Diplomacy:
Yugoslavia has accepted the Group of Eight principles for a peace deal in Kosovo, according to a statement last night after talks between Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin. The G8 principles, worked out in Bonn on May 6th, need to be backed by a UN Security Council resolution. They provide for an end to oppression in Kosovo, the withdrawal of Serbian forces from the province and the deployment of an international security "presence", the return of ethnic Albanian refugees, the setting up of an interim administration and the opening of Serb-Kosovar talks on the province's future. Any optimism at this development was dampened by Milosevic's record of accepting principles and then ignoring them in practice.
Albania:
Albania has received reports of atrocities by Serb forces in Kosovo, including a mass rape, the burning alive of 20 people and a round-up of intellectuals, the country's ambassador to NATO tells a news briefing.
Ambassador Artur Kuko said Serb forces destroyed a village near Suva Reka on April 6th, segregated the men from their families and took away 70 women and 115 children. "The women were brought to a place in the village where they have been systematically raped," he said, declining to name the village. The women were also told they would not see their men again. The Albanian authorities did not know where the village's 100 men had gone but it was very disturbing that the men's clothes had been found by survivors.
UNHCR expresses fears that Albanian army training exercises will draw artillery fire from the Serb side in an area packed with 100,000 refugees. A spokesman says the exercises follow heavy fighting on Thursday in the Kukes border area between KLA rebels and Serb forces.
NATO's campaign:
The next five days will see the most intensive strikes yet against Serb troops in Kosovo, NATO military spokesman Gen Walter Jertz predicts, at a press briefing in Brussels. NATO aircraft have flown a record 792 missions in the past 24 hours. Some 310 of these were strike sorties, hitting tanks, an armoured personnel carrier, 20 artillery pieces and seven anti-aircraft positions.
A US A-10 attack jet had a close call when a Serb anti-aircraft missile apparently exploded near it, but the plane was not damaged and returned safely to its base in Italy, the Pentagon said.
The political leader of the KLA, Hashim Thaci, called on NATO to step up its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia to end the Kosovo crisis.
Refugees:
Aid convoys destined to go to refugees still inside Kosovo are not getting through, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea tells reporters.
Regions:
Macedonia tells NATO it must come up with money if it wants to deploy more troops in the cash-strapped Balkan state, crucial to the West's offensive against Yugoslavia. NATO has asked Yugoslavia's southern neighbour for permission to station 14,000 more troops in the tiny country, bringing the total up to 30,000. These troops are officially part of a peacekeeping force for Kosovo, should an agreement be reached to end hostilities, but would be the obvious spearhead for a ground attack
And...
US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott briefs NATO on his talks with Russian envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin.
Quote of the Day:
"If the situation continues in the same vein, the continuation of the talks would be senseless." Viktor Chernomyrdin.