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The international peacekeeping force in Kosovo says most Yugoslav forces have left the province and predicts the full withdrawal will be completed by this weekend, half a day ahead of schedule. The BBC reports convoys of tractors pulling wagons crammed with Serb women, children and household goods are also on the move, amid estimates that around 50,000 people have fled since the Serb forces began pulling out last week. They are now camped outside Kosovo in southern Serbia. Meanwhile KFOR Brigadier Bill Rollo says an agreement is close in talks with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerillas on their ...

Blair says Serbs must share Milosevic guilt COLOGNE, Germany, June 20 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair suggested on Sunday that the people of Serbia should bear some share of responsibility for war crimes committed in their name in Kosovo. ``They cannot walk away from these crimes,'' Blair said in an interview with the BBC recorded at the Group of Eight summit, where Kosovo has been top of the agenda. He accused Serbian paramilitaries of killing thousands of innocent people in Kosovo. Blair said it was a fact that no country would give reconstruction aid to Serbia while President ...

RUNNING AWAY FROM BILL By ERIC FETTMANN NO vice president of the United States in history has ever so vehemently disavowed his political patron - the sitting president - as did Al Gore last week in announcing his bid for the White House. The way in which he repeatedly distanced himself from Bill Clinton was absolutely astonishing, coming from a man who literally began every answer in the 1992 VP debate with the phrase, "Bill Clinton and I ... " Gore spent much of his lengthy sitdown with ABC's Diane Sawyer, and of subsequent interviews with other reporters, denouncing the ...

U.S. MAY SEND HUMANITARIAN AID TO SERBIA By URI DAN and BRIAN BLOMQUIST President Clinton has vowed never to rebuild Serbia while Milosevic is in power. But humanitarian aid could be available.The United States and other industrialized world leaders might rebuild Serbia's roads and electricity plants - even if Slobodan Milosevic remains in power. After Russia blocked the world leaders from adopting a Kosovo rebuilding program that excluded Serbia, White House national security adviser Sandy Berger said restoring electricity to Belgrade might be covered under "humanitarian aid" to the country. President Clinton has vowed never to rebuild Serbia while Milosevic, ...

THEIR LOVE BLOSSOMED AMID BOMBINGS By URI DAN THERE are plenty of tragic stories emerging from the Kosovo crisis - and one love story. While Belgrade was being lit up for 78 nights by laser-guided NATO missiles and bombs, Lidia found Sinicha. "We met at a party on March 22, just two days before the bombing began," said Lidia, a pretty 26-year-old blonde. "I don't believe we could have fallen so quickly in love without the bombings," she told me. "There was no time to pretend. It was a time to be what you really are, especially when you felt ...

GUN DEALERS: PATAKI POLICY ON TARGET By FREDRIC U. DICKER ALBANY - Gov. Pataki won praise from gun dealers here yesterday for permitting the semiannual Albany Gun Show to go on as scheduled on state-owned property for the 25th year in a row. Pataki, under pressure from anti-gun groups, said Friday that he had ordered the closing of a "loophole" in federal gun laws which would have permitted unlicensed gun dealers to sell modern rifles and shotguns at the two-day show without doing a background check through an FBI-sponsored telephone hot line. Several of those unlicensed dealers, manning their gun-covered ...

HILL IN N.Y. STATE OF MIND By MAGGIE HABERMAN Hillary Clinton, who's seriously mulling a run for U.S. Senate, reportedly plans to leave the White House more than a year early and move to New York to become a stronger presence in the state. The First Lady, who will set up an exploratory committee next month, will likely be in the Empire State by the fall, U.S. News & World Report says in this week's edition. "She should be here by the fall," the magazine quotes an adviser "who she regularly consults with" as saying. "Everyone will understand if she ...

A German Army soldier of the German KFOR contingent in Macedonia died today through a shot from his service pistol. This was acknowledged by the Federal Ministry of Defense. The closer circumstances of the suicide are still being examined. The BILD magazine claims it was suicide. The magazine reports the soldier was on the way to Skopie as a passenger in a vehicle when he suddenly pulled his pistol and shot himself.

Serbs Turn Inward, Exhausted and Distrustful of Politicians By Michael Dobbs Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 20, 1999; Page A19 BELGRADE, June 19—As the Yugoslav army completes its withdrawal from Kosovo, and tens of thousands of Serbian refugees stream northward, the predominant mood in the rest of Serbia is a mixture of exhaustion, concern about the future, and a mistrust of all politicians, from Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to the leaders of pro-Western opposition parties. Just weeks after Serbian cities were gripped by an outpouring of popular rage at the NATO bombing campaign, public opinion seems to be turning ...

Serbs Had Many Methods, Reasons for Waging War on Kosovo Albanians By Daniel Williams Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, June 20, 1999; Page A19 PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, June 19—The man in plain green paramilitary clothing had shot his way into Premtin Gojani's three-story house, robbed the family of money and jewels, and killed Gojani's 72-year-old father by shooting him in the mouth. The gunman said he had to hurry, Gojani recalled, because NATO peacekeepers were arriving the next day. "Tomorrow I will go back to Serbia, and I won't be able to kill any more Albanians. So I must do it ...

