HEADLINES

Belgrade                 1. NATO to Target Serb Nuclear Institute?

Belgrade                 2. Man's Best Friend Proves Its Worth as Dog of War

Belgrade                 3. Serb TV Knocked Off the Air; Many Civilian Casualties Reported

London                   4. Cracks in NATO's Alliance Widening

Washington            5. A California Congressman Speaks Out Against Clinton's War:

                                  Inching Toward Armaggedon

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1. NATO to Target Serb Nuclear Institute?

BELGRADE, Apr. 22 - We've just received a letter from Mr. P.R. Adzic, of the Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences, which suggests that this nuclear research facility near Belgrade may soon become a NATO target. And that the consequences of such a strike may spell doom for all Balkan, and many other European countries. Here Mr. Adzic's warning:

"I can confirm now we expect that NATO planes will bomb VINCA Institute. In the passed several days we received this warning, but today we got this information as serious threat from the highest authorities.

Our reactor is not working for more than 15 years, but the significant amount of 235-U enriched and unused fuel is still in its interior. Highly radioactive material for everyday activities is also located in several research laboratories.

I fear that a big disaster may occur. In the worst case, no Balkan and even European country would be safe. Not to mention ecological catastrophe. I still hope that this disaster could be avoided, unless we are already late. I would appreciate if you succeed in informing as many people as possible on the eventual tragedy. God bless you."

P.R. Adzic, Vinca Institute of Nuclear Sciences, Laboratory of Physics

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TiM Ed.: Mr. Adzic's letter brings up an interesting, perhaps unintended, point. He says that "the highest (Yugoslav) authorities" today confirmed this threat. Which means that either NATO is telegraphing its list of targets to Belgrade in advance of the strikes (frankly, an unlikely scenario), or that the Yugoslav authorities have found a way to get early warnings by some other means.

NATO, of course, has already voiced its concerns that a high level spy is in its midst (see Day 23, Item 4, Apr. 15). But there are other possibilities, too...

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2. Man's Best Friend Proves Its Worth as Dog of War

BELGRADE, Apr. 19 - Man's best friend is also proving its worth as dog of war. Literally. Every so often, people here tell us, air raid sirens fail to warn the residents of the imminent danger before the bombs start falling. Whether that's because of the "stealth" F-117 attacks, or for some other reasons, nobody knows for sure. But one thing "everybody" agrees on is that no such failures occur when it comes to canine air raid warning.

"You can always hear the dogs' barking first," said one resident which has endured 27 days of NATO attacks. "Sometimes, that's the only warning we get."

Indeed, this writer can attest to that in his six days under NATO's bombardment - both in Belgrade, and elsewhere in Serbia. Man's best friend has always proven its worth as an early warning dog of war.

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P.S. If you want to know what it is like to be under a constant NATO air raid threat, listen to the enclosed audio file which TiM has just received from a source in Belgrade. Then you may begin to understand why a four-year old girl was losing her hair; more scared of the sirens than of the bombs (see Day 21, Update 1, Item 2, Apr. 13).

Bob Dj.

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3. Serb TV Knocked Off the Air; Many Civilian Casualties Reported

BELGRADE, Apr. 22 - NATO's bombing targets have indeed become amazingly predictable. Just as we warned yesterday that Serb TV headquarters may become NATO's next target (see Day 29, Update 1, Item 3, Apr. 21), it happened today at about 2:00AM Belgrade time (Apr. 23).

Ron Allen, MSNBC correspondent in Belgrade, has just reported from his hotel in Belgrade that there were apparently "a lot of civilian casualties, and a huge amount of damage over there."

A TiM source in Belgrade reports that the Church of St. Marko, a Russian Orthodox Church, and the professional children theater, "Dusko Radovic" - all within 100 yards of the Serb TV building - were also damaged by the explosion. "The (Serb TV) building is burning and all of downtown Belgrade is in heavy smoke," our source reports.

The Yugoslav parliament and Belgrade's central PTT (post office) are also within a couple of hundred yards or so of  tonight's target.  It is unclear what damage, if any, they sustained from this NATO missile strike.

"Horrible scenes shown on Belgrade's Studio B (independent) TV station. Injured and dead people are being pulled out of the rubble (at Aberdareva Street). It is estimated that there were at least 70 people inside the Serb TV building when it was struck. This was meant to KILL PEOPLE, not just disable Serb TV. They could have destroyed the transmitters to disrupt, diminish and degrade. They chose to destroy and murder. One of the missiles apparently hit the entrance of the building."

