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PRESIDENT MILOSEVIC RECEIVES PRESIDENT OF MACEDONIAN SOCIALISTS
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic on Friday received Socialist Party of Macedonia President Ljubisav Ivanov.
Both sides urge the development of comprehensive bilateral relations in the interest of citizens of Yugoslavia and Macedonia, in the interest of peace and stability in the region and in the interest of the free and independent development of states and peoples in the Balkans, it was agreed.
President Milosevic said the Macedonian people had provided great support to Yugoslavs in opposing NATO countries during the aggression, with which they contributed not only to the success of the struggle of Yugoslav citizens against occupation, but also to the resistance of all Balkan peoples to the great pressures to which they are exposed.
The meeting was attended by Serbian parliament deputy Goran Percevic.
YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCES MEASURES AGAINST MONOPOLISTIC PRICES
At its Thursday session, chaired by Prime Minister Momir Bulatovic, the Yugoslav government reviewed a report on current economic trends, a government statement said.
The government took the view that prices are still rising steadily and that shortages are being created, even of commodities that are in plentiful supply for domestic needs.
The government instructed the anti-monopoly commission to take immediate and decisive steps against all companies that have raised prices for monopolistic reasons.
This is the government's way of assisting other bodies, primarily those of the Yugoslav republics of Serbia and Montenegro, in stabilising the market.
The government allocated 87 million dinars (1 U.S. dollar fetches just under 11 dinars) as humanitarian aid for refugees in Yugoslavia, medical care and pension benefits for the wounded from former Yugoslav republics receiving medical treatment in Yugoslavia.
Fifty-two million dinars have been set aside for the accommodation of displaced people from Serbia's U.N.-secured province of Kosovo-Metohija until the end of the year, the statement said.
YUGOSLAV AMBASSADOR BRANKOVIC LODGES PROTEST WITH UNEP
Yugoslav Ambassador Branko Brankovic to the UN Geneva headquarters has sent a letter to the head of the working group for the Balkans of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Pekka Haavistu, pointing out that the Oct 14 final report on the consequences of the NATO air strikes on the environment and human settlements in Yugoslavia contained unacceptable political conclusions.
Before March 24, when the NATO aggression on Yugoslavia began, there had been no humanitarian disaster in Yugoslavia, or ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Metohija province, and none of the about 100 international organisations present in the southern Serbian province at that time had indicated any such possibilities, the letter said.
The aggressor caused a humanitarian disaster, Brankovic said, pointing out that the air strikes themselves had triggered a wave of refugees, and that NATO bombs destroyed towns and villages, infrastructure objects, water and electricity supply systems used by Serbs, Montenegrins, ethnic Albanians, Romanies, ethnic Turks, Goranies, or ethnic Egyptians.
NATO planned and produced a humanitarian catastrophe so as to justify before the international public the criminal consequences and continuation of its aggression, the letter said.
The working group conclusions that NATO had allegedly insisted on air strikes only after the failure of the talks in Rambouillet are unacceptable, Brankovic said. There never was any agreement in Rambouillet, he said, but just an obvious attempt by the U.S. administration to enforce the dismembering of Yugoslavia with brutal armed force, and to create a NATO base in its territory.
Speaking about the parts of the report which deal with recommendations for help, Brankovic said that humanitarian aid was unfortunately very politicised by the United States and the European Union.
Brankovic pointed out that UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata had warned that the international community could make a serious mistake if it fails to send the necessary humanitarian aid to Yugoslavia.
The letter concluded that the UNEP working group for the Balkans had stepped out of the framework of its mandate with its report on Kosovo and Metohija and the unacceptable political assessments presented in it.
JOVANOVIC SAYS PEOPLE'S UNITY VITAL FOR COUNTRY'S RECONSTRUCTION
Yugoslav Foreign Minister Zivadin Jovanovic said Thursday that Yugoslavia had entered a period of great challenges in which the country's reconstruction and preservation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity was marked by onslaughts by ethnic Albanian terrorism and separatism.
