World briefs

Two Bosnian police officers and one civil protection worker were killed in a landmine blast in eastern Bosnia yesterday, the third such accident last week in an area still strewn with mines from the 1990s, Fena news agency reported.

"The three men died when a landmine went off," local police told the news agency.

Three mine clearers were killed and one was seriously injured during mine removal operations last Monday and Tuesday in northern Bosnia.

Almost four per cent of the Balkan country remains planted with landmines left over from the 1992-95 war, endangering the lives of 900,000 people, said Prime Minister Nikola Spiric, launching a new anti-mine campaign this week.

Experts say it will take at least 10 years to clear the mines and 80 million Bosnian marka ($64.5 million) per year to fund the demining.

Appeal for abandoned boy

British police made an appeal yesterday for the family of a nine-year-old boy to contact them after he was left at a bus stop in west London.

Gurrinder Singh, who only speaks Punjabi, wandered into a medical clinic in Southall in west London last Tuesday saying his uncle had not returned after leaving him at the bus stop, Scotland Yard said in a statement.

Speaking through an interpreter the nine-year-old told police he had been living in a three-bedroom house with his uncle - described as white and in his 30s - for two to three years.

"We're keen to reunite Gurrinder with his family," said chief inspector Keith Lunson. "We are appealing for anyone who may have seen Gurrinder on a bus with his uncle, and we would specifically encourage his uncle to come forward."

Minister defends embryology bill

Britain's government is right to push through hybrid human-animal embryo legislation after a Roman Catholic cardinal attacked the government for "endorsement of experiments of Frankenstein proportion", Health Minister Ben Bradshaw has told the BBC.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, has called for a proposed new law - the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill - to outlaw the practice and wants the government to allow a free vote on the legislation.

Gaddafi son mediating on hostages

A son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is mediating over two Austrians held by Al-Qaeda in North Africa and is hopeful they will be freed soon, an Austrian politician was quoted as saying.

Saif al-Islam, who heads the Gaddafi Foundation charity, has been in touch with the kidnappers, Carinthia governor Joerg Haider was quoted as telling the Austrian news agency APA late on Friday.

"Saif is negotiating with the kidnappers and in his own words he is hopeful that the whole thing will work out positively," Haider said.

The captives, Andrea Kloiber, 43, and Wolfgang Ebner, 51, went missing while on holiday in Tunisia last month. The Algerian-based Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said it seized them on February 22.

A retired former Austrian ambassador in Paris, Anton Prohaska, is in the Mali capital Bamako to try to free the hostages.

Cherry blossoms in Japan

Spring has officially arrived in Japan.

Cherry blossoms flowered in Tokyo and two other prefectures in Japan, the first of this season in designated observation areas across the country, the Japan Meteorological Agency said yesterday.

The emergence of the delicate, pale pink blooms is something of a national obsession, the focus of close media attention during the month or so it takes for the 'cherry front' to move from south to north.

The cherry blossoms, or Sakura in Japanese, opened in Tokyo and Shizuoka prefecture six days earlier than usual, while blossoms in southern Japan's Kumamoto prefecture flowered two days earlier.

Serb held for Vukovar massacre

Serbian police have arrested Milorad Pejic, now a British citizen, for alleged involvement in the massacre of Croatian prisoners in 1991, the Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor's Office said yesterday.

A statement by the office said Pejic, an ethnic Serb born in Croatia, was suspected of taking part in the killing of more than 200 Croatian prisoners of war at a pig farm in Ovcara, near Vukovar.

Pejic, who was arrested on an international warrant at Belgrade airport on March 19, has been living in Britain, where he worked as a locksmith, the office said.

Vukovar was the scene of one of the fiercest opening battles of the Croatian independence war took place.