SKOPJE - Experts exhumed the bodies of two ethnic Albanians in the north of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) yesterday, completing the unearthing of evidence to be used in a UN investigation into alleged war crimes committed during an insurgency last year. FYROM authorities and investigators from the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands unearthed the bodies in Ljuboten, a village 5 kilometers (3 miles) north of Skopje, a government official said on condition of anonymity. The bodies were identified as Davit Murati, 70 and Memet Xhaviti, 73. Forensic experts are to investigate whether they were executed, the source said. (AP)

BELGRADE - Radovan Karadzic is healthy and in good spirits, an associate said yesterday while promoting a book written by the wartime leader of Bosnia’s Serbs and the world’s No. 1 war crimes suspect at large. The man who gained notoriety during Bosnia’s 1992-1995 war and has since dodged international efforts to arrest him, Karadzic is busy writing books at an undisclosed location, several friends and supporters — who call themselves “The Board for Truth About Radovan Karadzic” — said at his book’s promotion in Belgrade. (AP)

Australia’s governor-general, Peter Hollingworth, met Turkish leaders yesterday ahead of ceremonies commemorating the 87th anniversary of the Dardanelles campaign of World War I, in which thousands of Australians, New Zealanders and Turks lost their lives, the Anatolia news agency reported. The first meeting on Hollingworth’s itinerary was with President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who underlined that the two countries had succeeded in establishing a “close friendship” after the ill-fated campaign of 1915. Hollingworth also met Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit. (AFP)

Far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen’s election breakthrough in France will encourage all Europeans struggling to escape “the clutches of globalization,” Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj said yesterday. In a letter congratulating the French National Front presidential candidate, a friend as well as political soul mate, Serbia’s own far-right politicians said Serb patriots would now look on Europe more favorably. “I assure you, dear friend, that your extraordinary success has warmed the hearts of all Serb patriots, who now look on Europe with different eyes,” Seselj told Le Pen in the letter. (Reuters)

Istanbul police yesterday seized 2.3 million dollars worth of narcotic pills and detained two people who were trying to smuggle the amphetamines to Middle Eastern countries, police said. Police discovered 154,000 pills of Captagon, an amphetamine, during a raid on two private businesses in Istanbul, police said. The pills had been smuggled into the country from Bulgaria and were bound for the Middle East, a police officer said. (AP)

Authorities in eastern Romania deployed cranes to pluck a half a dozen kiosks off a city’s streets, stopping the sale of a newspaper implicated in a legal dispute with local leaders, journalists said yesterday. Minor scuffles broke out between journalists and police on Sunday as the cranes moved in to remove kiosks in Focsani, northeast of Bucharest. The action followed a dispute between city officials and the Business Monitor newspaper. The daily newspaper’s editors claimed that city officials had removed and later disposed of the kiosks at the edge of the city because the daily was critical of Focsani’s leadership. (AP)