Addressing a meeting of the local board of Yugoslavia's World War II veterans' association held to mark the 55th anniversary since Kragujevac, central Serbia, was liberated from Nazi occupation, Jovanovic said that the unity of the Yugoslav people and their leadership was the most powerful weapon for these challenges.
In this connection, he said that the unity demonstrated during NATO's March 24-June 10 aggression on the country would be the main prop also in the times to come.
"Kragujevac's firmness in the defence is reflected also in the re-activating of production in factories that were severely damaged and in the reconstructed infrastructure in the sphere of education and health care," he said.
The Serbs are relying on their own resources but are not trying to isolate themselves from the world because they have always been open to all countries ready to cooperate with them on the footing of equality, he said.
"Some foreign governments opted for a disastrous policy and aggression but this is not characteristic of the majority of mankind, because only the governments of the NATO member states are against Yugoslavia and not peoples from these countries that oppose the policy of force and blackmail," he said.
Jovanovic referred to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's statement to the effect that Yugoslavia plays a far more important role in international relations than can be concluded by the number of its population and the size of its territory.
"We symbolise major civilisation values - freedom, independence and dignity - and we have friends throughout the world," he said.
Jovanovic said Europe must draw a lesson from a traditional event held at Kragujevac's Sumarice memorial park on October 21 to commemorate the date in 1941 when Germany's Nazi troops executed by firing squads 7,000 town residents and 300 pupils in one day alone.
"They that do not listen to lessons from Sumarice cannot be certain of their own future," he said.
Also attending were Yugoslav Minister Milan Beko, Serbian ministers Jovo Todorovic, Borislav Milacic and Slobodan Tomovic, Petar Gracanin, a retired general and member of the main board of Serbia's Socialist Party (SPS), top Yugoslav army and Serbian police officials, and deputies and businessmen.
YUGOSLAV DEPUTY PM SAYS NO ELECTIONS WILL BE HELD THIS YEAR
Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Nikolic has said that there will be no elections in Yugoslavia this year if for no other reason than because the opposition has set the holding of elections as an ultimatum.
Speaking in a programme by the local television station Palma Plus in Jagodina, central Serbia, Nikolic said that Yugoslav authorities would decide on the right time for holding elections.
The opposition has seen that citizens do not back its method of changing authorities and, consequently, its protest rallies are no longer so frequent because there is not a sufficient number of participants in them, he said adding that the opposition had therefore focused on elections as a way of bringing about the change in power.
Referring to the country's reconstruction, Nikolic said that the world was amazed by all that happening in Serbia. He said that the entire power industry system had been reconstructed including both the production of oil as well as power generation, as well as nearly all land links, and that most of the people whose homes NATO had destroyed had got new homes.
He said that this was an outstanding accomplishment.
Nikolic also said that Serbia and Yugoslavia would never give Kosovo and Metohija either to ethnic Albanian terrorists or to Western vandals.
NO-ONE IS SAFE ANY MORE IN KOSOVO-METOHIJA
Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) spokesman Ivica Dacic expressed Thursday the indignation of that party because of the security situation in Kosovo and Metohija, "where no-one can be guaranteed security any more."
Dacic recalled at a news conference that the basic task of the UN civilian mission, and of KFOR, was the security of residents of the southern Serbian province and pointed out that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was fully adhering to all its commitments while the same cannot be said for the international peacekeeping forces.
Commenting the repeated demands of some opposition parties for the holding of early elections at all levels, Dacic said that SPS was not against elections, but that there are much more important problems at the moment in the country that demand their attention.
"There is no parliamentary crisis in Yugoslavia that would require the convening of early elections, but if someone thinks different, their demands should be referred to parliament", Dacic said.
The SPS spokesman underlined that successful reconstruction was underway in the country and that state bodies are doing their utmost to remove the consequences of NATO's aggression.
Dacic said that industrial production in Yugoslavia had increased 80 percent, compared to May this year.
