“I have never, ever, stolen one single krona.”Mona Sahlin was what was known in the Swedish Labour movement as an “A- Child”. She has been chased by bailiffs over late payments of private credit card debts, a tax debt, a late television-licence payment and 19 parking fines.According to two opinion polls published on Saturday, a majority said Ms Sahlin was not fit to be prime minister. “If they can find someone better, they should elect him, or her.”Her comments came as prosecutors appeared likely to announce an official investigation into her repeated misuse of her government credit cards. Ms Sahlin’s borrowing of taxpayer funds for private purchases, cash withdrawals, car rentals and family holidays are part of a mountain of press revelations about her unministerial handling of her private finances. Otherwise this might end in disaster.”
“I am going to write a letter to the party and ask the members to reconsider their choice,” she said. Stockholm – Mona Sahlin, the woman who was set to become Sweden’s youngest and first woman prime minister, will announce today whether she will resign as Deputy Prime Minster and as candidate for the leadership of the Social Democrats.

“If I don’t run, I have to know that there is someone else who has the strength,” Ms Sahlin said “I have to force myself to think about who will take over. Russia has offered up to 20,000 troops but has insisted that they will not come under direct Nato control.. The defeats and the plight of more than 100,000 Serb refugees from the battle have traumatised the Bosnian Serb leadership.”We must know who is responsible for a considerable loss of territory and military defeats, and those responsible will have to bear the consequences,” Mr Karadzic said.However, nine independent members of the Bosnian Serb assembly called for a “government of national salvation” to replace Mr Karadzic’s administration.n Mons, Belgium (Reuter) – Russia and Nato got down to the details yesterday of planning a 60,000-strong force to implement an eventual Bosnia peace settlement. We have already found and identified 100 bodies in various locations.”The ground between Prijedor – the one prize still in Serb hands – Sanski Most and Mrkonjic Grad, which once formed a defensive line around the Serb stronghold of Banja Luka, is infamous for atrocities committed against Muslims in 1992 and, the UN says, until the past few days.By a twist of fate, 25,000 Serb civilians fleeing the Bosnian advance are now housed at Omarska, once a concentration camp run by Serbs. They kept about 1,000 men.” He added that half of those had been forced to withdraw with the Serbs “We found 200 alive here and 300 are feared killed.

They expelled about 2,000 women and children to Zenica and Travnik. Bosnian troops took journalists to see 14 bodies, dead for several weeks, at two sites near Sanski Most. They suggested they were Muslims used as slave labour and shot by retreating Serb forces.Emir Karic, a Sanski Most official, said about 300 men were unaccounted for and feared dead: “The Serbs briefly withdrew from Sanski Most over a month ago but after two days came back to harass the Muslims. Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader, reopened old wounds with his military commanders by blaming unnamed generals for the defeats.
UN monitors headed for Mrkonjic Grad last night; their arrival should improve the peace-keepers’ ability to monitor the cease-fire and report breaches. Hostility between the warring armies is fiercest in north- west Bosnia, where Serbs earlier killed or expelled thousands of Muslims.The UN, if it is allowed access on the government side, will want to investigate reports of recent atrocities and older mass graves on territory lost by the Serbs. Victories by the Bosnian army in Sanski Most and Mrkonjic Grad have sown panic among Bosnian Serb leaders, who took the unusual step of inviting UN observers to inspect the front lines.

But Turkey’s internal bickering seems likely to hamstring this.. Battlefields fell quiet in north-west Bosnia yesterday as the government, apparently satisfied with its autumn offensive in the north- west and under international pressure to adhere to the cease-fire it signed, halted attacks on Serbs in the area. The European Parliament, which votes on ratifying customs union on 14 December, has demanded human rights reforms. Their leaders’ brinkmanship had failed to force Mrs Ciller to abandon spending limits under an IMF-imposed austerity plan, and now they have no government to negotiate with.More worrying is that deepening political uncertainty in Turkey is endangering a free trade deal with Europe. Almost all True Path deputies stood on their feet to clap and cheer Mrs Ciller. They gave no sign of believing that anybody else would help win them more votes in the next elections.The big losers were the public sector strikers, who staged a noisy rally down Ataturk Boulevard in support of their three-week-old action in railways, ports and sugar factories. Behind the scenes politicking has mapped out a coalition including the far right, Islamists, the social democrats, the centre-right and the leftists.Such plans, however, depend on winning over the bulk of the True Path Party and may meet their match in Mrs Ciller’s determination to stay in politics.