B92 - News - Comments

Gora Municipal President Alija Abdi has been released after giving a statement to police. Charges are expected to be pressed against him.

Regional Police Director in Prizren Lumni Graishta told the Beta news agency that Abdi was freed after giving a statement regarding the circumstances surrounding the threats against Goranis and Bosniaks in the municipality of Dragaš.

“The police had no intention of arresting Abdi, they wanted to ask him to give a statement on the threats against members of the community for losing their personal earnings and other privelages which they receive from Serbia if they participate in the November 15 elections. Abdi also said that the institutions that are organizing these elections are not legitimate to him,” Graishta said.

Graishta reiterated that Abdi was not arrested, rather that he was taken into custody for questioning by the police.

Graishta, however, said that charges will be filed against Abdi, because it is believed that he was responsible for the threats being made.

The prosecution will decided whether it will call for an investigation and then issue an indictment based on the findings, Graishta said.

The Gora municipality in Kosovo is under the authority of Belgrade.

The Ministry for Kosovo announced that it will help displaced persons visit places they were forced out of and cemeteries where their family members are buried.

Orthodox Christians in Serbia are observing the Mitrovica zadušnice, which is a type of Serbian equivalent to All Souls Day and similar holidays for honoring the dead.

The Serbian Kosovo Ministry has secured 12 buses that will take people to locations in Kosovo, including Prizren, Kosovska Mitrovica, Gnjilane, Priština, Suva Reka, Obilić and Đakovica, to visit cemeteries in which their family members are buried.

The Macedonian Academy of Science and Arts (MANU) has dismissed the current team of editors and has decided to appoint a new one.

The new team of editors of the first Macedonian national encyclopedia will be formed in a month and will include scientists who are not members of the academy as well as representatives of ethnic minorities.

MANU presidency decided late on Thursday in Skopje, at an assembly meeting which lasted four hours, that "unacceptable articles had to be replaced by new ones".

The encyclopedia which was promoted about two months ago spurred ethnic Albanians in Macedonia to protest, and met with disapproval of "the ambassadors of certain western countries".

That is why MANU made the official decision in late September to stop the distribution of the encyclopedia and requested some parts to be reedited.

Those mostly refers the articles concerning the Albanian-Macedonia connections and relations, Albanians in Macedonia, Albanian leader Ali Ahmeti, aggression on Macedonia, Albanian Liberation National Army (ONA) and also Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, better known as Mother Teresa.

There was also a request to correct the part about the role of the British and American forces in military conflict in Macedonia in 2001.

The MANU assembly made the decision by vast majority – one academic was against, while two refrained from voting.

Pieter Feith (FoNet archive)

Pieter Feith said that Serbs in Kosovo could lose power in municipalities in which they make up the majority if they boycott local elections.

The EU special representative in Kosovo said that if the local Serbs do not participate in the local elections—organized by the Kosovo Albanian institutions and scheduled for November 15—they could risk losing control of the local governments in municipalities and territories in which they make up the majority population.

Feith told B92 that if there is a boycott of the elections by the Kosovo Serbs, "there will be no Serb officials named as the presidents of the Štrpce and Novo Brdo municipalities".

CeSIDProgram Director Marko Blagojević said that support for EU integration in Serbia is growing thanks to the announced visa liberalization.

According to Deutsche Welle radio, Blagojević said that only 14 percent of the Serbian population is against joining the EU, while 71 percent supports Serbia’s integration into the Union.

However, one of out ten citizens stated that they would not vote in a referendum for Serbia joining the EU.

Citing CeSIDresearch implemented in mid-October, Blagojević said that a large number of Serbian citizen support the EU integration of Serbia and the entire region.

Some 76 percent of Serbian citizens support Macedonia’s integration, while 71 percent support Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro joining the EU.

A smaller number of people, 62 percent, support Croatia joining the EU, while only 42 percent of the population supports the EU integration of Albania.

Aleksandar Vučić (Tanjug)

Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) deputy leader Aleksandar Vučić said that the party will not be voting in favor of the Vojvodina statute.

