President of Macedonia is killed in plane crash

Albania's prime minister canceled his own flight because of the weather.
BITONJA, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- Macedonia's president, a moderate leader credited for helping to unite his ethnically divided country, was killed today when his plane crashed in bad weather in mountainous southern Bosnia.
Boris Trajkovski, 47, was en route to an international investment conference in the western Bosnian city of Mostar, when his plane with six other officials and two pilots went down near the village of Bitonja shortly after 8 a.m. local time, officials said. There were no survivors.
Bosnian police said they found wreckage of the U.S.-made Beechcraft Super King Air 200 twin-engine turboprop near the village about 50 miles south of Sarajevo.
"We received confirmation from our patrols that they have found the wreckage of the Macedonian plane and that there are no survivors," Nedzad Vejzagic, spokesman for the Interior Ministry of Bosnia's Muslim-Croat federation, told The Associated Press.
By early afternoon, Bosnian President Dragan Covic told the Mostar conference participants that search teams had recovered four of the nine bodies.
"We today lost a friend ... our thoughts are with the families of the victims," Covic said as the gathering of about 2,000 participants observed a minute of silence. He called Trajkovski "irreplaceable."
What's being done
A commission was to be formed in Bosnia to investigate the cause of the accident. Macedonia's government planned to convene an emergency session later in the day. Macedonia's state media aired only classical music and urgent news items after announcing the crash.
Macedonia's Defense Ministry said security was beefed up along the country's borders and at key state and army institutions. Parliament speaker Ljubco Jordanovski would serve as acting president, officials said.
In Bosnia, an AP photographer near the scene said five teams of de-mining experts were headed to the crash site, suggesting the plane may have gone down in an area littered with land mines left over from Bosnia's devastating 1992-95 war.
Rain, heavy cloud cover and thick fog in the area had prompted Albania's prime minister, Fatos Nano, to cancel his own flight to the conference. Nano sent his condolences to the Macedonian government for its "tragic and painful loss."
Macedonia was to formally submit its application for eventual membership in the European Union today in Ireland, but canceled the presentation and called its delegation back from Dublin, officials said.