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TiM Ed.: If there were ever any doubt before that Clinton, Blair, Chirac, Schroeder, Clark and other NATO leaders who are responsible for such wanton murder of innocent civilians, may find themselves one day facing a war crimes trial, such doubts were removed today. In fact, a group of Serbian legal experts from the Law Faculty in Belgrade had already drafted articles of such charges earlier this month. But as in any trial, one first has to have the accused in custody. Which is unlikely to happen, unless the NATO madmen persist with their march to WW III. Which they are surely going to lose. Or at least, not win. For, there may be no winners in a nuclear holocaust.

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A "PS" from a TiM source in Belgrade, sent at 4:18AM local time:

"Horrible scenes shown on Belgrade's Studio B (independent) TV station. Injured and dead people are being pulled out of the rubble (at Aberdareva Street). It is estimated that there were at least 70 people inside the Serb TV building when it was struck. This was meant to KILL PEOPLE, not just disable Serb TV. They could have destroyed the transmitters to disrupt, diminish and degrade. They chose to destroy and murder. One of the missiles apparently hit the entrance of the building."

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4. Cracks in NATO's Alliance Widening

LONDON, Apr. 21 - First, the Italian parliament voted its opposition to NATO''s air strikes (see Day 3, Update 1, Item 4, Mar. 26). Then the Greeks started to balk, even turning NATO convoys back (see Day 25, Update 1, Item 4, Apr. 17). Then the French started to get cold feet, trying to invoke their veto on NATO's target selection.

Now, the European Union failed to reach agreement yesterday on an oil embargo against Yugoslavia which would have helped cut off the supply of fuel to Slobodan Milosevic's troops, the London Telegraph reported on Apr. 21. At an EU meeting in Brussels, Greece and Italy opposed the common position that would have banned sales and shipments of oil and oil products to Yugoslavia.

At the same time, Russia's foreign ministry said it would not permit UN sanctions against Yugoslavia. Russia can use its veto as a member of the UN Security Council to block sanctions. "This means that while British and American pilots risk their lives to destroy the Yugoslav oil refineries, Greece, Italy and Russia are blocking attempts by America and Britain to finish the job of denying fuel to his army," the Telegraph bemoaned.

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TiM Ed.: "Finish the job" - by repeatedly bombing civilian targets and dormant refineries, such as the one in Novi Sad? To us, that's a sign of impotence, rather than an indication that the "job" is anywhere close to being finished.

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The revelation that Greece and Italy, both NATO members, are fighting to allow the supply of fuel to NATO's enemy casts profound doubt over their reliability as members of the alliance, the Telegraph said. Italy has, at least, provided its airbases for US-led air strikes on Yugoslavia. Athens has drawn much more criticism, since Greece itself is supplying fuel to the Serbs.

As if that weren't bad enough for the warmongers in Washington, London and Brussels, their own press is starting to turn on them.

"The way things are going, and regardless of what they might be saying in Washington, London, and Paris, the air campaign being conducted against Yugoslavia is threatening to turn into a fiasco," writes Jacques Amalric in the Liberation (Paris) Apr. 20 editorial.

"An operation that was presented at the outset as a matter of days, has now turned into a matter of several months, and, the more time passes, the further away the goals that it was to achieve are moving: Milosevic has never looked so firmly ensconced in power and, to top it all, is even ending up by embodying the spirit of resistance of a Serbian nationalism exacerbated by the bombings; as for his troops, which he has managed to reinforce in Kosovo, they are withstanding high-technology weapons completely unsuited to the situation without too much damage, as if the two forces were fighting on different battlefields, almost without confronting one another."

As if Liberation may not the Wall Street's most popular rag, the Wall Street Journal is. And here is what the Journal had to say in its Apr. 21 editorial, titled, "All Wobbly:"

"We are told that British Prime Minister Toby Blair has been quietly pressing the White House to recognize the failure of the air campaign to achieve NATO's central objective, the relief of victims of ethnic cleansing."

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TiM Ed.: Actually, the reasons for NATO's attack on a sovereign country were anything but a relief of "ethnic cleansing." You could see that from our column, "Taming the Russian Bear," written four years ago, perhaps prophetically the day the Oklahoma City bombing took place. Also, the first-year anniversary of the Waco massacre carried out by the federal government agents.

The fact that Tony Blair is getting "all wobbly," according to the Journal, is actually good news for freedom-mongers around the world. Perhaps Blair, if not yet his idol, the Slick Willy and his Secretary of Hate, Madeleine Albright, is already having nightmares about that Nuremberg noose?

