Campaign:
As NATO aims the bulk of its overnight strikes against Yugoslav troops and is forced to cancel some sorties because of bad weather, there are reports that Milosevic's troops are withdrawing from Kosovo "in large numbers".
In the provincial capital, Gen Vladimir Lazarevic of the Yugoslav army's Pristina Corps tells reporters: "During last night and this morning a large number of VJ [Yugoslav Army] soldiers have been leaving Kosovo on buses and trucks." He declines, however, to say how many troops have left.
The West reacts cautiously to the news, saying it has seen no sign of any immediate pullout and that a partial withdrawal is not enough to fulfil NATO's conditions for an end to the bombing campaign, now into its eighth week.
NATO sources in Brussels say they could soon be joined in their mission by US Apache ground-attack helicopters.
Diplomacy:
Kofi Annan tells reporters in Geneva the UN is stepping up its search for peace in the Balkans and hopes that the latest Russian political crisis (Yeltsin's firing of his prime minister) will not complicate matters. The UN secretary general had just had his first formal meeting with his two special Balkan envoys named last week to try to solve the Kosovo crisis - former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt and Slovak Foreign Minister Eduard Kukan. He declines to say when the two envoys would head for the troubled region in their quest to broker peace between ethnic Albanians in Kosovo and Serb authorities.
Germany:
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, his neck blood red from an anti-war protester's paint bomb, pleads with his Green Party not to undermine Chancellor Gerhard Schroder over Kosovo. Fischer, a former `1968' radical, who is said to have tempered his pacifist beliefs after the bloodshed of Bosnia, was later taken to hospital for checks when ink got into his ear. He was urging a special conference of Germany's junior party in coalition to vote down a resolution for an immediate ceasefire in NATO's air war against Slobodan Milosevic.
`Dear NATO . . . '
In tandem with French President Jacques Chirac's meeting with Boris Yeltsin in Moscow, Le Monde reports that Slobodan Milosevic is ready to accept an armed international peacekeeping force in Kosovo, operating under UN auspices. The message was reportedly given by Russia to NATO representatives and was thought to indicate that the Serb leader is ready to accept the five conditions NATO insists on to stop air strikes: In return, Milosevic wants Yugoslavia's territorial integrity to be respected and a provisional administration in Kosovo which will not eventually lead to its independence, says Le Monde, citing a Russian diplomat. As a second condition, Milosevic wants western powers not to interfere in Yugoslav politics - and immunity from prosecution under international law.
And. . .
The United Nations has said it will help an international criminal tribunal investigate war crimes committed against Kosovo's ethnic Albanians.
Milosevic declines to meet UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who had wanted to raise allegations of "ethnic cleansing" by his forces in Kosovo.
Refugees:
A second group of (157) ethnic Albanian refugees arrives at Dublin Airport and is accommodated in counties Kildare and Wicklow. Further evacuation flights are expected to arrive in Ireland at the rate of one or two per week.
Quote of the day:
"As to whether I expect the war to go on for a long time, I really cannot answer. I am not privy to the plans of NATO. I don't know where we stand on that." UN secretary general Kofi Annan, in response to questions from journalists.