Yugoslav officials complained that evidence had disappeared and witnesses refused to cooperate.Milosevic decided to refuse counsel following a three­hour meeting Monday with two lawyers from Belgrade. Afterward, they told reporters that Milosevic has refused to accept the validity of the court, established in 1993 by the UN Security Council to prosecute those believed responsible for crimes committed during Balkan wars.”Mr. Milosevic does not recognize The Hague tribunal,” Zdenko Tomanovic said. Milosevic believes the tribunal “is part of a mechanism to commit genocide on the Serb people.”"He is not going to appoint any lawyer,” Tomanovic added. He said Milosevic would refuse legal representation during the arraignment and the trial expected to begin next year.Milosevic’s claim that his only crime was to stand up against NATO is unlikely to win points with the court. He is gambling that it will bolster his reputation among his own people.The United States has provided evidence concerning Milosevic to the UN war crimes tribunal and is prepared to provide additional information, according to the U.S.

State Department.The proceedings against the number one suspect in the decade­long Balkan wars has been a stunning success for the tribunal, which now faces the long and difficult task of convicting a defendant branded as the “Butcher of the Balkans.”Ahead of the arraignment, Deputy Prosecutor Graham Blewitt spoke of the “personal satisfaction” in seeing that one of the court’s “major targets is being brought before the tribunal.”"It’s not going to be an easy prosecution,” Blewitt said. “His responsibility for crimes when he was president of Serbia is not going to be easy to prove.”. Tears streamed down 54-year-old Matilde Cuagila’s weathered face as she blurted her first words of news down a satellite phone a week after her village was cut off from the world by an earthquake that killed at least 115 people and left more than 185,000 homeless in southern Peru. Tears streamed down 54-year-old Matilde Cuagila’s weathered face as she blurted her first words of news down a satellite phone a week after her village was cut off from the world by an earthquake that killed at least 115 people and left more than 185,000 homeless in southern Peru.
“I’m alive The earthquake opened up the roads It destroyed my house. But I’m alive,” the mother of eight shouted to her daughter 500 miles north-west in Lima, as a crowd of anxious villagers clamoured for their chance to speak to the outside world.

Ms Cuagila’s stone house in the remote mountain village of Polobaya Chica was shaken to pieces and telephone lines went down when an earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale caused havoc across the Andean region on 23 June.A team of aid workers from the French agency Telecoms Without Borders finally managed to cut through the rough mountain track to the village, 1,925ft up in the dusty, rugged hills 30 miles south of the regional capital, Arequipa, on Friday. They dialled long distance numbers for columns of villagers who clutched the state-of-the-art handset awkwardly in their leathery, dust-clogged hands.In this vast, Andean mountain region, breaking through to scores of scattered, mountain villages is the biggest challenge for aid workers.Rescue teams have still not reached about 20 per cent of the population, according to estimates from the International Federation of the Red Cross. With roads blocked, telephone lines down and electricity cut, many of these tiny hamlets can be reached only by helicopter or on foot.Ricardina Aquise, 64, queued with her three grandchildren who have slept outdoors since a stone wall of their house crashed inwards, crushing their belongings. “My daughter hasn’t known all week if we are alive or dead,” she said. Several villagers watched their neighbours cry with relief when they heard the voices of their loved ones.Esmelda Palo Cornijo was dejected “I lost my parents’ phone number under the rubble. I can’t remember the number, so I won’t be able to ring them. They’ll just have to wait.”The quake caused gaping cracks in the dirt track that winds through Polobaya Chica, which is overlooked by the snow-capped Misti volcano.

Seventy-nine houses were destroyed or damaged, and most of the villagers are too afraid to return to their damaged one-room homes.”Nobody has come to help us yet. We are freezing at night and so far we’ve only got three tents,” said Esmelda, begging for clothes and blankets “We don’t have any money to rebuild our home. We don’t know how long we’ll be sleeping outdoors.” Temperatures range from close to zero at night to about 26C in the midday sun.Polobaya Chica, whose 300 residents live on less than two dollars a day and survive on little more than potatoes and grains, has had no clean water since the earthquake.Aid efforts are painstakingly slow as rescue teams battle on roads strewn with rubble and buried by landslides.Daniela Leblanc, a rescue worker, said: “Often, when the road is blocked, they are having to walk for up to 12 hours just to find people And when they arrive they have nothing in their hands.”. Argentina’s reviled Blond Angel, the former naval captain Alfredo Astiz, surrendered to Interpol yesterday and now awaits extradition to Rome for abducting three Italians during the 1976-83 military junta.