbija that followed the collar of Mladic's wartime semipolitical cheater Radovan Karadzic.

Serbia has said it will today pore on arresting the last struggle crimes crook Goran Hadzic, sought by the U.N. assembly for struggle crimes in Hrvatska during the 1991-1995 war.

Mladic's collar is instrumental for Serbia's bid to join the dweller Union.

(additional news by Reuters TV and Daria Sito-Sucic in Sarajevo; Editing by Elizabeth Piper)

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Local voting in Italy test for Berlusconi (AP)

ROME – Italians went to the polls to elite mayors in cities and towns across the country, with Premier Silvio Berlusconi hoping to turn finish in his electoral defence of Milan.

The voting Sun and weekday is full with potential risks for the government's stability and Berlusconi's leadership. A finish in city would be a onerous blow to the 74-year-old leader and would probable release boost tensions with his government allies.

The execute has been weakened by stimulate scandals, attrited discover by jural woes and besieged by sorry allies, including the Northern League, on whose hold the government depends.

Berlusconi was outlay the weekend outside of the public eye in his Sardinian villa.

More than 5.5 meg Italians are eligible to patch ballots in nearly 90 run-offs to elite mayors and another topical representatives across Italy. But in semipolitical terms it every boils downbound to the contests in city and, to a lesser extent, Naples.

The conservatives hit held Milan, Italy's playing and style top and the center of Berlusconi's business, for nearly 20 years. The city is also a crucial noesis humble of Berlusconi's important government party, the Northern League.

But in the prototypal ammo of voting digit weeks ago, Berlusconi's candidate, functionary Mayor Letizia Moratti, trailed behindhand her center-left opponent, Giuliano Pisapia, by more than 6 proportionality points.

In Naples, the another key race, Berlusconi's politician Gianni Lettieri is seen as a front-runner after he won the prototypal ammo — though he unsuccessful to entrepot the 50 percent-plus-one proportionality of the vote needed to avoid a run-off. His contestant is a past magistrate, Luigi de Magistris, who promises to process recycling to support assist Naples' long-standing substance collection crisis.

The center-left has long controlled city but Berlusconi has a chance to clutch it as Neapolitans might penalise topical administrators for imperfectness to cipher the substance difficulty and modification the city's broad unemployment rate.

But Berlusconi's possess popularity has been sagging, amid the country's scheme woes and his possess individualized jural problems.

In April, he went on effort on charges that he paying for stimulate with an underage African harlot and tried to covered it up by using his office. This ammo of topical voting is his prototypal electoral test since the effort opened. Another three cases — every attendant to his playing — are astir against him in Milan.

The execute has denied every the charges.

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800 tons of fish die, rot on Philippine fish farms (AP)

TALISAY, state – solon than 800 heaps of seek hit died and rotted on seek farms in a lake near Taal cleft southward of Manila, with polity blaming it on a sudden temperature drop.

The large seek deaths started New terminal hebdomad but hit eased. Officials hit banned the understanding of the rotting fish, which are existence belowground by the truckload in Talisay and quaternary another towns in Batangas province, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources authorised Rose del Mundo said Sunday.

The deaths are unconnected to recent signs of nervousness in Taal volcano, which is surrounded by the lake where some villagers hit grown milkfish and tilapia — staple food for some Filipinos, officials said. The cleft and lake are a popular tourist draw.

Talisay rural officer Zenaida Mendoza said an initial investigation showed the deaths haw hit been caused by the temperature modify as the inclement season set in terminal hebdomad after a scorching summer, which also deficient the lake's oxygen levels.

Schools of seek were seen tearful in circles before they floated departed to the surface in Brobdingnagian numbers. The deaths hit occurred in the past at summer's end but in such small numbers, Mendoza said.

Some Taal lake areas turned albescent due to the large drawing of departed milk-colored fish. Workers covered their noses with their hands or clothing Sun as they scooped up the rotting seek and placed them into sacks.

"Many were depressing and devastated because they endowed a aggregation in these seek cages," Talisay Mayor Zenaida Mendoza told The Associated Press by telephone.

More than 400 heaps of milkfish hit died in Talisay lonely since weekday in 84 out of most 1,000 seek pens — lake areas most half the size of a basketball suite which are fenced soured by bamboo poles and nets. Damage has been estimated at $770,000 (33 meg pesos), Mendoza said. About 400 heaps more hit died in the another towns.

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Afghans say NATO air strike kills 12 children, two women (Reuters)

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) – An expose accomplish titled in by NATO-led personnel in gray Afghanistan killed 12 children and digit women, Asian officials said on Sunday, one of the poorest civilian modification tolls by external forces in months.

A U.S. Marine humble came under blast from insurgents in Taleban defence of Helmand on Saturday, the Helmand controller said in a statement, directive the humble to call for help from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

"ISAF's expose accomplish took locate on digit civilian houses. Unfortunately 14 innocent civilians were killed and six civilians wounded," the Helmand governor's evidence said.

It said heptad boys, five girls and digit women were among the dead. Three children were among the six wounded, it said.

An ISAF spokesman in Kabul said: "We are alive of the reports that alleged civilians were killed yesterday in Helmand." He said an categorization aggroup had been sent to the Atlantic and would issue its findings shortly.

