Croatian

What do local politicians talk about when they meet Croatian activists?Well, dancing ghosts, boisterous Republicans and how nice it would be to be called "president," among other things."

MADRID -- The Spanish government announced yesterday that Ante Gotovina, a top war crimes suspect from Croatia, had been arrested in Spain's Canary Islands, clearing a major obstacle to Croatia's efforts to join the European Union. Spain's Interior Ministry said Gotovina, 50, was arrested Wednesday night at a restaurant in a luxury hotel in Tenerife. The Croatian government had been criticized by European Union officials as failing to cooperate sufficiently in the search for Gotovina, who is a revered figure in parts of Croatia.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Despite a threatened European trade embargo, Yugoslavia's warfare intensified yesterday after Croatia ordered full mobilization against the advancing federal army and a top Serbian general accused the republic of "asking for total war."Serbian guerrillas backed by federal army troops, tanks and aircraft fired shells within 10 miles of Zagreb as they closed in on the Croatian capital.The Serbian forces also pressed their attack on the strategic city of Karlovac and reached the center of Vukovar, in eastern Croatia, one of the last Croatian strongholds in a region that has been pounded by artillery for weeks.

NEW YORK - Croatian Ivan Ljubicic barely had time to exit the court Friday night before unleashing some burning criticism of his victorious opponent, American Andy Roddick, who had ridden the emotions of the crowd at the U.S. Open to victory. "I think that anywhere in the world, except in the United States, if we played this match, I won it," said Ljubicic, who lost, 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-3, 7-6 (8). "That's my opinion. He's acting on the court. I mean, generally, I don't like him. Nobody in the locker room likes his acting on the court.

ZAGREB, Yugoslavia -- The latest unit to develop in Croatia's army may bring choreography to the battle strategy in the siege of the breakaway republic.It is the Croatian Art Force, and its members recently traded in their pens, paintbrushes and ballet slippers for assault rifles, hand grenades and army boots in a bid to help win independence for Croatia.The 88 men and two women of the new infantry unit, who in civilian life were writers, dancers, sculptors, painters and actors, recently finished two weeks of combat training and are waiting to be sent into the field.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Yugoslav army and Croatian officials prepared for a voluntary evacuation of the besieged resort city of Dubrovnik yesterday, a day after fierce firefights brought army forces within a mile of the walled Old City, news reports said.Serbian officers of the Yugoslav army said yesterday that their units, which have had Dubrovnik in a choke hold for four weeks, had halted their advance toward the Old City. There have been reports of only scattered gunfire in the area sinceFriday evening.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- A huge quantity of arms and equipment that experts say is enough to "equip an army of 100,000 men" has arrived in the Yugoslav port city of Bar without papers showing where the lethal cargo originated and where it was to be delivered.The shipment, which arrived last week aboard seven cargo vessels, has spurred intense speculation about its destination as Yugoslavia teetered on the possibility of an all-out war between Serbs and Croats, the Balkan nation's largest ethnic groups.

NEW YORK - Croatian Ivan Ljubicic barely had time to exit the court Friday night before unleashing some burning criticism of his victorious opponent, American Andy Roddick, who had ridden the emotions of the crowd at the U.S. Open to victory. "I think that anywhere in the world, except in the United States, if we played this match, I won it," said Ljubicic, who lost, 6-3, 6-7 (4), 6-3, 7-6 (8). "That's my opinion. He's acting on the court. I mean, generally, I don't like him. Nobody in the locker room likes his acting on the court.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Despite a slight letup in fighting yesterday, Western medical volunteers decided that conditions around the besieged city of Vukovar remained too dangerous to risk a second mercy mission to evacuate wounded from the front lines of Yugoslavia's civil war.The international aid organization Doctors Without Borders managed to rescue 109 seriously injured patients after a harrowing, 13-hour journey through the Serb-Croat war zone from...

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- Only hours after the deadliest violation of a 2-month-old cease-fire, an Indian general and three dozen administrators arrived in Yugoslavia yesterday to launch Europe's first U.N. peacekeeping mission.Lt. Gen. Satish Nambiar told journalists at Belgrade airport that he and other senior officers for the 14,000-troop deployment would not be deterred by the latest outbreak of violence.The U.N. mission, delayed for months by disputes among the Yugoslav combatants and by concerns about its $634 million annual cost, got under way as the federal army and Serb guerrillas resumed heavy artillery attacks on the eastern Croatian city of Osijek.

