The campaign:
House of Representatives passes $15 billion package to fund the air war and boost America's military readiness despite criticism of Clinton's Kosovo policy.
NATO claims its planes destroyed six Yugoslav aircraft on the ground overnight but that bad weather forced cancellation of most planned air raids.
Serb forces in Kosovo have yet to suffer significant casualties from NATO air strikes, Air Marshal Sir John Day, the British deputy chief of defence staff, claims. In central Yugoslavia, he says, planes have had to "re-attack" command bunkers previously hit. He insists, however, that the air campaign is having an effect.
Diplomacy:
Italy and Greece suggest a pause in the bombing campaign will give President Milosevic a chance to comply with NATO demands. British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook to travel to Washington tomorrow to press the case for deploying ground troops in Kosovo. In the House of Commons, Defence Secretary George Robertson rejects calls for a pause in the bombing and asserts that it's possible for NATO ground troops to enter Kosovo without Milosevic's permission. This contrasts sharply with the comments of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder (and see Sheaspeak), who says that any sort of offensive action by ground troops is out of the question: "Germany believes that sending in ground troops is unthinkable. This is our position and it won't change in the future." Schroder backs NATO's current dual military-diplomatic strategy against Yugoslavia. He's ad idem with Robertson that bombing must continue until negotiated settlement is reached.
Robertson goes to Hungary as part of the continued diplomatic mission to demonstrate NATO's "unity and resolve" over the Kosovo crisis: having talks in Budapest with the both government and opposition leaders. More crucially, Viktor Chernomyrdin travels to Belgrade after talks between Russia and the US in Helsinki on forging a joint approach to halt the Kosovo conflict end on a positive note, according to Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari.
And...
The mayor of a Serbian town is reported to have been lynched by angry anti-war protesters trying to prevent the return of troops to the war in Kosovo: Montenegrin television, monitored by the BBC, said a crowd of around 1,000 people in the town of Aleksandrovac turned on the chairman of the municipal assembly, Zivota Cvetkovic, and "literally lynched" him.
The crowd, who had gathered at the local bus station to say farewell to troops returning to Kosovo after a short spell of leave, were said to have demanded that the mayor - a member of President Milosevic's ruling Socialist Party - stop their departures.
Sheaspeak:
I can understand that as the campaign goes on into the 56th day everybody is looking for a story. . . but there is no story in terms of NATO differences on ground troops, none whatever
We all agree we should stick with the current strategy. That strategy is working. It is going to be even more effective in the next few days.
Quote of the Day:
"NATO has already lost morally and politically. Innocent people are dying and still the aim of NATO strategists has not been achieved. Aggression has only aggravated the situation. . . the world has witnessed a huge humanitarian tragedy and a crime against human rights." Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union.