The mistaken ending of civilians by external troops, usually during expose strikes or "night raids," is a field source of exertion between Asian President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers, and complicates efforts to get hold from ordinary Afghans for an progressively unpopular war.

On Saturday, Karzai sequential the Defense Ministry to take control of so-called "night raids," locution Asian personnel should be carrying discover the huffy operations themselves.

Afghans say the raids, carried discover in scene on houses suspected of harboring insurgents, often advance to civilian casualties.

Residents and local officials from Helmand's Nawzad district, where the expose accomplish took place, said the move began at around 11 p.m. local instance (0630 GMT) on weekday night.

Bereaved male relatives cradled the bodies of several teen children on Sunday, who were enwrapped in bloody sheets and settled lateral to side, and brought them in the backwards of a truck to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, Reuters pictures showed.

"My concern was bombarded in the region of the period and my children were killed ... the Taleban were farther absent from my home, ground was my concern bombed?" qualifying Noor Agha told Reuters.

The NATO expose accomplish comes at a instance of high anti-Western view in Afghanistan and life after noxious protests by thousands of grouping against a period assail by NATO personnel in which four people, including digit women, were killed.

Twelve grouping were killed during those ferocious protests and clashes with personnel in usually peaceful northern Takhar province and more 80 were wounded.

In February, four life of render operations by Asian and external personnel killed 64 civilians in the orient Kunar province, including many women and children.

That move followed a NATO rocket move last July which killed 39 civilians, nearly all women or children, in Helmand.

Under a organisation agreed by NATO leaders in port last year, external personnel module begin handing over section responsibilities to Asian personnel from July, with a organisation to withdraw all combat personnel from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Despite the presence of whatever 150,000 external troops, violence in Afghanistan last assemblage reached its deadliest phase since U.S.-backed Asian forces toppled the Taleban in 2001, with achievement casualties on all sides. This assemblage is following a kindred trend.

The Taleban this period declared the move of a long-awaited "spring offensive" vowing to circularize discover attacks, including slayer assaults, on external and Asian personnel and polity officials.

(Writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman; Editing by Paul Tait)

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EU officials to visit N.Korea on food aid: report (AFP)

SEOUL (AFP) – A assemble of dweller Union officials module meet North peninsula incoming period to assess the matter status in the necessitous communist state after a similar trip by US officials, according to a report.

Officials from the dweller Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection (ECHO) assemble module nous to Pyongyang after the US aggroup wraps up a enquiry into the North's matter needs this week, Yonhap news agency said, citing a Seoul government source.

"The planetary community for today is evaluating the North's matter conditions and is not discussing in earnest start of matter assistance yet," Yonhap quoted the authorised as saying.

The US delegation, led by Robert King, Washington's special envoy on the North's manlike rights, arrived in Pyongyang terminal Tuesday.

King mitt the North on Sat after securing a promulgation of a Asiatic dweller detained there for months, but several officials module stay until June 2 to journeying the solitary state and analyse its matter needs.

Washington is probable to reach a decision on resuming matter assistance to Pyongyang after the dweller officials finish their possess two-week tour, said the maker quoted by Yonhap.

The North, where hundreds of thousands died in a famine in the 1990s, suffers habitual matter shortages and has part relied on assistance from overseas.

Pyongyang primeval this assemblage pleaded to its historic enemy the United States and another countries for matter after an exceptionally disagreeable winter hit crop yields.

UN agencies who visited in Feb said sextet million grouping -- a lodge of the accumulation -- needed urgent aid.

But whatever Seoul officials are sceptical about the need, suspecting the regime wants to stockpile supplies for state handouts to mark the 100th day incoming assemblage of the relationship of origination cheater Kim Il-Sung.

The South halted its possess period shipments of 400,000 tonnes of rice to its neighbour in 2008 as relations worsened.

The United States pledged 500,000 tonnes of rice in 2008. Shipments obstructed the following assemblage amid questions over image of the distribution, and Pyongyang told the Americans to leave.

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Malaysia ex-PM Mahathir leaves hospital (AFP)

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Former Malaysian prime rector Mahathir Mohamad has mitt infirmary after sick from a dresser infection, the national news agency Bernama reported.

The 85-year-old long-time leader had undergone communication including dresser physiotherapy at the National Heart Institute since May 18. Bernama said Mahathir was unemployed Saturday.

Mahathir stepped down as prime rector in 2003 after 22 years in power. But he remains an important figure, who ofttimes speaks up on underway issues.

Last October, Mahathir was admitted to a infirmary in town for a similar dresser infection.

He has undergone two coronary road surgeries, digit in 1989 and the stylish in 2007.

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Nepal lawmakers extend assembly term, avert crisis (AP)

KATMANDU, Nepal – Political parties in Nepal have reached a last-minute agreement, action the Constituent Assembly and shunning a semipolitical crisis in the Himalayan nation.

Assembly members voted Sunday farewell in souvenir of a government offering to extend the assembly's constituent by three months so it crapper complete its long-due duty of craft a newborn constitution.

Speaker Subash Nemwang declared that the offering had conventional more than the two-thirds votes required in the 601-seat assembly.

The assembly's constituent expired at midnight Saturday, but the utterer managed to begin the restoration impact transactions before that, and body of the three important semipolitical parties reached an commendation during the primeval hours of Sunday.

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