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===== AIM NEWS for Sunday, October 29, 2000 =====
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==========================================
REFERENDUMS BOTH IN SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO
==========================================

BELGRADE, October 29, 2000 (Blic)

"Democratic Opposition of Serbia will form an expert team for
forming a platform about functioning of the mutual country of Serbia
and Montenegro. DOS leaders will decide which suggestions are
acceptable for DOS. After that, DOS and Montenegrin Government's
expert teams will form a mutual expert team and start negotiations
concerning social system of the mutual country," Branko Pavlovic,
vice-president of the SDU said for "Blic" daily.

According to Pavlovic, the mutual team of experts will work
until Serb elections, scheduled for 23rd December. After that,
parliaments and governments of the two republics will take part in
that work.

When negotiations reach "certain level", referendums will be
organized both in Serbia and Montenegro at the same time. Citizens of
both republics will show if they want to live in one country.


====================================
GOVERNMENT WOULD BE FORMED BY FRIDAY
====================================

LESKOVAC, October 29, 2000 (Blic)

Yesterday, Dragoljub Micunovic, one of DOS leaders said that the
new Assembly and Federal Government would be formed by the end of the
next week.

"Government can be chosen on Wednesday, but I think that it will
happen on Friday session, because consultations are not finished.

We will have Government and Assembly by the end of the week,"
Micunovic said.


==============================
SERBS BOYCOTT KOSOVO ELECTIONS
==============================

KOSOVO, October 28, 2000 (FreeSerbia)

Kosovo Serb community leaders called the local elections
organised by UNMIK today a grave mistake which was bound to divide
even more deeply the two ethnic communities in the southern Serbian
province. They called for organising a separate voting process for
the Serb community with the support of the newly-elected Yugoslav
authorities.

OSCE expressed its regret over the fact that the majority of
Kosovo Serbs intended to boycott the local elections in Kosovo, while
Jiri Dienstbier, Special UN Rapporteur for Human Rights in the former
Yugoslavia, described the Kosovo local elections as problematic since
they would only "seal" the exodus of the Kosovo Serbs from the
province.


====================================================
TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT CRITICISES KOSOVO ELECTIONS
====================================================

BELGRADE, October 29, 2000 (I-Net)

The transitional Serbian Government condemned the local
elections in Kosovo. In the statement it is said that the elections
were of one nationality and that "the UN Security Council 1244
Resolution was violated". "Conditions for expressing freely political
opinion in Kosovo were not established, because the right to move
freely does not exist", it is said in the statement of the Serbian
Government.


=============================================
KOUCHNER: ELECTIONS CARRIED OUT WITH DIGNITY
=============================================

KOSOVO, October 29, 2000 (Freeb92)

Head of the UN Mission in Kosovo Bernard Kouchner said that
yesterday's elections had been carried out with dignity and without
any violence or provocation, emphasising that the only deficiency was
the fact that Serbs had not participated in the voting. Kouchner said
that the Serb's decision to boycott was neither his nor the mission's
error, but the consequence of pressure exerted by Milosevic's regime,
adding that the people had voted, "not just Albanians, but also
Romanies, Turks, Goranci and Askalies". Kouchner also said that he
was convinced that Serbs would eventually be registered since
according to UN resolution 1244, they had the right to participate in
elections and choose their representatives in democratic bodies in
Kosovo. The head of the UN Mission estimated that between 70 and 80%
of the population had participated in the elections.


==================================
KOSOVO ELECTIONS LARGELY PEACEFUL
==================================

PRISTINA, October 29, 2000 (Agence France Presse)

Kosovo's municipal election day, hailed by UN chief Bernard
Kouchner as the most peaceful since the end of the province's war,
was nevertheless marked by some violence and attempts at ballot
tampering, officials told AFP Sunday.

In one incident in the village of Magura, near Pristina, members
of the Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC) used the cover of a power cut to
enter a polling station in a bid to steal ballot boxes, said one
official, who asked not to be named. The KPC is a uniformed civil
defense militia set up to replace the disbanded Kosovo Liberation
Army (KLA).Although officially apolitical, many of its members are
known to be close to the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) of Hashim
Thaci, the former political leader of the guerrilla force.

