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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Machaon who wrote (7571)	5/9/1999 3:14:00 PM
From: James R. Barrett	Respond to of 17770

"Slob and Dog Face, your days are numbered!" Hmmmmmm, lets see, "Slob" is 57. 20 times 365 = 7,300 Yep, his days are numbered.

To: Machaon who wrote (7571)	5/9/1999 3:47:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

Great news though! The Serb forces in Kosovo have been beaten back and significantly destroyed by the bombing! >>>> EU's Bonino fears for fate of Albanians in Kosovo 10:29 a.m. May 09, 1999 Eastern By Anatoly Verbin SKOPJE, May 9 (Reuters) - Europe's top aid official said on Sunday she was hugely worried about nearly 700,000 ethnic Albanians believed to have been purged from their homes and trapped inside Kosovo. European Union humanitarian aid commissioner Emma Bonino described the displaced people as a ''human bomb'' which Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic could use at any time. ''Our major concern remains what is happening inside Kosovo where we have no information or presence,'' Bonino told reporters in the Macedonian capital Skopje after a trip through the region that also took her to Montenegro, Bosnia and Albania. While the state of the refugees in those four countries was fragile, it was under control for now, she said -- but this could change fast because of the numbers still in Kosovo. ''In Kosovo we estimate that there are at least 690,000 displaced which means that the human bomb is fully loaded and can be used at any moment,'' she said. More than 600,000 ethnic Albanians have spilled over Kosovo's borders since the crisis in the southern Serbian province began in March, most of them staying with families or in refugee camps in the Balkan region. Bonino said that the fact virtually no refugees had crossed into Macedonia in the last four days could mean Milosevic was considering whether to let them go en masse to destabilise neighbouring countries. ''It could also be that Milosevic is in a wait-and-see situation and it is quite clear that we are at a turning moment, after the G8 activity,'' she said in a reference to a search for a political solution which intensified when seven leading Western countries and Russia met last week. ''One possible interpretation is that they (the Kosovans) are plugged from inside.'' So far, she said, despite what she described as some glitches, the neighbouring countries with the help of the outside world had coped well with the exodus of Kosovo Albanians. ''If the strategy of Milosevic was to destabilise the region, I would say that for the moment this strategy has failed,'' she said. ''I think that the international community must praise the people and the governments of Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania and Macedonia.'' Macedonian Prime Minister Ljupce Georgievski had promised her that the overcrowded refugee camps would be expanded and a new one would be built to accommodate 20,000 more people. The Skopje government, which says it cannot sustain 240,000 Kosovo Albanians politically or economically, has been strongly criticised for its treatment of the refugees and for sending them to third countries against their will in some cases. Bonino said some critics of the Macedonian government were ''ungenerous.'' Family members of leading Kosovo Albanian intellectual Fehmi Agani said was killed after being taken off a train turned back at the border when Macedonian authorities closed it on Wednesday. The government later said the border was open, but ''controlled.'' Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.

To: Machaon who wrote (7571)	5/9/1999 4:00:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 17770

Nato has also come under attack from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, who said the air campaign had failed because those killed and injured could be classified as human-rights victims. She said civilian deaths and injuries were not acceptable. news.bbc.co.uk

To: Machaon who wrote (7571)	5/9/1999 4:09:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 17770

Newspapers spoke of "monumental incompetence", "the stupidest operation imaginable" and "absurd, bungling and irresponsible" measures to make Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic yield. news.bbc.co.uk

To: Machaon who wrote (7571)	5/11/1999 6:05:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 17770

UNHCR Warns Of Financial Crisis In Kosovo Effort 11:50 a.m. May 11, 1999 Eastern By Elaine Monaghan Skopje, Macedonia (Reuters) - The United Nations refugee agency said Tuesday it was running out of cash to deal with the Kosovo crisis and warned that tensions were rising in badly overcrowded camps in Macedonia. Sadako Ogata, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the cash shortage could seriously set back efforts to help the estimated 750,000 people from Kosovo who have fled to nearby countries such as Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro. She appealed to European governments to shoulder more of the burden. ''The response by many donors...has been good, but we do need more. We are providing only the most basic needs of the refugees and there is so far no end to the conflict in sight,'' Ogata said in a statement. ''I appeal in particular to countries in Europe and the European Commission...It is essential that they bear a larger part of the burden,'' the statement said. The Geneva-based agency UNHCR has appealed for a total of $143 million to cover its costs in the Kosovo emergency from January until the end of June this year, but officials said they had received only about $71 million, and all of it had already been spent or committed. A UNHCR official in Macedonia said the agency had met local security forces to discuss rising tensions after two protests broke out at a camp in Macedonia Monday. ''UNHCR is...looking at the introduction of some international liaison people who basically have police experience in refugee camps worldwide,'' Ron Redmond told reporters in Skopje. ''Yesterday gave this an added sense of urgency.'' This could lead to international police from the United Nations or Nordic countries including Finland being stationed at each camp. The UNHCR is under heavy pressure to transport more refugees out of Macedonia, which says it faces economic or political calamity if 239,000 already there are not airlifted out faster. A program to transport them to neighboring Albania, which already has 423,000 refugees, began Monday but only about 150 people took up the offer of refuge there -- partly because that country has no evacuation program to countries further afield. UNHCR workers had been going from tent to tent in Macedonian camps looking for people willing to go to Albania but most refugees had refused to be uprooted a second time. More than 10,000 people are lined up to travel to 20 countries from Macedonia over the next week, Redmond said. But another influx of people from the shattered Serbian province like one last week, when 20,000 arrived in two days, could swamp already overstretched camps in Macedonia, he added. In Albania, the UNHCR and the Albanian government planned to launch an information campaign aimed at persuading refugees to leave Kukes, 11 miles from the border, for camps deeper inside Albania. Both the UNHCR and NATO have expressed concern that the Kukes camps are within shelling range of the border and could become a target for Serb artillery. Many refugees say they prefer to stay in Kukes, 70 miles north of the Albanian capital Tirana, because they are waiting for relatives to come through or because they hope to return home soon. Meanwhile, the first groups of Kosovo refugees arrived in Australia and Ireland Tuesday. Those sent to Australia were received warmly in the country's southern island state of Tasmania, where dozens of people lined the road from Hobart's main airport to wave and cheer as 193 arrived after a short flight from Sydney. Bashkim Zeqiri, an 18-year-old student from Pristina described Tasmania as ''a paradise'' compared with the Macedonian camps. ''You have a border with water, we have a border with enemies,'' he told reporters. Some 138 Kosovo refugees landed at rainswept Farranfore Airport in south west Ireland before heading in coaches to self-catering accommodation in private hostels, former convents and mobile homes in former barracks. Australia has offered temporary safe haven to 4,000 Kosovo refugees. Ireland is to take 1,000. About 18,000 have so far been taken in by EU states, including 10,000 by Germany. France has accepted only a few thousand and Britain a few hundred. Turkey, not an EU member, has already taken in about 15,000. Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.