The priority activities of SPS are the reconstruction of the country, removing the consequences of NATO's aggression and the pursuit of started reforms, Dacic said.
KFOR MUST BE TOUGHER ON KLA FOUNDERS - KOSOVO-METOHIJA OFFICIAL
The international KFOR force in Kosovo-Metohija must take a tougher stance towards those who organise murders and "ethnic cleansing," viz. those who created the ethnic Albanian terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), a local official said on Thursday.
Zoran Andjelkovic, president of the Provisional Executive Council of that U.N.-secured province of the Yugoslav republic of Serbia, was commenting for Radio Yugoslavia on KFOR's promise to tighten control in Kosovo-Metohija.
Andjelkovic said that effects of the tighter measures were not yet visible on the ground, as evident from a large number of incidents occurring every day.
The fire which gutted the Pristina Radio and Television building earlier this week was only to be expected, chiefly because of the incompetence of the so-called ethnic Albanian workers, in fact armed gangs that had seized this building and others in Kosovo-Metohija by force, driving out the original skilled workers, he said.
Speaking about the biased reporting by western media on the situation in Kosovo-Metohija, he said that this was just the continuation of a propaganda campaign begun at the time of NATO's March 24-June 10 air strikes on Yugoslavia, when the lie was propagated that the aggression had a humanitarian cause.
"We had warned that there were bandit gangs in Kosovo-Metohija trying in every separatist and terrorist way known to them to detach Kosovo-Metohija from Yugoslavia and (its republic of) Serbia and cleanse it ethnically of its non-Albanians," he stressed.
He noted that western media were still trying to hide the truth that the result of the four months of the presence and operation of KFOR and the UN civilian mission (UNMIK) in Kosovo-Metohija are forcible seizures of institutions by ethnic Albanian terrorists, abductions and murders of hundreds of people and more than 300,000 people displaced from Kosovo-Metohija.
SERBS IN KOSOVSKO POMORAVLJE REGION ARE GETTING BETTER ORGANIZED
The situation in the Kosovsko Pomoravlje region is improving because the Serbs are getting better organised, Serbian Minister Slobodan Tomovic, who is also the co-chairman of the Federal Committee for Cooperation With the UN Mission in Kosovo and Metohija (UNMIK), said on Thursday.
Speaking in Kragujevac where he was attending the 59th commemoration of the shooting of 7,000 school children and professors, Tomovic pointed out that the Serbs in the Kosovsko Pomoravlje region are determined to remain on their land.
"We should encourage this intention and help in every possible way to create conditions for the return of those who have been temporarily displaced," Tomovic stated. Commenting Wednesday's visit to villages of Kosovsko Pomoravlje by a delegation of the Committee for Cooperation With UNMIK, Tomovic set out that solutions for the numerous problems of the Serbs of that region have already been reached, while others are being sought in order to fulfil the interests of the people.
He expressed hope that the new KFOR commander would bring a positive change in the conduct of the peacekeepers that have so far applied double standards at the expense of the Serbs.
ETHNIC ALBANIAN TERRORISTS TORCH SERB HOUSE IN KOSOVO POLJE
Ethnic Albanian terrorists have aimed their violence at Kosovo Polje from where they want to drive away the remaining Serbs.
The house of Ljubisa Lazovic, a Serb, was looted on Oct. 19 and torched last night, the Centre for Peace and Tolerance in Kosovo Polje said on Thursday.
KOSOVO-METOHIJA ALBANIANS URGE PEACE FOR ALL
The crimes of ethnic Albanian terrorists against Serbs and others loyal to Serbia in U.N.-secured Kosovo-Metohija are not abating, because of the leniency of the international KFOR force and the UN civilian mission (UNMIK), an ethnic Albanian official said on Thursday.
"For more than four months now, ethnic Albanian allegedly demilitarised terrorist gangs have been murdering, torching, raping, abducting, while those who are supposed to stop them are keeping quiet," Sokol Qusa of the ethnic Albanian Democratic Reform Party said at a news conference in Kosovo-Metohija's city of Pristina.
