President Slobodan Milosevic

International mediators met with Serb President Slobodan Milosevic and Yugoslav President Zoran Lilic in BELGRADE, seeking to add momentum to Bosnian peace talks.There was no sigh that the Muslim-dominated Bosnian leadership was ready to accept partition. Radio Sarajevo reported that the 10-member collective presidency insisted that Bosnia remain united or that the United Nations make it a protectorate.The World Health Organization predicted a castastrophe in SARAJEVO on a scale not seen since World War II.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic launched a vigorous, rambling and often mesmerizing defense against charges of war crimes yesterday, portraying himself as a victim, NATO as an aggressor, and Yugoslavia as a country divided and ravaged by the West. "You basically have nothing, and that is why you have to concoct things, you have to invent things," he told the court in an opening statement that was rich in grisly detail about human suffering during the Balkans wars but that denied he played a significant role.

JERUSALEM -- The Palestinian Authority has invited President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia, indicted on war crimes charges, to join in the celebrations of the Christian Orthodox Christmas in Bethlehem in January, according to Palestinian, Greek Orthodox and Israeli government sources."

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - After hearing prosecutors graphically lay out their case for charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic yesterday used his first chance to speak to challenge the legality of the United Nations tribunal. Milosevic argued that his arrest in Belgrade and extradition to The Hague were illegal and that he was a victim of a "lynch process." He questioned the legality of the tribunal "because it is not established on the basis of law."

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- International envoys assigned to inspect Serbian election fraud arrived in Belgrade yesterday amid indications that President Slobodan Milosevic is prepared to re-stage municipal voting for the capital.Already hit by more than a month of street demonstrations against his government, Milosevic is also facing increasing turmoil within his ruling party that further isolates him and could weaken his hold on power.The signals from the embattled regime were mixed yesterday: Milosevic's influential wife accused the generally peaceful demonstrators of taking Serbia to civil war, while the government staged old-style Communist rallies in a clumsy attempt to show that it still enjoys popular support.

HOLDING A premature election for president of Yugoslavia was President Slobodan Milosevic's idea. He ought to abide by the result. That goes against the grain. He never cared who liked his rule. Repudiation by the people means nothing to him. This election was meant to shut the critics up. Its result was hardly in doubt. Mr. Milosevic harassed the opposition, muzzled the press and blocked observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). If he stole the election, who would know?

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - After the fall of President Slobodan Milosevic, but while his secret police chief remained in office, tons of police documents were destroyed and illegal copies of files on former opposition leaders were spirited away, Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said yesterday. "The period from Oct. 5 until Jan. 25 was used for the active destruction of evidence," Mihajlovic told the Serbian parliament. There also was "unauthorized copying onto CDs of data from the files of all opposition leaders, which was taken away from the service for still unknown reasons," Mihajlovic said.

WASHINGTON - The United States often tries to control world events by turning its financial aid spigot on and off, but rarely does the technique produce results as significant or successful as the events yesterday in Belgrade. Twice Washington has set deadlines for Yugoslavia to move forward with bringing former President Slobodan Milosevic to justice, vowing to withhold aid if the deadlines were missed. Twice a reluctant Belgrade has responded at the 11th hour, first at the end of March, when Yugoslavian authorities arrested Milosevic, and again yesterday, when they delivered him to a tribunal to face charges of crimes against humanity.

LONDON - Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who ignited a decade of bloody Balkan wars that brought grief to his people and destruction to his country, was handed over to the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal and arrived at The Hague in the Netherlands early today to face charges of crimes against humanity. The extradition left Milosevic poised to become the first former head of state to be tried before the war crimes tribunal, as the international community took its most important step yet in the quest to unravel events and assign blame for the violence and ethnic cleansing that devastated the region.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - After the fall of President Slobodan Milosevic, but while his secret police chief remained in office, tons of police documents were destroyed and illegal copies of files on former opposition leaders were spirited away, Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said yesterday. "The period from Oct. 5 until Jan. 25 was used for the active destruction of evidence," Mihajlovic told the Serbian parliament. There also was "unauthorized copying onto CDs of data from the files of all opposition leaders, which was taken away from the service for still unknown reasons," Mihajlovic said.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Tucked in an opulent government villa on Uzicka Street, guarded by soldiers from an army he led to four defeats and bolstered by three dozen civilian true believers milling around the front gate, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic awaits the final act of his ruinous appearance on the Balkan stage. Nearly six months after he was ousted in a popular uprising, Milosevic is apparently headed for an arrest as the legal net tightens locally and internationally.

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Like a mob boss shoved into the shadows of forced retirement, former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic reputedly remains behind the massive gates of his villa along Tolstoy Street, a leafy lane so peaceful that the one cop on guard duty dozes where he sits. Yet beneath the calm, Milosevic's empire crumbles by the day as Yugoslavia emerges from a decade of thug rule and makes a tentative grasp at democracy. Long-buried financial secrets are being revealed, detailing the plunder of the economy by the Milosevic regime through a rigged banking system and corrupt state-run businesses that enriched the rulers and those close to them.

Here is the concession speech given by President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia: Respected citizens, I have just received the official information that Vojislav Kostunica has won the presidential election. The decision was made by the state body which has the constitutional authority to do so, and I believe that this decision must be respected. I would like to thank all those who gave me their trust and voted for me in these elections, but I would also like to thank those who did not vote for me because they took a huge weight off my chest, the burden of responsibility which I have carried for a full 10 years.

LONDON - Defeated on the battlefield, indicted as a war criminal, and unchallenged as dictator of a country dismembered by ethnic hate and doomed to economic calamity, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic endured more than a decade as the great survivor of Balkan politics. But, in the end, it was the simplest of miscalculations that ignited the fury of his people. He called an election for last month, lost it and then brazenly tried to steal it from a suddenly united opposition. For that, hundreds of thousands of Yugoslavs took to the streets of Belgrade yesterday in an unprecedented uprising against the Milosevic regime.

HOLDING A premature election for president of Yugoslavia was President Slobodan Milosevic's idea. He ought to abide by the result. That goes against the grain. He never cared who liked his rule. Repudiation by the people means nothing to him. This election was meant to shut the critics up. Its result was hardly in doubt. Mr. Milosevic harassed the opposition, muzzled the press and blocked observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). If he stole the election, who would know?