A defiant Mr Tony Blair yesterday declared NATO would finish the job it started last week with its military bombardment of Yugoslavia, confirming reports from NATO that there would be no letup in the bombing over Easter. The US promised 24-hour raids in improving weather.
NATO bombings of the Belgrade area have killed eight people, both soldiers and civilians, and injured 22, a local radio said yesterday, quoting the Yugoslav capital's military hospital director.
Yugoslav state media reported fresh NATO air strikes on the Pristina and Pec areas in Kosovo, Serbia's southern province, and near its main city in the north, Novi Sad.
NATO yesterday accused Yugoslav authorities of trying to erase the identities of ethnic Albanians being driven out of Kosovo by destroying their public records and archives. NATO spokesman Mr Jamie Shea said the Yugoslavs were destroying the property deeds, birth certificates, marriage licences and financial and other records of Kosovo Albanians.
In Britain, signs of dissent on the back-benches diminished with MPs increasingly turning their attention to the international aid effort under way in Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania and Kosovo and the plight of the hundreds of thousands of refugees there. Mr Blair told the Commons u10 million to the relief effort, Mr Blair told MPs: ["]These attacks being carried out on the actual troops repressing the people in Kosovo will inflict real damage to Milosevic's tanks, artillery and the thugs carrying out this killing and repression in Kosovo.["] Mr Blair said he would consider the proposal by the Tory leader, Mr William Hague, that the government should at least match pound for pound public donations to the relief effort. ???????u500,000 donation to the UN's World Food Programme, which warned those refugees who were out of the reach of aid workers could die of starvation in a week. At his daily press conference at the Ministry of Defence in London, Britain's Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Sir Charles Guthrie, told reporters that NATO had identified military links between Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia must stop, the moderate Kosovo Albanian political leader, Mr Ibrahim Rugova, told journalists in Kosovo yesterday.
"The bombing must stop. Everything must stop," Mr Rugova said, adding that "this must be worked on" and "Belgrade must co-operate" in ending the war.
"Belgrade must commit to a diplomatic path and accept an accord" for peace in the separatist province, and "must accept intermediaries such as [US diplomat Richard] Holbrooke and [Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny] Primakov".
Mr Rugova was speaking at his home in the city after reports that he was in hiding and his house had been destroyed.
Speculation had been rife in recent days over the fate of the Kosovo Democratic League (KDL) leader. In Bonn, on Tuesday, the KDL representative abroad, Mr Hafiz Gagica, said Mr Rugova had been wounded and that his fate was uncertain.
However, Mr Rugova said Serb police had offered to guarantee his security and that he had "accepted".
Meanwhile, as the military war continues in the air, the propaganda battle is also intensifying. In an era of modern warfare, the Internet is being used a propaganda tool. The British Defence Secretary, Mr George Robertson, revealed the Ministry of Defence had translated its Internet website into Serbian to counter censorship in Belgrade and in the past 24 hours 1,400 of the 150,000 hits on the site had come from inside Yugoslavia.
In the US, President Clinton has released $50 million for humanitarian aid to the thousands of refugees fleeing from Kosovo. A US disaster relief team has also been sent to Albania.
Some concern is being expressed over a possible shortage of cruise missiles if the NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia continue indefinitely. The US Air Force was down to 150 missiles with conventional warheads before the Kosovo operation began and at least 30 are believed to have been fired since then.
The diminishing stock of cruise missiles is "something we do worry about," the Pentagon spokesman, Mr Ken Bacon, said. "We have a supply now but it won't last forever. But we certainly have enough to continue striking important targets."
Yesterday in Brussels, Ms Bernie Malone MEP demanded that the Council of Ministers and the European Commission explain to the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee on what legal basis it had decided to involve the EU in the bombing.
The UN Human Rights Commissioner, Mrs Mary Robinson, yesterday expressed shock at reports of summary executions and disappearances of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, including the killing of leading human rights defenders and political leaders.
Pope John Paul is to send the Vatican Foreign Minister, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, to Belgrade today with a message for President Milosevic, the Vatican said.
The Department of Foreign Affairs has advised Irish citizens against travel to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Republika Srepska and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in present circumstances. It warns Irish travellers to Albania to exercise caution and to avoid the north of the country. It has not issued any official recommendation on travel to Slovenia.