In Obilic, three miles (five kilometers) northwest of the
capital, UN police arrested a Kosovo Albanian man at 1:50 PM (1150
GMT) for attempting to interfere with the ballot, officials said.

In Srbica, a former stronghold of the PDK in their Drenica
valley heartland, police intervened after party members attempted to
"influence" other voters on their way to the polls.

At 1:30 PM in the divided northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica
police prevented local people from attempting to hide ballot papers.

In the village of Selograzde, near the southwestern town of
Prizren, a UN police officer on duty near a polling station was
attacked and had his gun stolen when he went to the aid of a local
member of the Kosovo Police Service. The gun was later recovered and
three Kosovo Albanians arrested.In the southwestern town of Kamenice
another Kosovo Albanian was arrested after shots were fired near a
polling station, officials said.

Kosovo's Serb minority, who boycotted the poll, were also the
victims of two attacks.Two men, one of them reportedly speaking
Albanian, attacked and stabbed an elderly Serb woman, seriously
injuring her, at 4:45 PM in a robbery in the village of Bresje near
the ethnically mixed town of Kosovo Polje.

And in Vitina, southwest Kosovo, at 4:20 PM a grenade was thrown
at the home of a Kosovo Serb couple. They were uninjured in the
attack, which follows a pattern of anti-Serb violence that has
continued across Kosovo since June last year.


==============================
MODERATES CLAIM KOSOVO VICTORY
==============================

PRISTINA, October 29, 2000 (BBC)

Counting is under way in Kosovo's local council elections which
have been described by the United Nations as the most successful and
democratic of recent polls in the Balkans.

It is the first time Kosovo Albanians have voted in 10 years, in
a poll many regard as the first step towards their goal of
independence.

The moderate nationalist Kosovo Democratic League (LDK) led by
Ibrahim Rugova has already claimed victory. The party says it won
clear majorities in 17 out of the 18 Kosovo municipalities in which
70% of the votes have been tallied. However, the first official
results are not expected until Monday while the final list of winners
of the 920 seats on 30 municipal councils will not be ready until at
least a week later, election officials said.

The minority Serb population launched a boycott of the election
but the turnout was high. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians
flocked to polling stations for Saturday's election. Turnout was so
high that some polling stations were forced to stay open after the
official closing time of 1900 local time (1700 GMT), with long queues
of people waiting to vote.


============================================
RUGOVA AND TAQI ABOUT KOSOVO AFTER ELECTIONS
============================================

PRISTINA, October 28, 2000 (FreeSerbia)

Despite an extremely slow voting process, Albanian voters seem
to be rather patient nonetheless. Hashim Taqi, one of the Kosovo
Albanian leaders, expressed his hope that the people's determination
in building local and central institutions would convince the
international community that Kosovo should be granted independence.

Ibrahim Rugova, his political rival, said that these local
elections were an important step towards freedom and democracy in
Kosovo.

International observers expect that Rugova's Kosovo Democratic
Alliance will be the most successful political bloc in the elections.
Public opinion polls suggest that the Kosovo Democratic Alliance is
in the lead, while Taqi's Kosovo Democratic Party could expect to win
between 25 and 30 per cent of the vote. UNMIK and KFOR are concerned
that Taqi's supporters, currently members of transitional local
governments in the majority of the Kosovo's municipalities, may
refuse step down and hand over power to the Kosovo Democratic
Alliance in a peaceful manner, BBC reports.


=========================================
PAVKOVIC ABOUT CRIMES COMMITTED IN KOSOVO
=========================================

BELGRADE, October 28, 2000 (FreeSerbia)

Asked by Belgrade daily Danas journalist what he actually knew
about the Hague Tribunal indictments against Slobodan Milosevic and
Dragoljub Ojdanic, including physical abuse and harassment by the
Yugoslav Army in the area under his jurisdiction, Yugoslav Army Chief
of Staff lieutenant general Nebojsa Pavkovic said: "I know that they
have been indicted. I would not agree with any of this. I know for
sure that there were no such things, the police and the army did not
behave in such a manner. Certainly, such allegations should be proved
first."

The accused are charged with forced deportation of about 740,000
Kosovo Albanians, abuse and killings of civilians, amongst other
things, in the village of Prilepnica, in Kosovska Mitrovica,
Orahovac, Pec, Pristina, Lipljan and Prizren, an area under military
jurisdiction of general Pavkovic at the time.


