Macedonia leader 'dead in crash'

(roger s posted first but ithout details)

A plane carrying Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski has crashed into mountains in Bosnia-Hercegovina, officials say.
Wreckage of the small plane was found near the southern city of Stolac, with bodies nearby, Bosnian police were quoted as saying.

A senior Macedonian official quoted by the French news agency, AFP, said the president was dead.

The plane was believed to have had nine people on board.

Helicopters were scouring the area in the hours after the crash.

“The president was in the plane with several staff members. We have no word on survivors. A chopper is on its way,” a government source told Reuters news agency shortly after the crash.

A spokesman for US peacekeepers in Bosnia said the plane lost contact with air-traffic controllers near the border between Bosnia and Montenegro.

Stolac is in a mountainous region of southern Bosnia, east of the Croatian port of Dubrovnik.

Mostar conference

The plane took off from the Macedonian capital, Skopje, earlier on Thursday.

Mr Trajkovski and a group of advisers were on their way to an investment conference in Mostar.

Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said he had been told the president was dead.

Mr Ahern’s comments came after he had been due to meet the Macedonian prime minister in Dublin. The meeting was cancelled after news of the crash emerged.