Deutsche Welle
English Service News
June 25th, 2001, 16:00 UTC
The European Union has told Macedonia it must stop seeking a
military victory over ethnic Albanian rebels, resume negotiations
on political reforms and make rapid progress if it wanted further
EU aid. It was the strongest language used by the EU in three
months of intensive diplomatic efforts to avert civil war in
Macedonia and the first public warning that Macedonia's formal
links to the bloc, which were established in April, were in
jeopardy. The ministers have also appointed Francois Leotard, a
former French defence minister, as the EU's resident envoy to
Macedonia. Meanwhile ethnic Albanian rebels remained holed up in a
strategic Macedonian village despite a ceasefire and evacuation
deal brokered by Western envoys after a three-day army onslaught.
Albania's Socialist Prime Minister Ilir Meta has claimed victory in
his country's general election and international observers said the
vote had been generally fair despite some shortcomings. The
opposition Democrats alleged widespread irregularities. First
official results from Albania's first general election since it
descended into anarchy in 1997 were expected later, but Meta said
his information showed the Socialists would remain in office with a
substantial majority. The prime minister said his priority for the
next four years would be speeding up reform and tackling corruption
in the Balkan nation of 3.5 million people.
Lawyers for Slobodan Milosevic have lodged an appeal with
Yugoslavia's Constitutional Court against a decree that paves the
way for the former president's transfer to the U.N. war crimes
tribunal. The lawyers argue that the decree violates the
constitution, which forbids the extradition of Yugoslav citizens.
But reformers say handing a suspect over to the court in The Hague
does not amount to an extradition as the tribunal is a United
Nations institution, not a foreign state. Reformist ministers
pushed through the decree on Saturday to show Yugoslavia was
cooperating with the tribunal before an international donors'
conference at which it hopes to raise a desperately needed 1.3
billion dollars.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has begun an official one day
visit to Slovenia, to join celebrations to mark ten years of
Slovenian independence. During his stay he expected to hold talks
at government level on Slovinia's ambitions to join both the
European Union and the werstern defence alliance NATO. In 1991
Slovenia and Croatia declared independence from Yugoslavia,
plunging the federation into a violent breakup.
Declaring AIDS had wiped out a decade of progress in some areas,
Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called on the world to speak
frankly about the disease and its victims facing a death sentence.
He told the opening of the U.N. General Assembly's first special
session on AIDS that AIDS could not be dealt with by making moral
judgments or refusing to face unpleasant facts,- and still less by
stigmatizing those who are infected and making out that it was all
their fault. The meeting, attended by presidents, prime ministers,
and health ministers, runs for three days. Annan, in his remarks,
warned nations that all AIDS victims, regardless of their
background, should be addressed or the world could not come to
grips with the galloping epidemic. The epidemic has struck some 36
million people, 25 million of them in Africa.
Russia has hailed the death of Chechen warlord Arbi Barayev, after
its troops recovered the body of the notorious field commander who
has been blamed for the 1998 beheading of four Westerners. Russian
television said troops had decended on a village outside Grozny to
encircle Barayev and his followers. It said many of them, including
the warlord, were killed in six days of battles which ended on
Sunday.
Thousands of Peruvians are struggling to patch their homes and
lives back together after an earthquake that killed dozens and
ruined villages from Peru's high Andes to the Pacific coast.
Saturday's 7.9-magnitude quake flattened villages and killed 70
people, injuring some 1,200 more and leaving over 20,000 homeless.
Civil defense officials said the next challenge would be reaching
isolated hamlets, some accessible only by helicopter, to help
injured and start rebuilding.
Typhoon Chebi has killed 73 people in China's southeastern province
of Fujian after wreaking havoc in Taiwan. It killed nine people in
Taiwan before churning the 100 miles across the Taiwan Strait to
bludgeon Fujian at the weekend. An official with the Fujian Flood
and Drought Relief Command said the typhoon hit the coast on
Saturday night and stayed over land for only 10 hours before
heading back out to sea and weakening. Its remnants are bringing
heavy rain to South Korea.
Villagers have begun returning to their homes around the
Philippines' Mayon volcano, defying warnings from scientists that
it might erupt again after a series of powerful weekend explosions.
More than 25,000 people have fled their homes since Mayon began
erupting at the weekend but, with the volcano calmer today Monday,
hundreds hiked back to their villages, complaining of overcrowding
and lack of facilities in evacuation centres. Mayon, one of the
Philippines' 22 active volcanoes, has a history of 45 violent
eruptions since its first recorded eruption in 1616.
Serbian News Network - SNN
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http://www.antic.org/
