WESTERN EUROPE

TOP WAR CRIMES SUSPECT JAILED IN MADRID

MADRID, Spain – Croatia’s top war crimes suspect, a retired general indicted in the killings of at least 150 Serbs, has been arrested at a luxury resort on Spain’s Canary Islands after four years on the run, officials said yesterday.

Elite Spanish police seized Ante Gotovina as he dined Wednesday evening at the Hotel Bitacora on the island of Tenerife, Spain’s Interior Ministry said. He had traveled to the island off Africa’s Atlantic coast on a fake Croatian passport, the ministry said.

Mr. Gotovina, 50, was flown to Madrid yesterday and ordered held overnight in a high-security prison north of Madrid, the Efe news agency said.

– Associated Press

QUEEN ELIZABETH II, IRISH PRESIDENT MEET

BELFAST, Northern Ireland – Queen Elizabeth II and the Irish president, Mary McAleese, shook hands on Northern Ireland soil for the first time yesterday – a symbolic milestone following years of peacemaking in this long-disputed British territory.

The British monarch and the Republic of Ireland’s head of state chatted and posed together at Hillsborough Castle, outside Belfast, for an occasion that would have provoked hostility within Northern Ireland’s Protestant majority just a few years ago. But their trouble-free meeting became inevitable once Ireland dropped its territorial claim to Northern Ireland as part of the landmark Good Friday peace accord of 1998.

– Associated Press

THATCHER LEAVES HOSPITAL

LONDON – Margaret Thatcher, the former Conservative prime minister, left the hospital and returned to her London home yesterday after being given a “clean bill of health” by doctors.

“I’m fine, I’m fine. I feel fine,” she said as she left the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Looking frail and shielding her eyes from camera flashes, she left the hospital before noon. She paused briefly at the door in front of photographers before being driven away in a green Jaguar.

Mrs. Thatcher, 80, who had previously suffered a series of small strokes, was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday after complaining of feeling faint.

– The Daily Telegraph

EAST AFRICA

KENYA IN TURMOIL AFTER MINISTERS REFUSE TO JOIN ‘CABINET OF CRONIES’

Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki, faced a political crisis yesterday after several ministers refused to take up posts in his new Cabinet. Mr. Kibaki fired his entire team and postponed the reopening of parliament after losing a key referendum two weeks ago.

His new lineup, announced on Wednesday night, was packed with sycophantic loyalists and lacked the popular politicians who opposed him during the vote on a new draft constitution that would have entrenched his powers. Yesterday, Mr. Kibaki’s nominees for the health, local government, and environment portfolios refused to accept their appointments.

– The Daily Telegraph

UNITED NATIONS

ANNAN SAYS BOLTON WON’T INTIMIDATE RIGHTS ADVOCATE

Secretary-General Annan said through his spokesman yesterday that the world body’s leading human rights advocate won’t be “intimidated” by criticism from America’s Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, and that he wants to discuss the matter with the envoy as soon as possible.

U.N. spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, told reporters that Mr. Annan is seeking a meeting with Mr. Bolton to defend statements by the high commissioner for human rights, Louise Arbour, that the war on terrorism has eroded efforts to eliminate torture.

Mr. Bolton called Ms. Arbour’s remarks “illegitimate and inappropriate,” coming from an “international civil servant with nothing more as evidence than what she reads in the newspapers.”

– Bloomberg News