============================================================
===== AIM NEWS for Saturday, September 30, 2000 =====
============================================================

=================================
"FBS" ACCUSED OF ELECTORAL FRAUD
=================================

BELGRADE, September 30, 2000 (B92)

The Serbian Democratic Party today accused the Federal Bureau of
Statistics (FBS) of participating in the falsification of the
presidential election results by reducing the number of voters who
took part. At a press conference, Serbian Democratic Party Deputy
President Zoran Sami said that the number of voters declared by the
Federal Bureau of Statistics was 58,653 less than the publicly
declared number. Sami also said that in addition to the Federal
Electoral Commission and the Federal Bureau of Statistics, the local
electoral committees from Prokuple and Vranje also played a large
role in the falsification of the results citing the case of the Gora
municipality in Kosovo as an example, where all 8,023 citizens are
registered as having voted for Milosevic even though not a single
polling station in the area was open.


=============================
MILOSEVIC: WARS ARE BEHIND US
=============================

BELGRADE, September 30, 2000 (B92)

Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic accused today in a
speech given to the new generation of Yugoslavian Army officers in
Belgrade's Military Academy "enemies within the country of being
prepared to invite foreign armies into Yugoslavia", at the same time
vowing that wars were a thing of the past in the region. Around 3,000
family members of the newly appointed officers attended this
ceremony.


==============================================
SERBIAN RENEWAL MOVEMENT JOINS STREET PROTESTS
==============================================

BELGRADE, September 30, 2000 (B92)

Presidency of the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) congratulated
today Vojislav Kostunica, the candidate of the Democratic Opposition
of Serbia, on his victory in the first round of the presidential
election. Renewal Movement leadership called on Slobodan Milosevic to
step down from power in a peaceful manner. The presidency of the
Serbian Renewal Movement also appealed to their party members and
supporters to join the peaceful defence of the electoral will of the
people.


=====================
SESELJ ABOUT SRS GOAL
=====================

BELGRADE, September 30, 2000 (I-NET)

Vojislav Seselj, president of Serbian Radical Party (SRS) stated
that SRS would not overthrow Serbian Government because it is
participating in it. "Our goal is not to overthrow Government, to
schedule republic elections and to be "erase by DOS' flow", stated
Seselj and added that in SRS interest is let some time pass, people
to "sober" and see real results of new DOS' administration.


========================
DR SIMIC WRONGLY ACCUSED
========================

BELGRADE, September 30, 2000(I-NET)

"Politka" daily writes that Albanians accused Director of
Ambulance in Orahovac, dr Vekoslav Simic, for war crimes, although
many of them later confessed that they do not know him nor that they
saw him on a place where three Albanians were kidnapped.


=======================================
MORE BODIES FOUND IN SUNKEN GREEK FERRY
=======================================

PAROS, Greece, September 30, 2000 (the Associated Press)

Divers at the scene of Greece's worst maritime disaster in 35
years have found two more bodies inside the sunken ferry Express
Samina, taking the death toll to 76. The bodies were found on
Saturday inside the 103.5 meter (345 foot) ferry which sank in rough
seas 3 km (2 miles) off the coast on September 26 after crashing into
rocks marked with a light beacon. Ten people are still officially
listed as missing, the Merchant Marine ministry said.

But continued confusion over the number of passengers originally
on the ferry has brought strong criticism against the government and
ship's operator, Minoan Flying Dolphins. The conservative Opposition
Leader Costas Caramanlis asked the government on Saturday: "Doesn't
anyone have the decency to resign?"


====================================
"THE BATTLE FOR JERUSALEM HAS BEGUN"
====================================

JERUSALEM, Israel, September 30, 2000(CBS) A gun battle erupted
Saturday between masked Palestinians and Israeli troops, as thousands
of rock-throwing rioters clashed with soldiers across the West Bank,
Gaza Strip and Jerusalem in what Palestinian leaders said was a
religious war over a bitterly contested Jerusalem shrine. Palestinian
officials said about 280 demonstrators were injured, including one
who was comatose with a bullet wound in the head.