He said that the statute presents “the formation of a state within a state.”

Vučić said that keeping the decree on the Vojvodina science and arts academy is “frightening,” and regarding the decree for Novi Sad being the capital city of Vojvodina, he said that no countries have two capital cities.

Vučić said that it is impossible to change property titles with one piece of paper, unless you intend to have that lead to an “eventual dissolution of the state,” and criticized a decree that would allow Vojvodina to open its own offices abroad.

Vučić said that the decree not allowing the territory of Vojvodina to be changed without a referendum in which at least 50 percent of the province’s population would participate is unconstitutional, adding that the constitution calls for the citizens of Serbia to decide on the changing of a territory, not the residents of one part of the country.

“None of the big powers are insisting on this. No one is asking this of us, people. No one is abusing us, no one will pull us by our ears for that. Why is someone breaking apart Serbia, without anyone asking them to do so?” Vučić concluded, adding that the statute and its accompanying laws, as they are, will only lead to more problems.

Milutin Mrkonjić (Tanjug archive)

Infrastructure Minister Milutin Mrkonjić said that work on the highway from Horgoš to Novi Sad is expected to be completed in 2010.

Mrkonjić visited the construction site of the Beška bridge and the by-pass route around Novi Sad, where second layers of asphalt are being put down, after which traffic lights and safety nets will be installed.

According to officials of the companies working on the sites, Nimbes and Putevi Užice, the two lanes of the highway from Novi Sad to Horgoš will be finished by the determined deadline of November 29.

Mrkonjić said that the quality of the construction work is excellent, and called on the companies to participate in the announced tender for the construction of a new, 11 kilometer-long section of highway north of Novi Sad.

General Director of the Serbia Roads public company Zoran Drobnjak accompanied Mrkonjić on his visits to Corridor 10 construction sites on Saturday.

Iranian police detained more than 100 people for "disturbing public order" during a rally this week to mark the anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy.

Security forces clashed with supporters of Iran's opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi in Tehran on Wednesday when an annual state-organized rally marking the 30th anniversary of the storming of the U.S. embassy turned violent.

"Police arrested 109 people who created disorder and disturbed public order and security on the sideline of the rally on Wednesday," said Azizollah Rajabzadeh, head of Tehran police, IRNA reported.

"Some 62 of the detainees were jailed and the rest were released."

Iran's Revolutionary Guards and their allied Basij militia had warned the opposition not to try to hijack the rally to revive protests against the clerical establishment after June's disputed presidential election.

Defeated presidential candidates Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, who say are committed to reform, had urged supporters to take to the streets on Wednesday to protest against the government despite warnings from the security forces about "illegal gatherings."

Security forces arrested an Agence France Presse (AFP) reporter along with a Danish student in connection with the rally.

The semi-official Fars news agency said on Friday that two foreign journalists also had been arrested on November 4. The report could not be confirmed independently.

Foreign media have been banned from covering street protests since the demonstrations over the disputed June presidential vote, which the opposition says was rigged to secure President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election.

The turmoil after the June 12 vote was the worst in Iran in the past three decades. Authorities deny vote-rigging.

Workers of the grocery store and supermarket chain Maxi will start wearing protective masks on Monday because of the swine flu epidemic.

The Delta Holding company, which owns Maxi, has secured 500,000 masks as preventive measures and ordered increased cleaning and disinfection of the stores.

The masks will be worn by workers in cities that have known cases of the virus, which are currently Užice, Kraljevo, Kragujevac, Požega, Niš and Čačak.

The company prepared a plan of action back in August for protecting the customers and employees from the swine flu and to secure a normal functioning of the stores and regular work hours despite the possibility of a pandemic, Delta Maxi stated.

In accordance with this plan, all employees had to pass a practical training course on preventive measures and recommended behavior during a pandemic.

Workers were given more than 400,000 multi-vitamin tablets and 10 tons of citrus fruit in order to increase their vitamin intake, improve their immunity, and protect the body from viruses, the company stated.