🚀 go-pugleaf

Zdravo,

What's this today I hear? Is Clinton just trying to avert attention from
HIS problems by sending aircraft to bomb Serbia?

This is the right time for Australia to set up an Embassy in Macedonia
once and for all, as people who are in Macedonia are unable to go to
Belgrade if the Belgrade Australian Embassy has been vacated! Get your
act together P.M. Howard!

Re: NYT: National - 6:32am AEST Tues Oct 13 1998

Australian embassy in Belgrade closed as crisis deepens

Australia has closed down its embassy in Belgrade and evacuated staff to
Budapest in anticipation of NATO air strikes against Serb forces.

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra said the
embassy had closed down temporarily and it was not possible to say for
how long.

"There is no indication of when they might come back," he said on
Tuesday.

"We considered the situation was becoming too dangerous to leave our
people on the ground there."

The Australian closure follows the temporary closures of several other
embassies in Belgrade.

The Australian embassy employs 50 staff, seven posted from Australia and
43 recruited locally, many of them Australians.

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer on Monday warned all
Australian citizens to leave Yugoslavia immediately in Australia's
toughest travel warning since the start of the Kosovo crisis.

An estimated 2,000 Australians were believed to be in Yugoslavia and the
embassy was yesterday trying to contact them. It had put on additional
switchboard lines to cope with hundreds of calls for advice and
information.

Ambassador Chris Lamb told ABC radio it was considered too risky for
Australians to stay, although some locally employed staff would continue
to provide emergency services.

"We consider that the circumstances likely to prevail here over the next
few days simply won't be safe enough for us to keep the embassy
operating and in those circumstances there is no point being here," he
said.

"It's also possible that the lives of the Australians who are on the
staff could even be at risk if things get bad."

He said the staff would not be endangered by the bombing but "it is
possible that a domestic crisis could erupt here .... it is simply not
worth my while to risk Australian lives in those circumstances".

Mr Lamb said comments made by politicians in Belgrade raised the
possibility that there could be an anti-foreigner reaction.

He said it was why other embassies were also withdrawing. -- AAP


>Sender:       Macedonian Discussion List
>From:         Graham Witt <gwitt@sba.com.au>
>Subject:      Re: CIA DOCUMENTS NOW ADOPT CORRECT NAME FOR FYROM
>To:           MAKEDON@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU
>
>One small victory here in Australia though.  Our state premier (who has
>overtly sided with the Greek immigrant community over the Macedonian
>immigrant community) mandated use of the term "Slavic Macedonian" to
label
>the mother tongue of the latter community in all written references to
that
>language, particularly government notices and information brochures
(which
>are printed in multiple community languages in Australia).  The latest
>government information brochure which was mailed to all households now
>labels the Macedonian translation as just that: Macedonian.
>
>Don't know whether it was a mistake, a change in government policy or
>someone refusing to be dictated to ...
>
>Graham C Witt
>Phone +61(3)9383 2869
>Fax +61(3)9650 1297
>Mobile 0419 358 540
>E-mail: gwitt@sba.com.au


Rgds, Sacha Shopov
Sydney, Australia
sasmcse@hotmail.com

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