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5. A California Congressman Speaks Out Against Clinton's War: Inching Toward Armaggedon

WASHINGTON, Apr. 19 - A California congressman, Richard Pombo, has had it with Clinton and Washington. Here's an excerpt from his statement published on the Net by the WorldNetDaily.com:

"I came to Congress the same year that Bill Clinton came to the White House. As a member of the loyal opposition, my service in the U.S. House of Representatives is historically intertwined with those events that have come to define the Clinton presidency. The conservative district in California's Central Valley that sent me to Washington did so because we both agreed that Americans were overtaxed, over-regulated, and that our government had grown too large. [...]

Before our children -- or grandchildren -- are back to the relative position of military strength bequeathed us by Ronald Reagan and George Bush, American taxpayers will sacrifice many of their hopes and dreams so politicians and generals can play catch-up. The vibrant domestic economy that keeps the Dow floating above the 10,000-point level will have to compete with a government borrowing to ensure its survival.

The alternative, of course, is to not play catch-up. But that would cost us even more. It might cost us everything. All of which brings us to Mr. Clinton's war in Serbia.

This is his 33rd such foreign military excursion since taking office in 1993. That's three times the number of deployments of American troops to foreign soil of all his predecessors since World War II -- from Truman to Bush. All together.

Between the attacks on Serbia and the earlier attacks on Iraq, the U.S. arsenal of air-launched cruise missiles has dwindled to a mere 75. And the stock of Tomahawk missiles, on which the Pentagon has grown to depend, has been drawn down to dangerously low levels. The Tomahawk is not currently even in production. We are currently converting nuclear-armed cruise missiles to conventionally-armed weapons to make up the shortfall. That, of course, means a loss of nuclear deterrent should some other part of the world heat up and pose a threat to U.S. soil.

To illustrate just how naked this leaves us, remember that last summer's attempt to kill the terrorist Bin Laden cost us 75 cruise missiles -- to take out a few tents in the Afghan desert and a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. If orders for replacements were placed today, it would still be two years before those cruise missiles were available in any military theater.

With what will we respond if the fanatical communist regime of North Korea, with its hair trigger border and its fourth year of famine, decides to turn years of bluster into a full-blown invasion of the South? Unlike Serbia or Haiti, a free and friendly South Korea is strategically essential to U.S. security. But unlike Haiti, Somalia or Serbia, North Korea has -- or shortly will -- missiles capable of hitting U.S. territory. [...]

As President Reagan so often counseled, peace comes from strength, not weakness. Weakness -- even the perception of it -- emboldens enemies and tempts them to test our limits and our resolve. [...]

This month I communicated a message to my constituents that I have been forced to communicate four times since August 1994, when Mr. Clinton began launching foreign adventures. It is a message about the conditions under which I, as their representative, could, in good conscience, vote to send their sons and daughters to fight on foreign soil.

I ask myself... Is this action to:

1. Protect and defend territories belonging to the United States?

2. Preserve our political and economic systems from foreign threats?

3. Keep sea-lanes open for trade and maintain free and voluntary trade between the United States and trading partners?

4. Prevent the domination of strategic areas of the globe by powers hostile to the United States?

5. Safeguard Americans and their property from acts of terrorism?

Mr. Clinton's Serbian War clearly does not meet these conditions for committing our young men and women. We can only pray that before he is done, his actions don't create them."

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Rep. Richard Pombo is a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Northern California.

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Also, check out... Truth in Media Statement on Kosovo Crisis, "Wither Dayton, Sprout New War?", "On the Brink of Madness", "Tragic Deja Vu's," "Seven U.S. Senators Suggest Ouster of Milosevic", "Biting the Hand That Feeds You", "A Balkan Affairs Potpourri", "Put the U.N. Justice on Trial", "International Justice 'Progresses' from Kidnapping to Murder", "Milosevic: 'A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery'...", "Kosovo Lie Allowed to Stand", "New World Order's Inquisition in Bosnia", "Kosovo Heating Up", "Decani Monastery Under Siege?", "Murder on Wall Street",  "Kosovo: 'Bosnia II', Serbia's Aztlan",  "What If the Shoe Were on the Other Foot?", "Green Interstate - Not Worth American Lives", "An American Hero or Actor of the Year?" (A June '95 TiM story) and/or "Clinton arme secrètement les musulmans bosniaques"

Or Djurdjevic's WASHINGTON TIMES columns: "Chinese Dragon Wagging Macedonian Tail,"  "An Ugly Double Standard in Kosovo Conflict?", "NATO's Bullyboys", "Kosovo: Why Are We Involved?", and "Ginning Up Another Crisis"

Or Djurdjevic's NEW DAWN magazine columns: "Washington's Crisis Factory,"  and "A New Iron Curtain Over Europe"