■ Haiti
UN mission planned
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday called for a broad-based new UN mission in Haiti that would include 6,700 troops, more than 1,600 international police officers and experts to help turn the Caribbean nation into "a functioning democracy." The UN military contingent would replace the 3,600-strong US-led multinational force sent to bring stability to Haiti after a three-week rebellion led the country's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, to flee in February. Annan said the transfer of authority from the multinational force to the
UN force would take place by June 1, with troops in the multinational force then withdrawing on a phased basis as UN troops arrived "to avoid any security gap."
■ Russia
Craft reaches space station
A Russian craft carrying a Russian-US-Dutch crew docked with the international space station yesterday. The Soyuz TMA-4, working on autopilot, docked three minutes ahead of schedule, approximately two days after blasting off on a rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Carrying three astronauts, it was the third Russian spacecraft to fill in for the US space shuttle, which has been suspended since the Columbia disaster.
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