"The battle for Jerusalem has begun," said Bassem Naim, an
activist of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement in the
West Bank town of Nablus. The worst violence erupted south of Nablus,
when thousands of angry Palestinians marched toward an Israeli army
checkpoint. Thick smoke from burning tires rose into the air and
rocks littered the street. At first Israeli troops fired
rubber-coated steel pellets to keep back the crowd.


==================================================
MANDELA CALLS FOR BURUNDI REBELS TO STOP SLAUGHTER
==================================================

UNITED NATIONS, September 30, 2000 (Reuters)

Former South African President Nelson Mandela called on Hutu
rebels in Burundi on Friday to stop slaughtering innocent civilians
or suffer accusations they were trying to duplicate the 1994 genocide
in neighboring Rwanda. Mandela, who is trying to implement a peace
plan for the war-ravaged country, also said he was moving his
negotiating team from Arusha, Tanzania, to the Burundi capital of
Bujumbura and asked for massive foreign aid to turn the central
African country into a "showcase" of stability once peace returned.
Two main rebel Hutu groups have defied an initial ceasefire and peace
agreement signed on Oct. 28 by 19 political parties 10 from the
Tutsi group, seven Hutu groups, the government and the army. U.S.
President Bill Clinton and African leaders attended the signing
ceremony.

"There cannot be any justification for continued violent attacks
when a political agreement had been reached and the way had been
opened for them to bring their concerns to the negotiating table,"
Mandela told the U.N. Security Council at a public mee


=====================================
LOCATION OF 17 HOSTAGES STILL UNKNOWN
=====================================

JOLO, Philippines, September 30, 2000 (the Associated Press)

The Philippines military said Friday it was unsure of the exact
location of 17 hostages held by Abu Sayyaf rebels in the country's
south, and conceded that the group holding American Jeffrey Schilling
may have escaped to another island. The military began an assault to
free the hostages-an American, three Malaysians and 13 Filipinos-two
weeks ago. Since then, at least 111 Abu Sayyaf rebels are believed to
have been killed in 36 clashes in which four government soldiers have
died, the military says. More than 80,000 villagers have fled their
homes to escape the fighting.


======================================
N. KOREAN OFFICIAL TO VISIT WASHINGTON
======================================

WASHINGTON DC, US, September 30, 2000 (Deutsche Welle)

The deputy to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il will visit
Washington early next month and will be the highest-ranking North
Korean government official ever to visit the US capital. The State
Department said on Friday that Jo Myong-rok, the first Vice-Chairman
of the National Defense Commission, would come to the United States
as Kim's special envoy and would meet President Bill Clinton. Kim
Jong-il is chairman of the National Defense Commission, which is
considered the highest post in the state.


=========================================
ATTACKS MARK RETURN OF SPAIN TERROR GROUP
=========================================

MADRID, Spain, September 30, 2000 (Reuters)

The Marxist group GRAPO has claimed responsibility for a second
bomb attack in two days. A 1.5 kg bomb exploded outside the Madrid
office of the ruling Popular Party on Saturday, but caused no
injuries and only minor damage. An official said GRAPO, the First of
October Anti-Fascist Resistance Group, claimed responsibility for the
attack an hour later in a phone call in which a woman said: "We have
just set off a bomb... Long lives the armed struggle." The attack
comes a day after three armed members of GRAPO entered an office of
Spanish newspaper El Mundo in Barcelona and set off a bomb which
slightly injured two Spanish police oGRAPO was active mainly in the
late 1970s following the 36-year dictatorship of General Francisco
Franco, when it was blamed for dozens of killings in a campaign to
create a Marxist state. Many of its leading members were subsequently
jailed and the group had been largely dormant in recent years,
appearing with an occasional small bomb attack or attempted robbery.
GRAPO burst back on to the scene in May with the heist of an armoured
van in which two security guards were killed and was also blamed for
three bomb attacks on employment offices on Wednesday. No one was
injured in those bombings, which followed similar attacks on
temporary employment agencies elsewhere in Spain earlier this year.


========
THE NEWS
========

The News edited by Jasmina Vermezovic

AIM, Belgrade, September 30, 2000 18:30


===================================================================
For more information visit our Academic Information Network site at
http://www.aim.ac.yu/
Please send us Your comments to news@... or comment@...
Please send us information You consider valuable to feed@...
To unsubscribe, e-mail us at unsubscr@...