===================================================
SRM WILL NOT PARTICIPATE IN TRANSITIONAL GOVERNMENT
===================================================

BELGRADE, October 29, 2000 (Freeb92)

The Serbian Renewal Movement will not participate in the
transitional government unless Serbian Secret Police head Rade
Markovic, Serbian public prosecutor Dragisa Krsmanovic and president
of the Supreme Court Balsa Govedarica are removed from office by
Tuesday, Serbian Renewal Movement senior official and transitional
government Deputy Prime Minister Spasoje Krunic told B92 today.

DOS leader Nebojsa Covic said that DOS would not give up their
demands for the dismissal of Markovic, Govedarica and Krsmanovic
emphasising that the deadline for their replacement would expire on
Tuesday.

Covic did not say what the reaction of DOS would be should their
demands fail to be met.


===========================
NORWEGIAN FUEL AID ARRIVES
===========================

BELGRADE, October 29, 2000 (Freeb92)

The first contingent of fuel aid donated by the Norwegian
Government arrived in Belgrade yesterday afternoon. The fuel aid,
valued at 2 million German marks, is for use in schools and
nurseries. Six of the eight tankers were immediately sent on the
central Serbian towns of Gornji Milanovac and Cacak. The remaining
aid for a further ten Serbian towns is excepted to arrive over the
course of next week.


=============================================
BREAK UP OF YUGOSLAV LEFT AND SPS INDEFINITE
=============================================

BELGRADE, October 29, 2000 (Freeb92)

The break up of the Yugoslav Left and the Serbian Socialist
Party coalition is likely to be indefinite, Yugoslav Left President
Ljubica Ristic said in an interview for today's edition of daily
Politika. Ristic said that the Socialists had begun the process of
moving towards the center and right, while the Yugoslav Left remained
faithful to their left-wing orientation resulting in the Yugoslav
Left's current satanisation in the press.


=====================================
SOCIALIST WOULD HAVE A NEW LEADERSHIP
=====================================

BELGRADE, October 29, 2000 (Blic)

Ivica Dacic, president of the City Board of the Socialist Party
of Serbia and co-Minister for Information in the transitional Serb
Government confirmed for "Blic" daily that the SPS would probably get
a new leadership on a party congress scheduled for 25th November.


==============================================
ESTABLISHMENT OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS WITH BIH
==============================================

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 28, 2000 (I-Net)

Bosnia and Hercegovina expects establishing of diplomatic
relations between Bosnia and Hercegovina and FR Yugoslavia. Bosnia
and Hercegovina diplomacy chief Janko Prlic stated. According to
Prlic's words the talks about this did not start yet, because
Yugoslavia did not form new Federal Government after Slobodan
Milosevic's fall.


===============================
BOSNIAN CROATS IN "REFERENDUM"
===============================

NOVI TRAVNIK, Bosnia and Herzegovina, October 29, 2000 (Agence France
Presse)

The majority of Bosnian Croat political parties called a
"referendum" Saturday on the rights of Croats in Bosnia, to be held
on the day of general elections set for November 11.In the so-called
"referendum" Croats will actually vote on a rights declaration issued
in the central Bosnian town of Novi Travnik by the main nationalist
Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and six other parties, in the
presence of Bosnian archbishop Vinko Puljic.Bosnian Croats
nationalist leader Ante Jelavic said that the response to the
referendum "will be plebicitary."

A "Croatian People's Convention" was also founded at the
Saturday meeting which, according to Jelavic who was elected its
president, should "act as the permanent and highest political
institution of Croatian people" in Bosnia, a decision he called a
"historical event".

The move followed protests by the HDZ against electoral changes
imposed by the international community, which would very likely
diminish the leading position of the HDZ in the forthcoming polls.

Under the new rules, Croat MPs in the upper house of the
Muslim-Croat Federation's parliament, previously elected mainly from
Croat-dominated areas, will now be elected from all the federation
cantons, whose assemblies elect the parliament MPs.Since all the
members of cantonal assemblies could now vote for the all ethnic
communities' representatives that would also allow the Muslim
majority in some cantons to have a decisive vote on Croat
representatives.