WIMBLEDON, England -- Wimbledon misses Goran Ivanisevic. All three of them. The tournament misses his big serves, multiple playing personalities and ability to turn a championship match into a personal psychodrama. But a new Goran may be on the rise even as the old Goran sits at home nursing a bum shoulder and ruing his inability to defend his title. The new kid on the scuffed lawns is Mario Ancic, a baby-faced 18-year-old from Ivanisevic's hometown of Split, Croatia. Ancic looks a little like Ivanisevic and plays a lot like him, too. Moreover, he considers Ivanisevic not just an idol, but also an unofficial older brother.

CINCINNATI - Their brief ritual seemed straight from a James Bond novel. The American, speaking first, would say in Latin, "Vincit qui se vincit." (He conquers who conquers himself.) The European man, code-named Dynamo, would reply, "Verbum pat sapienti." (A word is enough for a wise man.) Then they would match halves of a torn playing card, the nine of diamonds. While this scene may have been common during the Cold War, Dynamo was no common spy. Documents unsealed in a case recently settled in Cincinnati federal court reveal that the man called Dynamo was paid to spy for the U.S. government - even though intelligence reports showed that he was considered a Nazi war criminal in Yugoslavia.

WASHINGTON -- Investigators at the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, have concluded that the Croatian army carried out summary executions, indiscriminate shelling of civilian populations and "ethnic cleansing" during a 1995 assault that was a turning point in the Balkan wars, according to tribunal documents."

MONTEREY, Calif. -- When Romy Hall enlisted in the Air Force last summer, they asked her if she had any special interests. She checked off the "linguistics" box on the form.Later, she took a test and scored high enough to be offered the chance to come here: to a hill overlooking the fishing wharves and rolling dunes of this West Coast tourist destination, to a school unlike any other.The place where spies learn the languages of the world's hot spots.For more than 50 years the Defense Language Institute and its predecessors have trained military intelligence officers.

MARIJA BISTRICA, Croatia -- Hailing the World War II archbishop of Zagreb as a martyr to "the atrocities of the Communist system," Pope John Paul II beatified him yesterday.Beatification is the final step before sainthood. But by paying such homage to Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, who was imprisoned by the Tito regime as a Nazi collaborator, the pope stepped into one of the most divisive Serbo-Croatian disputes in the embattled regions of the former Yugoslavia.Stepinac is a national hero to millions of Roman Catholic Croats, and to Croatia's nationalist president, Franjo Tudjman.

PAZARIC, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Old soldiers never die -- they simply become "consultants."Hunkered down in a bunker 25 miles west of Sarajevo, Col. Clark Welch -- late of the U.S. Army's Special Forces -- is plotting the downfall of the Bosnian Serb army. "Eight hundred hours tomorrow, we 'move to contact,' " cackles the ebullient Vietnam veteran to a group of staff officers gathered around a pin-riddled wall map. "They'd better be ready, 'cuz we're gonna kick the crap out of them."Fighting talk.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- This country's warring factions greeted their latest cease-fire with a hail of bullets yesterday, when federal warplanes bombed five Croatian towns and clashes intensified for control of the devastated city of Vukovar.The 13th truce declared in nearly five months of fighting between Serbs and Croats went into effect at 6 p.m., after darkness and rain already had quelled the battles that raged throughout Croatia during the day.The cease-fire arranged between federal and Croatian negotiators, who have limited control over the combatants, was intended as a starting point in meeting U.N. conditions for deployment of a peacekeeping force in Yugoslavia.

BERLIN -- As Croatian and Muslim armies recently advanced across western Bosnia toward yet another Serbian-held village, continuing the Bosnian war's breathtaking reversal of fortunes, a dark thought occurred to a few United Nations observers: What if, after taking their next objective, the allies turn their guns on each other?It hasn't happened, but the thought illustrated an important point: The Croat-Muslim Federation, virtually taken for granted in discussions of Bosnia's future, is anything but secure or certain in the minds of its two partners.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina -- Widespread irregularities prevented many Serbs from voting in national elections in Croatia yesterday, in a flunked first test of U.S.-backed plans to lead the last rebel enclave in the Balkan country back to Croatian rule.Voting was so chaotic in Eastern Slavonia, a Serbian-held enclave in the eastern corner of Croatia, that United Nations officials first ordered polls to stay open an extra two hours last night and then for nine more hours today.International monitors had hoped that the Serbs of Eastern Slavonia would feel safe enough to vote in the election as an indication of their willingness to remain in the region and live under a Croatian government.

Forward Nesko Milovanovic and midfielder Sasa Zoric, a pair of 21-year-old Croatians who have been in this country barely two weeks, signed two-year contracts with the Spirit. Milovanovic, a forward, led the Spirit with three goals in Monday's 15-12 exhibition win over the Philadelphia Kixx."We've been looking for some young, fresh faces who can become part of our foundation for years to come," general manager Drew Forrester said. "With the signing of Todd Hicks [Towson State] and now Sasa and Nesko, we've added three quality players."