But many of the remaining residents are no less trapped.What, then, does the future hold? Mr Nazarov is campaigning hard for international investment, especially in the gold industry which, hampered by a low price and inefficient production, makes a loss. He envisages a new society with a smaller population in which towns become industrial outposts, like North Sea platforms, whose workers come and go.He claims to have $600m (pounds 364m) of potential investment waiting for parliament to pass production-sharing laws. He talks of creating a thriving fishing industry, seaweed farms. But he admits the inescapable truth: the north is "in a terrible situation" As Ms Velichko and her friends know only too well.. SERB POLICE in Kosovo blocked international forensic experts yesterday from exhum-ing a suspected mass grave of about 22 Albanians in the Drenica region of the province. The victims were killed in Serbia's brutal military campaign to suppress a revolt in the province in the spring by armed militants of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The stand-off occurred after KLA fighters insisted the 19 forensic experts from Finland had to enter the region without a Serb police escort The region is a KLA stronghold.

Serb police then stopped the convoy before it entered the area.Albanian families taking advantage of the current truce to return to their homes, meanwhile, have accused Serb forces of poisoning their wells before they pulled out of the province.. WITH AUDIO and video clips, high rhetoric and low cunning, lawyers for and against the impeachment of the President argued their case yesterday at the start of the House Judiciary Committee's formal debate on impeachment. Among the evidence was a new source of embarrassment for President Clinton: snatches from his taped testimony in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case that showed him red-faced and evasive on the nature of his liaison with Monica Lewinsky. The use of the tape by the Republican counsel, David Schippers, brought forth anger from the White House, which said it had had no warning that the hitherto confidential tape would be aired. The White House special counsel, Gregory Craig, said that he was "disappointed and saddened at the use of innuendo, anger and unfair and unsubstantiated charges" and appealed to the committee to "be guided by your conscience and judgement".Mr Schippers accused Mr Clinton of trying to deprive Paula Jones of her legal rights and using the power of the presidency to do so. He said that this was "a defining moment for the Presidency: if you don't impeach, no House of Representatives will ever be able to impeach again".Abbe Lowell, counsel for the Democrats, used Mr Clinton's testimony, the Lewinsky-Linda Tripp conversations, and witness transcripts to support his case that Mr Clinton's actions were neither criminal nor impeachable, and that the motivation for what he did was personal - to keep an adulterous relationship secret from his family. And he made much of Ms Lewinsky's statement that no one told her to lie.Abe Hirschfeld, the New York property tycoon who, earlier this year, offered Paula Jones $1m (pounds 0.625m) to settle her sexual harassment suit against President Clinton, was in jail, yesterday, facing charges that he sought to hire an assassin to kill a former business partner, Stanley Stahl, 73.. YASSER ARAFAT, the Palestinian leader, convened senior officials and legislators yesterday to drop clauses from the Palestinian charter which call for the elimination of Israel, in the run-up to President Bill Clinton's visit to Gaza.

The Palestinians voted overwhelmingly to declare the clauses null and void. The vote was an interim step ahead of Monday's session of the Palestine National Council (PNC), which is to reaffirm the move in the presence of Mr Clinton. As the leaders met, thousands of Palestinians marched through the rain in the funeral procession of Jihad Iyad, a 17-year-old stonemason shot on Wednesday when there was rioting throughout the West Bank. Yesterday's rain helped to reduce clashes between Israeli soldiers and demonstrators calling for the release of 2,400 Palestinian prisoners.Mr Arafat may also be trying to contain the protests as he prepares to welcome Mr Clinton on Monday. The Israeli hard right sees the visit as de facto recognition of a Palestinian state by Washington.Posters showing Mr Clinton wearing Palestinian head-dress, and slogans saying "Clinton, Go Home", have been appearing on walls in Jerusalem.The clauses in the Palestinian charter to which Israel objects are being removed by an elaborate constitutional mechanism whereby the Palestinian Central Council in Gaza yesterday approved a letter from Mr Arafat to Mr Clinton, saying the clauses had been nullified.One hundred and five of the 124-member central council were present for the vote; 81 voted for, seven voted against and seven abstained.Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, says he has orderedsecurity forces to act with "an iron fist" against rioters after clashes this week which left two Palestinians dead and 150 people injured. "Our duty is to activate the Israeli army and the security element against this trouble in the firmest possible way," he said.Mr Netanyahu said he would wait to see the outcome of the PNC meeting before deciding whether to attend a meeting with Mr Clinton and Mr Arafat. The Israeli leader had insisted that the PNC decision be reached by vote rather than by acclamation.Another sign of tension between Israel and the United States was an angry response by Mr Netanyahu to a report that William Daley, the US Commerce Secretary, had made an implicit call for fresh elections in Israel. "Hopefully the people of Israel will make their voices heard a little louder in their support for peace," he is alleged to have said.

The US embassy later said Mr Daley was misreported.On a more personal level, the Clintons are reported by the Israeli press to have declined a meeting with Mr Netanyahu and his wife. Diplomats say Mrs Clinton is trying to limit the amount of time she will spend with Suha Arafat, fearing she will have to give equal time to Mrs Netanyahu.In an effort to stop the rioting on the West Bank, Dennis Ross, the US special envoy, made an implicit appeal yesterday for Israel to modify its refusal to free the Palestinian detainees, who are on hunger strike. The rioting began when Israel freed 150 criminals, many of them car thieves, but only 100 security prisoners under the Wye Agreement brokered by Mr Clinton in October.. IN A highly unusual intervention, the United States Supreme Court granted a last minute stay of execution to a Canadian citizen convicted of murder in the state of Texas.