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To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (20593)	10/4/1998 4:10:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116790

Bobby, Macedonia's troubles date back to the Alexander The Great time..:) Alexander fouded his empire from there....After his death his generals divided it.. Macedonia was traded from Romans to Bulgarian to Byzantine Empire... Turks had pocesion for centuries (1380"s to 1912...The balkan war raged for many years 1890"s-1912 and Turks were defeated... Macedonia was/is divided between among Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria..

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (20593)	10/4/1998 4:29:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116790

Yugoslavia Says Will Defy NATO Attacks 03:20 p.m Oct 04, 1998 Eastern By Donald Forbes BELGRADE (Reuters) - Yugoslavia vowed Sunday to defend itself against NATO air attacks after a strong warning from Russia that Western military intervention in the Kosovo conflict would cause a crisis in East-West relations. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic called a session of his Supreme Defense Council after emergency talks with Russian government envoys including Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev. A communique issued to state media said Yugoslavia wanted a peaceful settlement in its Kosovo province, where the ethnic Albanian majority is seeking independence, but added: ''If we are attacked, we shall defend the country by all available means. This is the unanimous stand by the (council) members.'' The announcement on state television was preceded by film of the army and air force in action and patriotic music. The United States warned Milosevic Friday that he risked NATO air attacks within two weeks unless he halted fighting, opened negotiations with Kosovo Albanian leaders and allowed international aid workers safe access to thousands of refugees, Despite the government's bellicose rhetoric, it appeared to be complying with most of the world's demands including the withdrawal of some military forces from Kosovo where they have been fighting separatist guerrillas for seven months. U.S. mediator Christopher Hill was expected in Belgrade Monday in a fresh effort to persuade both sides to open negotiation on autonomy for Kosovo. Yugoslavia's armed forces are materially and morally run down by years of deliberate neglect by Milosevic who has relied on his heavily-armed police for the security of his former communist regime. Equipped mainly with obsolete equipment, military sources said neither the army nor the air force could offer a serious technological challenge to the might of NATO's forces. The defense council includes the presidents of Serbia and Montenegro and Serbia as well as the federal defense and foreign ministers and the Yugoslav Army Chief of Staff, General Momcilo Perisic. Tanjug news agency said Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic, a strong political foe of Milosevic, attended the council session. His republican government issued a separate statement opposing air strikes and calling on Milosevic and the Kosovo Albanians to negotiate a settlement. But it said it would not attend a joint session of both houses of the Yugoslav federal parliament Monday to discuss the crisis. Tanjug said after Milosevic met the Russian mission that both sides agreed the U.S. and its NATO allies needed to take account of the measures Yugoslavia had already taken to wind down the Kosovo conflict. The agency said they stressed that ''foreign military intervention would represent an act of aggression against Yugoslavia with immeasurable and lasting consequences on international relations.'' Ivanov's mission to Belgrade followed a Moscow government statement that Russia would see NATO attacks as a ''flagrant breach'' of the United Nations charter unless they were approved by the Security Council. Russia and China dispute Western claims that resolutions that the Security Council has already passed authorize the use of force by NATO without the need for a further vote. Moscow has intervened before to help Yugoslavia escape threats of punitive action by the West, most recently last June when President Boris Yeltsin wrung promises from Milosevic to end the Kosovo conflict. Since then, Serbian security forces have waged an offensive across western Kosovo, ostensibly against guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which razed scores of Albanian villages and driven 300,000 people from their homes. Pressure among Western governments to restore the NATO threats has grown hugely over the last week after allegations that Serbs troops and police massacred several dozen villagers. Russia, which has Orthodox Church ties with Serbs, is often described as a traditional ally of Belgrade but also has strong geo-political motives for opposing Western intervention in the southeast Balkans. Western diplomats and journalists in Kosovo said the Serbs already appeared to be complying with most U.N. demands after the government said last Monday that the conflict was over and that its forces were returning to barracks. Serbian sources said around 200 tanks and other military and police vehicles left Kosovo Sunday and reports of fighting over the last few days have been confined to the Kosovo border with Albania. Western reporters said they saw only 40 departing vehicles including armored vehicles and artillery pieces but not tanks. The Belgrade newspaper Dnevni Telegraf said the Serbian government was ready to offer unspecified concessions over Kosovo to head off NATO attacks. The paper, which said it was quoting sources close to the government, added: ''The government's full activity is now centered solely on finding the one move that would prevent NATO intervention. The West already knows that we have done everything that is asked for but, despite this, threats of bombing are not abating. On the contrary, they are stronger and stronger.'' The government last week renewed its offer of talks which ethnic Albanian leaders have boycotted while their population has been under Serbian attack. Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (20593)	10/4/1998 4:38:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116790

