I hope you lot have paid your taxes...!

Saturday, 17 April 1999 8:01 (GMT)

(UPI Focus)

White House asks for more Kosovo funds

By United Press International

At the end of a day in which the United States took custody of a Serb military officer, NATO intensified its airstrikes and international sources said the refugee exodus from Kosovo increased, a senior Clinton administration official said the White House is going to ask the U.S. Congress for $6 billion in funds to cover military and humanitarian objectives in the Balkans.

The official said Friday that about $700 million of the total, if approved, will go toward relief of Kosovar refugees in Albania and Macedonia, the Serbian province's neighbors. Congress is expected to receive the request Monday.

Meanwhile, the Russian news service Itar-Tass reports today that Gen. Neboisa Pavkovic of the Yugoslavian Third Army says there are about 150, 000 Serb troops in Kosovo that could resist a NATO ground offensive.

Officials in Washington and Brussels have said there is no plan to send ground troops into Kosovo, but several thousand troops are nearby keeping order among the refugees.

Pavkovic said: "If each shot (the Serb troops) fire kills at least every third enemy, that will be the price which the aggressor will have to pay for setting foot on our land. We are ready to wage a nationwide war."

Itar-Tass reports the general also had the following to say about the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army: "I am in a position to report that the terroristic forces in Kosovo have been fully wiped out. This is evidenced by the fact that new gangs are now being slapped together with NATO help (in) Albania and Macedonia, which are trying to worm their way into Yugoslavia. We are waiting for them here."

Pentagon sources said Friday that the KLA was responsible for capturing the Serb officer, who will be handled under the rules of the Geneva Convention. Yugoslavia still holds three U.S. servicemen, but their whereabouts and conditions are unknown, and they have not been visited by representatives of the Red Cross, as required under the convention.

Russia today continued to send humanitarian support to Yugoslavia, which has suffered major blows to its infrastructure at the hands of NATO aircraft.

Itar-Tass said trucks carrying a total of about 30 tons of food, medicine and other personal hygiene kits left St. Petersburg for Moscow en route to Yugoslavia.

The humanitarian crisis outside Kosovo got worse on Friday, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Spokesman Kris Janowski said if the current flood of refugees continues to press out of the province, "We'll soon have no ethnic Albanians in Kosovo," which seems to be the underlying motivation for all the actions taken in the past month by the forces Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

Janowski told reporters Friday that at least 12,000 people had crossed into Albanian and Macedonia in the past 24 hours. --

Copyright 1999 by United Press International. All rights reserved. --

Copyright 1999 by United Press International

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 17, 1999

Answers

Just imagine what you could do with $6B for remediation efforts and contingency planning - publicity, awareness etc. - you name it, you could even remediate (or attempt to) 6 CitiGroups.

This is quite outrageous, "give us your money, and your sons...)

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 17, 1999.

Imagine posting this where it would be on-topic or at least labelling it as off-topic in the thread title.

-- No Spam Please (No_Spam_Please@anon_ymous.com), April 17, 1999.

Have you had a recent lobotomy No Spam? - would that explain your picking cyber-fights with all and sundry. I doubt if you would bait me like this face to face.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 17, 1999.

Andy, I happen to like reading about Y2k issues, comments, news, preparation etc... on this site. I have enjoyed the humor too. I am addicted..AAUUGGHH. You all are very interesting. Your comments build a persona that endears me to you...even AA@A. To touch on the most important issues of the day should be added to this site. I build my own thread for each of you in my mind and find it interesting to read comments on current topics to get a more well- rounded view of...how you think. It adds credibility or...sadly destroys it, depending on the response. my one cent worth. I'm saving the other cent for the next thread.

-- kim (kstindy@aol.com), April 17, 1999.

Do you people realize that the SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS is being used to fund this war? Honest. A while back the republicans wanted to reduce the rate of increase in the social security payments. The Democrats demigoged it to death saying the republicans wanted to decrease social security payments. Now everyone agrees that there is a surplus when the deficit is over $120 billion a year. They do this by considering current social security deductions in excess of payments to retirees as income instead of a reserve against future social security payments. Therefore this surplus money is being used to kill people in Yugoslavia. Come on Bill, why do we need an approrpriation? Just spend the surplus. If it is not necessary for Congress to declare war, why should they have to appropriate funds for this assistance to Mr. Mulosovick. The bombing advanced the ethnic cleaning and displacement far quicker than would have happened without it. How will they spin this? I don't hear nothing. I say declare victory and get out. What do you reservists think about serving for this war? If Clinton was a college student now, would he be protesting this war too? Amazing.

-- Moe (confused@dumb.iss), April 17, 1999.