"I understand the suffering and anxiety of the family members. Even if we get bad news, we need to know. I'll do my utmost to help find them," said Dr. Kouchner on Wednesday during a visit to Djakova, a small town in southwest Kosovo where he met with members of the Municipal Council and the Missing Persons Association. Approximately 1,000 to 1,500 people from Djakova are still missing since the war began a year ago.

Dr. Kouchner said he was disappointed that so many human rights reporters had not made the cause of missing persons a priority. However, he told the families that during his recent visit to New York he had asked UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to appoint a human rights special representative to investigate what has happened to those still unaccounted for.

"I gave a list of the missing people of Djakova to the Security Council," he reassured the families.

A spokesman for the international peacekeeping force (KFOR) said today bomb disposal experts and police were investigating.

KFOR also said that it has started sealing the border between Kosovo and eastern Serbia to guard against cross-border violence.

KFOR spokesman Philip Anido said troops have commenced operations to close the Podujevo border crossing and all other unofficial crossings between Kosovo and Serbia.

He said the purpose of this operation was to prevent Kosovo being used as a base for the export of violence in the volatile Presevo Valley where an estimated 60,000 to 70,000 ethnic Albanians still live.

NATO used some 31,000 rounds of depleted uranium ammunition throughout Kosovo in over 100 bombing missions. But, according to the Balkans Task Force (BTF), the information provided by NATO is not of sufficient detail to facilitate an accurate field assessment of the environmental and human health consequences of its use at the present time.

BTF was set up by UNEP and the UN Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS/Habitat) in May 1999 to assess the environmental and human settlement consequences of the Balkans conflict. Last year, a BTF report concluded that the Kosovo conflict did not cause an environmental catastrophe affecting the Balkans region as a whole, but that pollution detected at four environmental "hot spots" was serious and posed a threat to health.

After reviewing the data provided by NATO, BTF concluded that information was needed on the exact location of the depleted uranium ordnance to carry out a comprehensive, objective and scientifically-based environmental and human health impact assessment in Kosovo.

The conclusions of the BTF scientists have been forwarded to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the heads of other concerned UN agencies, including the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

Chairing a symposium on "Kosovo and the International Community" at UN Headquarters in New York, Prof. Thakur said the Kosovo conflict confronted the international community with an abiding challenge of humanitarian intervention: namely is it morally just, legally permissible and militarily feasible?

In today's dangerously unstable world full of complex conflicts, concerned countries and citizens face the painful dilemma of being condemned if they do and damned if they don't, he said.

"To use force unilaterally is to violate international law and undermine world order. Yet to respect sovereignty all the time is to be complicit in human rights violations sometimes. And to argue that the UN Security Council must give its consent to humanitarian war is to risk policy paralysis by handing over the agenda to the most egregious and obstreperous."

Prof. Thakur said many of today's wars were nasty, brutish and internal and the world community could not help all victims, but must step in where it could make a difference. "Selective indignation is inevitable, for we simply cannot intervene everywhere, every time."

He said humanitarian intervention must be collective, not unilateral, and must be legitimate, not in violation of the agreed rules, which comprise the foundation of world order.

The Prime Minister, on a visit to Kosovo along with Bulgarian Deputy Foreign Minister Marim Rajkov, made the offer during a meeting with the head of UNMIK, Dr. Bernard Kouchner, in Pristina yesterday. Mr. Kostov, also offered to increase the number of Bulgarian police serving with UNMIK.

"Not only did they offer us help on the ground, they offered us some perspective for the future and also some perspective in the dialogue," Dr. Kouchner said after the meeting. He commended Bulgaria's contribution to the peace efforts in Kosovo, in particular the confidence-building process.

The study, released today by the United Nations University, argues that the current situation in Kosovo can only be an interim solution.

Titled "Kosovo and the Challenge of Humanitarian Intervention", the study warns that the 1999 NATO bombing campaigns, based on "selective indignation" to humanitarian crisis, though understandable, set a dangerous precedent.

Unless world powers agree on principles to guide interventions in similar circumstances, that precedent will have dangerously undermined international order, the study says.

The study is a compendium of views and interpretations of the Kosovo crisis from diverse perspectives: the conflict parties, NATO allies, the immediate region surrounding the conflict, and further afield. It is co-edited by Prof. Ramesh Thakur, Vice-Rector of the UN University, and Dr. Albrecht Schnabel of the University's Peace and Governance Programme.

Noting that it is easier to bomb than to build, the study argues that communities bitterly divided for centuries cannot be forced by outsiders to live together peacefully. It also warns that in the face of persistent threats of ethnic cleansing of Serbs by Albanians, the lack of international solidarity and effective action further entrenches the victim mentality among Serbs and undermines prospects of long-term stability.