NATO Hastens Disarming of KLA as Serb Fears Rise By Molly Moore Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, June 20, 1999; Page A19 UROSEVAC, Yugoslavia, June 19—With the last Yugoslav troops scheduled to depart Kosovo on Sunday, NATO forces are preparing to escalate the disarming of ethnic Albanian guerrillas who are taking over increasing police and governmental roles, often including violence and intimidation of rival Serbian communities. Even though NATO and Kosovo Liberation Army officials still have not signed an agreement setting the timetable for demilitarization of the separatist rebels, allied forces already have confiscated hundreds of weapons from KLA members ...

Allies Need Upgrade, General Says Air War Leader Cites U.S. Dominance in NATO Campaign By William Drozdiak Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, June 20, 1999; Page A20 The U.S. Air Force general who commanded NATO's successful air war against Yugoslavia says America's European allies should invest in more advanced weapons or risk becoming permanent junior partners in alliance military campaigns. In a telephone interview Thursday, U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Short said the overwhelming dominance of the air war by the United States -- which some European governments have criticized -- was inevitable given U.S. superiority in precision-guided weaponry. ...

Firearms Fight Isn't Over Yet Efforts Nationwide Seek More Controls By Michael Grunwald and Roberto Suro Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, June 20, 1999; Page A01 Gun control was shot down in the House of Representatives last week, but that doesn't mean it's dead. State legislatures in California, New York and even Utah are pushing tougher firearms restrictions. A variety of lawsuits against gun manufacturers are winding through the courts. Grass-roots groups across the nation are launching anti-gun campaigns. And in light of recent national polls suggesting growing support for gun control, President Clinton and top congressional Democrats believe the ...

Like Commission, Clinton's Book on Race Languishes By Charles Babington Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 20, 1999; Page A02 President Clinton hopes to redeem his often-criticized initiative on race by writing a substantial book on the issue, but the project has become mired in delays and White House disputes. As a result, administration officials say, it may be impossible for the book and the overall initiative to produce the bold conclusions and proposals the president once promised. And that would greatly diminish Clinton's hopes of leaving a legacy of courageous, practical means of improving racial relations in America, a ...

Compromise May Be Near on New Agency to Oversee Atomic Arms Nuclear Security Blanket By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 20, 1999; Page A03 In the aftermath of allegations of Chinese espionage, the Department of Energy and its congressional critics are moving toward a compromise: creating a new agency within the department to oversee the production of America's nuclear weapons. The proposed reorganization is aimed not only at reducing the vulnerability to spying but also at clarifying lines of authority and making more efficient the $6 billion-a-year complex of weapons laboratories, reactors and assembly plants that stretch ...

Internet's E-conomy Gets Real By Mark Leibovich, Tim Smart and Ianthe Jeanne Dugan Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, June 20, 1999; Page A1 The fanfare, inflated stock prices and overnight paper fortunes that surround the Internet's manic incursion into American life have obscured an important shift: The industry is graduating from a speculative casino into a measurable force that is changing nearly every corner of modern capitalism. The Internet is rapidly slashing costs between suppliers and companies, and between companies and customers. As it creates entirely new businesses and realigns old ones, it is scrambling notions of corporate value, giving ...

Malaysia to send security personnel to Kosovo KUALA LUMPUR, June 20 (Reuters) - Malaysia will send 60 security personnel to Kosovo to participate in peacekeeping operations, Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said. ``We'll send 50 policemen and 10 military liaison officers,'' the official Bernama news agency quoted Syed Hamid as saying on Saturday. The Malaysian personnel will participate in peacekeeping duties under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, he said. Malaysia has also donated medical supplies to Kosovo through non-governmental organisations and supported efforts to raise humanitarian aid for Kosovo refugees, the foreign minister said. NATO troops entered Kosovo on June ...

> URGENT ACTION ITEM! >=============================================== >June 19, 1999 >=============================================== >U.S. House will vote Wednesday on bill >to reform asset-forfeiture laws >*** Immediate action required! Telephone your House >representative immediately. >Friends: >The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on >Wednesday, June 23, on a bill that would dramatically reform >civil asset-forfeiture laws, which allow the government to >confiscate the property of innocent Americans without even >charging them with a crime. We are asking everyone who receives >this message to *immediately* contact your House representative >and ask him or her to vote YES on HR 1658, The Civil Asset ...

> > URGENT ACTION ITEM! >=============================================== >June 19, 1999 >=============================================== >U.S. House will vote Wednesday on bill >to reform asset-forfeiture laws >*** Immediate action required! Telephone your House >representative immediately. >Friends: >The U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on >Wednesday, June 23, on a bill that would dramatically reform >civil asset-forfeiture laws, which allow the government to >confiscate the property of innocent Americans without even >charging them with a crime. We are asking everyone who receives >this message to *immediately* contact your House representative >and ask him or her to vote YES on HR 1658, The Civil Asset ...

Russia's Yeltsin arrives in Cologne for G8 summit COLOGNE, June 20 (Reuters) - Russian President Boris Yeltsin arrived in Cologne on Sunday to attend the last day of the summit meeting of the Group of Eight leading nations. Yeltsin's airplane landed in Cologne airport at around 0540 GMT and Yeltsin was seen leaving it accompanied by his wife Naina. During his one-day stay in Cologne Yeltsin is also expected to meet U.S. President Bill Clinton and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Russia's RIA news agency quoted Yeltsin's foreign policy adviser Sergei Prikhodko as saying the Kremlin leader would offer a number ...