Over this period, the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), led by Hashim Thaqi, has brutally murdered more than 400 Serbs and Romanies, according to Qusa.
He added that, over this period, more than 450 people have been abducted, and more than 1,000 have been raped, wounded or otherwise abused.
He quoted UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) figures to the effect that more than 250,000 Serbs and others have been forced out of that UN-secured Serbian province by rampaging ethnic Albanian terrorist gangs.
The Democratic Reform Party, therefore, expects the UN Security Council to see to a consistent implementation of UN Resolution 1244, which clearly stresses the inviolability of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia and its republic of Serbia, he said.
He urged the United Nations and other organisations on a peace mission to Kosovo-Metohija to secure peace for all people there.
FROM KOSOVO-METOHIJA HAVE FLED 214,798 RESIDENTS
Since the arrival of KFOR in Kosovo-Metohija, the security situation in that province has deteriorated drastically, which has led in the last four months 214,798 Serbs, Romanies, Muslims and other non-Albanian populations from Kosovo-Metohija to leave their homes and seek refuge in other parts of Serbia, the Red Cross of Serbia said Thursday.
At a session of the operational headquarters of the Red Cross of Serbia, it was decided to continue aid to displaced persons in Serbia during the winter and, in that respect, cooperate with competent state bodies and international humanitarian organisations.
Moreover, a soup kitchen program was considered for which the International Committee of the Red Cross has secured food for 100,000 users, the socially disadvantaged, as well as a social program financed by the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
It was said at the session, that the Red Cross has regularly sent aid to citizens in Kosovo-Metohija, in the first place to non-Albanian populations who were left without food.
Since the arrival of KFOR, the Red Cross has delivered to the needy in Kosovo-Metohija around 1,000 tons of aid, the statement from the session said.
HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE: FRENCH PEOPLE MUST KNOW ABOUT SUFFERING OF SERBS
What is happening in Kosovo and Metohija in the presence of the KFOR is such a crime, such injustice and discrimination of Serbs, that French people cannot remain indifferent to that situation, regardless of the stand of the French government, spokesman Philippe-Xavier Pauly of the newly founded Paris based Committee for Protection and Human Rights told Tanjug on Thursday.
Upon his return from the southern Serbian province, where he visited assembly centers for Serbs in Leposavic and Kosovska Mitrovica, as well as Serbian Medieval monasteries, Pauly said his non-governmental organisation, which has a humanitarian and informative character, wants the French public to be informed about data on the number of refugee Serbs, Romanies, Goranies, who have been forced to leave their homes in Kosovo and Metohija since the arrival of the international force KFOR, as well as with the numbers of persons of non-Albanian origin and ethnic Albanians loyal to the republic of Serbia abducted or murdered by ethnic Albanian terrorists, and in plain sight of KFOR.
Pauly said his organisation was registering, in cooperation with Serbian authorities and the Red Cross, destroyed works of art of the Serbian national heritage - churches and monasteries, which he said belong to the heritage of all mankind. The organisation is doing this in order to bring UNMIK head Bernard Kouchner to task, since he and KFOR are responsible for the unheard-of ethnic cleansing of the Serb population, Pauly said.
This is all done by militant ethnic Albanian separatists and terrorists, but it is all seen by Kouchner, NATO and KFOR, who are responsible for this, he said.
KFOR's task had been to secure a multiethnic nature of the southern Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija, and yet today there is ethnic cleansing in its presence, Pauly said.
The committee has set demonstration at Trocadero Square in Paris for Saturday afternoon. Protesters will send an appeal for lifting the sanctions against Yugoslavia and providing humanitarian aid, in particular for refugees from Kosovo and Metohija, Pauly said.
The object of the event is to contribute to the lifting of the economic and other sanctions against the Serb people before the winter, since most French citizens are against such a policy which places an entire innocent nation in the position of hostage of the big powers, the committee spokesman said.