Brazilians Vote In Latin America's Biggest Election 01:43 p.m Oct 04, 1998 Eastern By John Miller SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazilians voted Sunday in an election widely expected to hand President Fernando Henrique Cardoso an unprecedented second term to tackle the nation's worst economic crisis in almost two decades. More than 106 million Brazilians were due to vote for a president, federal and state lawmakers and state governors in Latin America's largest ever election. Voting was scheduled to end at 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT), with exit polls due out immediately after. Recent economic uncertainty set off by a wave of capital flight has only boosted Cardoso's popularity among Brazilians, who hope he can prevent a crippling devaluation and steer the nation through a financial storm that has leveled economies in Asia and Russia. They see the 67-year-old social democrat as a tried-and-tested ''miracle worker,'' having slain hyperinflation and introduced a stable currency, the real. ''He's really built something for the middle-class for the first time,'' said doorman Jose Clem, 54. ''With the real, we can predict how far our salaries will go. We can buy a good future for our children and grandchildren.'' One poll released Sunday gave Cardoso up to 50 percent of the vote compared to 24 percent for his main challenger, left-wing Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 53. The survey put Cardoso 14 points ahead of all his rivals combined. He only needs one vote more than all his challengers together to avoid a run-off vote on Oct. 25. While much of the nation remains poor, four years of stable growth under Cardoso has turned an estimated 30 million impoverished Brazilians into consumers. For the first time in their lives, they have been able to buy appliances like toasters, blenders and hair dryers. Cardoso was set to become Brazil's first re-elected president, having convinced Congress in 1997 to overturn a ban on executive office holders serving two consecutive terms. The president swept through Sao Paulo Sunday to cast his vote at a school in the city's residential Planalto Paulista neighborhood. A native of Sao Paulo, Cardoso flashed the victory sign at a cheering crowd after voting. ''It sends an important message that the president came all this way to vote with us in Sao Paulo,'' said a 47-year-old house wife. ''My vote is going for Cardoso.'' He was due to fly back to the capital of Brasilia later Sunday. In addition to the president, Brazilians will choose state and federal lawmakers and state governors. Governor races in the key states of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais were close and expected to be decided later in the month in a run-off vote. Most observers say the current make-up of Congress -- with an assortment of more than 20 political parties -- is unlikely to change significantly Sunday when all of the lower house seats and a third of the Senate are up for grabs. Brazil's looming economic crisis has stolen the headlines and drowned out election coverage over the past month. Since Russia's devaluation in mid-August, investors have yanked some $30 billion out of Brazil, throwing the nation into its most precarious economic situation since it defaulted on foreign debt in 1982. Economists say the ensuing confidence crisis in financial markets will only be put to rest when Brazil secures an emergency credit line from the International Monetary Fund and other world bodies. That will come, economists say, only after Brazil adopts austerity measures that will almost certainly hurl the economy into recession next year. Global leaders are paying close attention to Brazil, whose $800 billion economy accounts for 45 percent of Latin America's gross domestic product and is nearly twice the size of Russia's and Mexico's. If it collapses, it will likely take the rest of Latin America down with it, which could spark a marked slowdown in the U.S. economy. Lula, a former lathe worker who is running for president for the third time, has routinely criticized press coverage of the campaign, saying the media has tried to distance Cardoso from the country's current economic hardship. ''This year's elections are ending up being one of the most manipulated we've ever seen due to a lack of information,'' Lula said after voting in an industrial suburb of Sao Paulo. A fleet of helicopters, river barges, air force planes and horse drawn carriages were being deployed to distribute ballots over an area larger than the continental United States. For Brazil's 160 million people, voting is mandatory between the ages of 18 to 70. To simplify vote-counting, election officials say half the nation's 106 million voters will punch in their choice on computerized ballot boxes. All of the electronic votes should be counted within 24 hours, with the final tally from paper ballots due Friday, election officials said. Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited.

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (20593)	10/4/1998 8:36:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116790

Turkish military may well believe the only solution is to stage operations against the PKK inside Syrian territory, using air strikes or even ground troops, like they do on a regular basis in Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq. A decision to do that would shake the entire region, which is why the Turkish foreign ministry appears more cautious - but politicians from all parties have made it clear that Turkey's patience is wearing extremely thin. news.bbc.co.uk

To: Bobby Yellin who wrote (20593)	10/5/1998 9:48:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116790

Turkish leader backs force against Syria By Amberin Zaman in Hatay and Alan Philps in Jerusalem <Picture: External Links> <Picture: >>Weekly News Review [30 Sept '98] - Kurdish Satellite Television <Picture: >>PKK - The Centre for Kurdish Political Studies <Picture: >>Turkey's armed opposition - Amnesty International <Picture: >>Turkey Campaign - Amnesty International <Picture: >>Kurdish political links - Kurdish Worldwide Resources <Picture: >>Kurdish Information Network <Picture> <Picture><Picture> THE president of Turkey, Suleyman Demirel, yesterday backed his threat of force against Syria by warning "the entire world" of the consequences if Damascus did not end its support for rebels of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). <Picture> He said: "Syria's hostile attitude is neither commensurate with Islam, nor good neighbourliness. Turkey has suffered enough." Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, was expected in Ankara today with a message from President Assad of Syria, on the second leg of a mediation mission aimed at heading off a military confrontation. But Turkey declared that unless Syria was prepared to hand over the PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who lives in Damascus, and to shut down all PKK camps in its territory and the Bekaa Valley in the Lebanon, Mr Mubarak's efforts would fail. Ismail Cem, the Turkish foreign minister, again accused Damascus of blocking a diplomatic solution, and said Turkey would be justified in "any measures we choose to take". The latest round of sabre-rattling came amid continued reports of a military build-up along Turkey's 386-mile border with Syria. Nationalist fervour is especially high in Hatay, a predominantly-Arab province, which is separated from Syria by barbed wire fencing and millions of land-mines. The potential for war between the two countries lies in their failure to agree on the status of the Euphrates river. Syria has long complained that a Turkish scheme to build a string of dams across the Upper Euphrates as part of the £23 billion South-East Anatolia Project, is depriving it of water on which its agriculture so heavily depends. Damascus has been pressing Turkey to sign an agreement to share the water, but Ankara says that it releases more than enough water downstream and has nothing to discuss until Syria ends its support for the PKK. The threats of war on the border between Turkey and Syria bear out the predictions of strategists that the next conflict in the Middle East may be over water, not oil. With fast-growing populations to feed, Syria and other Middle Eastern states are looking anxiously at where they will find the water for agriculture and industry. A regional expert said "The Middle East has basically run out of water. Only in the Tigris and Euphrates is there some surplus, and Turkey controls this vital resource." Disputes over water have long divided Israel and its Arab neighbours.