=========================================
THERE WAS NO PLAN FOR MASSACRE OF MOSLEMS
=========================================

HAGUE, Netherlands, October 29, 2000 (Beta)

General of the Serb Republic Army said on the Hague Tribunal
that there hadn't been a plan for the massacre of Moslems in
Srebrenica in 1995.

General Krstic was the chief of the staff and commander of Drina
Corps of the SRA. The indictment reads that 8.000 Moslem men and boys
were massacred in Drina Corps' zone of responsibility between 11th
and 17th July 1995.

Krstic emphasizes that he left Srebrenica on 12th July, because
he was appointed to lead an attack on Zepa.

He testifies that General Mladic took direct command over Drina
Corps' units on 10th July. General Kristic and General Milenko
Zivanovic became observers.

Krstic claims that General Ratko Mladic, his superior bears all
responsibility, and that he himself has nothing to do with the crime.


========================
TRIBUTE TO KURSK VICTIMS
========================

MOSCOW, Russia, October 29, 2000 (BBC)

The Russian Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev has been paying
tribute to the sailors who died when the nuclear submarine Kursk sank
with the loss of all 118 crew. His comments came as more bodies were
recovered from the wreck which is lying 108 metres (335ft) down in
the Barents Sea.

Speaking at a memorial service at the northern port of
Severomorsk he pledged to find the cause of the explosions which sank
the vessel in August. "The sailors who served on the missile carrier
Kursk voluntarily tied their lives to the sea," he said in the
service broadcast on Russian TV.

During the ceremony Russian Vice-President Ilya Klebanov also
promised the relatives that they would try to recover the remaining
bodies and to raise the Kursk. Divers are reported to have worked
throughout Saturday night in compartments eight and nine in an effort
to find more of the victims.

It was from the ninth compartment that four bodies were
recovered earlier in the week.


============================
BARAK 'CLOSER' TO LIKUD DEAL
============================

JERUSALEM, October 29, 2000 (Reuters)

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said on Sunday he and hawkish
opposition leader Ariel Sharon were closer than ever to forging a
national emergency government to grapple with raging
Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Barak spoke to Israel's Army Radio as a Palestinian died of
gunshot wounds suffered in a "day of rage" in the West Bank and Gaza
on Friday, bringing the death toll in more than a month of violence
to at least 140 people, all but eight of them Arabs. "We are first of
all truly closer than in the past," Barak told the radio. "We are
closer than a week ago first of all because of the emergency
situation that goes on. "But I don't know exactly what day it will be
established," Barak said, speaking a day before Israel's parliament
returns from a three-month recess with the threat of a no- confidence
vote hanging over his head.

A Likud source said there were still "substantial difficulties"
to sealing a coalition deal. Barak vowed his left-centre Labour Party
would not abandon its bid for peace with Palestinians even in a
partnership with Sharon's Likud, a right-wing party opposed to the
prime minister's readiness to swap occupied land for peace. Barak
ruled out giving Sharon a veto over peace issues, insisting: "There
is no veto over the prime minister."

Sharon, who opposes uprooting West Bank Jewish settlements, has
said that should Barak fail to accept his terms the country will have
to face early elections, perhaps by early 2001.


==========================
TANZANIA GOES TO THE POLLS
==========================

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, October 29, 2000 (BBC)

Around 10 million Tanzanians are voting on Sunday in only the
second multi-party elections since Tanzania gained independence in
1961.

At state are the control of the presidency, parliament and local
government.

Incumbent President, Benjamin Mkapa - whose party has dominated
Tanzanian politics since independence - is widely expected to win a
second term in office. He has been praised by international financial
institutions for his economic reforms, which have raised the
country's annual growth rate and cut inflation.

Mr Mkapa has also won praise for his apparent determination to
haul his country - the largest in east Africa - out of the depths of
extreme poverty.

But the vast majority of the Tanzanians registered to vote have
not yet felt the benefits of the economic reforms.


==============================
BATTLES BROKE OUT IN SRI LANKA
==============================

COLOMBO,Sri Lanka, October 29, 2000 (Deutsche Welle)

Fierce battles broke out in Sri Lanka's northern Jaffna
peninsula on Sunday as government troops launched a fresh offensive
to recapture territory from Tamil Tiger rebels.There was no comment
from the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam or LTTE and details
of casualties were not immediately available.