RUSSIA'S IVANOV ARRIVES IN SPAIN
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said at Madrid airport on Thursday that one of the main foreign political topics to be discussed during his official visit to Spain would be the situation in Kosovo-Metohija.
Ivanov said that his Madrid talks would touch also on the Middle East situation, UN reform and cooperation in the Mediterranean region.
He said he would address this last problem also at an international seminar in Palma de Mallorca, adding he was certain that Russia should play a more active part in the regional processes.
He will be received by King Juan Carlos, and will meet with Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.
He will be meeting also with his colleague, Foreign Minister Abel Matutes, with whom he wishes to discuss preparations for the upcoming summit in Istanbul of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Ivanov said he was sure that the summit should approve a Charter on European security.
GREEKS EXCLUDED FROM DOCTORS WITHOUT FRONTIERS FOR HELPING SERBS
The International Council of the organisation Doctors without Frontiers unanimously decided to exclude from its membership the Greek branch for the stand and work of Greek doctors in Serbia's Kosovo and Metohija province during the military engagement of NATO, when they had selflessly helped all victims of the war regardless of nationality, the Athens daily Eleftherotypia said on Thursday, quoting Le Monde of Paris.
Thus this international humanitarian organisation, recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, cast a deep shadow on its name and mission which had been the basic criteria for awarding this prize, and on the Nobel Prize itself, the daily said.
Greek members of the organisation Doctors without Frontiers released an official statement on the occasion of this decision saying they had never picked whom to help, and would not make any such selection in future, either.
The conflict with the central organisation began with the escalation of the Kosovo crisis, more precisely with the act of launching air strikes, which anyway caused great differences among the European public. Unfortunately, this rift also affected the area of humanitarian work, which cannot be allowed and must be condemned, the Greek doctors' statement said.
Greek doctors were true to the fundamental principles of the code and helped both ethnic Albanians and Serbs, all victims of the war. They did not want to suspend their humanitarian work. They did not think about the possible consequences, and in that enjoyed the support of all 100,000 members, said the statement of the Greek branch of Doctors without Frontiers.
WORLD FOOD PROGRAM SECURES AID FOR 650,000
The head of the World Food Program (WFP) office in Belgrade, Robert Hauser, told Tanjug Friday that the organisation will provide by the end of the year aid for 650,000 of the needy in FR Yugoslavia, and that next year it plans aid in food for as many as 880,000 users.
WFP, in cooperation with the federal ministry for refugees, displaced persons and humanitarian aid, the Serbian Fund for Pensions and Disability Pensions, has determined the categories of the most needy.
Hauser underlined that WFP was trying to lift the sanctions that are directly impeding the purchase of food on the Yugoslav market.
He said that the UN sanctions committee had made it clear that the purchase of food in Yugoslavia by a humanitarian agency was not in violation of sanctions, but that money entering Yugoslavia over a bank account would be in violation of the sanctions.
"WFP has to secure every month 10,000 tons of food and pay for it millions of dollars, which can be done only through a bank account, but do not allow the money to enter Yugoslavia because in that way we would allegedly be violating the sanctions," Hauser said.
That is why WFP has to buy food in neighbouring countries and then ship it to Yugoslavia through the ports of Bar and Salonika.
Hauser said that the WFP was negotiating with the UN sanctions committee that the payment of humanitarian aid be treated as humanitarian payments.
FINS TAKE PART IN RECONSTRUCTION OF CENTER FOR CHILD PULMONARY DISEASES
Representatives of the Finnish Red Cross and the Serbian Health Ministry have signed a memorandum on the realisation of a project for the reconstruction of the Center for treating pulmonary diseases of children, within the clinical-hospital Center Dragisa Misovic in Belgrade that was heavily damaged during the bombing of Belgrade, the Serbian Health Ministry said Friday.
The statement said that the project includes the reconstruction of the center whose first phase, 750,000 D marks, will be provided by the Finnish Red Cross.
The total value of the project has been estimated at 1,500,000 D marks.