Belgrade – Head of the Serb Orthodox Church, Patriarch Pavle and the Metropolitan of Kiev and Ukraine conducted a liturgy today at the Serb Orthodox Cathedral in Belgrade as a part of the Metropolitan’s three-day visit to the Serb Orthodox Church. After the liturgy, the Patriarch awarded the Metropolitan with the Badge of St. Sava. In his address, Patriarch Pavle underlined that the divisions within the Church cannot bring good to anyone. “One needs to know what love for one’s people really means. It does not exclude love for other peoples, and even for enemies.” The Patriarch reminded of the long-lasting co-operation between the Serb and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches and their peoples, particularly during the times of Serb slavery under the Turks.
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Visegrad – Metropolitan Dabrobosanski, Nikolai conducted a memorial service for the RS soldiers killed in the war for the homeland, which was attended by members of RS Government and VRS.
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Petrovo (Mount Ozren) – RS Prime Minister Klickovic attended the inauguration of the Petrovo municipality and unveiling of the memorial board with photographs of 223 VRS soldiers from this municipality killed in the war. A service was also conducted for the killed soldiers at the Orthodox Church on Mount Ozren
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Flash news:
UN Special Envoy for ex-Yugoslavia, Kai Eide said that SFOR troops will need to remain in BiH after the expiry of their mandate next year. SRT comment: “This is one more sign that the West has decided to have SFOR stay in Bosnia, probably with a changed structure and reduced manpower”. With reference to German Defence Minister’s statement that SFOR will remain in Bosnia as D-FOR, spokesman of the British Defence Ministry said last night that this is only the position of the German Government, and not a final decision made by the international community. He added that the question whether SFOR troops will stay or not mainly depends on President Clinton and US Congress. Chairman of the OSCE, Danish Foreign Minister Peterson told Nasa Borba that he was very dissatisfied with the parliamentary and presidential elections in Serbia. In his opinion, there were no signs of democratic changes, the media were still biased, and there were a number of technical flaws in the voting process. He added that the FRY Government has not yet confirmed the appointment of Spanish ex-Prime Minister Gonzales as the OSCE Special Envoy for FRY.
Chair of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights Protection in FRY, Sonja Biserko told Dnevni Telegraf that Croatia has not yet started with the renewal of houses of Serb refugees from Podunavlje who have returned to other parts of Croatia. She said that the two-way return agreement is discriminatory because Serbs leaving the former Srem-Baranja region are not offered to return to their homes, but to collective centres. The initial results of the investigation conducted by the Ministry of Interior of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina show that the explosion in front of the Catholic School in Sarajevo yesterday was caused by a time bomb. Croat Radio Herceg-Bosna reports that a link can be established with the previous bomb attacks, therefore it is the assumption that they were all carried by the same terrorist group.
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