The country's battlefields had been largely quiet in the last
two days during a 48-hour truce brokered by the United Nations
Children's Fund or UNICEF to allow children in the war zone to be
vaccinated against polio.

More than 61,000 people have been killed since the LTTE began
fighting for separate state for minority Tamil in the country's north
and east in 1983.


====================================
FUJIMORI DISMISSED THE HEADS OF ARMY
====================================

LIMA,Peru, October 29, 2000 (Deutsche Welle)

President Alberto Fujimori has dismissed the heads of Peru's
army, navy and airforce in a further twist to drama over ex-secret
service chief Vladimiro Montesinos who flew home mysteriously last
Monday. He is still in hiding but Peruvian media speculate that he is
being shielded by the military.

Fujimori has named his interior minister Walter Chacon as the
new chief-of-staff of Peru's armed forces. Opposition politician
Alejandro Toledo accused Chacon of also having had links with
Montesinos. The sacked spy chief fled to Panama in late September
after video footage became public showing him alleged bribing an
opposition deputy.


======================================================
HUNGARY TO SUE ROMANIAN COMPANY OVER CYANIDE POLLUTION
======================================================

BUDAPEST, Hungary, October 29, 2000 (Central Europe)

Hungary plans to sue the Romania-based gold mining company Aurul
for damages caused by a cyanide spill that devastated central
Europe's principal rivers earlier this year, an official said
Saturday."Hungary will launch the suit against the Aurul company for
damages soon," said Janos Goenczy, the government commissioner
responsible for clearing up the spill, quoted by the MTI news
agency."The legal procedure will most probably be initiated at a
Hungarian court," he told an environmental meeting in the eastern
Hungarian village of Tiszadob.

Hungary has claimed that the 100,000 tons of cyanide residue
spilled at the Baia Mare-based gold mining complex killed some 1,200
tons of fish in Hungary alone, as it traveled along the Somes, Tisza
and then the Danube rivers, affecting six countries.

Hungarian lawyers said at the meeting that outdated technology
at the Aurul mine were responsible for the spill, otherwise the
cyanide would not have reached the rivers.


=====================
US EASES CUBA EMBARGO
=====================

WASHINGTON, USA, October 29, 2000 BBC)

US President Bill Clinton has signed into law a bill allowing
sales of US food and medicine to Cuba.

The move is being seen as a symbolic first step towards a
lifting of US sanctions on the communist island which have been in
force for four decades.

Havana, however, says restrictions linked to the legislation
would actually tighten the embargo, and has vowed not to buy any
American goods on offer under the deal.

The measures affecting Cuba are part of a $78bn agriculture
funding bill passed earlier in October.

They are the result of growing pressure from the American
farming and business communities to be allowed access to markets
currently excluded by US embargoes.


==========================
TYPHOON BLEW TOWARDS CHINA
==========================

BEIJING, China, October 29, 2000 (Deutsche Welle)

Typhoon Xangsane blew towards China on Sunday after battering
the Philippines' main island Luzon, killing 13 people, plunging towns
and cities into darkness and forcing more than 40,000 to flee their
homes. At least another 25 people, mostly fishermen caught at sea by
the typhoon, were missing while 217 were injured, the civil defence
office said. Xangsane triggered floods which submerged homes and
damaged hundreds of houses in the capital Manila and nearby
provinces, it said.


===============================================
CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB KILLED 81ST VICTIM IN BRITAIN
===============================================

LONDON, UK, October 29, 2000 (Deutsche Welle)

The human version of "mad cow" disease - new variant
Creutzfeldt-Jakob - has killed its 81st victim in Britain - a
14-year-old girl whose tragic story was televised this week. Zoe
Jefferies died on Saturday in Wigan near London. Her mother said Zoe
had often eaten beef hamburgers as a young child.

British scientists on Saturday also revealed that a 74-year-old
man had died of variant CJD last year - forcing pathologists to
rethink their theory that young people were primarily at risk. A
government adviser said forecasts on the number of people infected
between 1980 and 1996 could rise from 6,000 to as high as 130,000.

Last Thursday an official report into "mad cow" disease or BSE
concluded that former conservative governments had misled the public
for years. The current Labour government plans to set up a
compensation scheme.


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

News edited by Milka Zrnic

AIM, Belgrade, October 29, 2000 16:00


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