Electricity

For nine years some thirty odd houses which make up the hamlet of Bircani near the village of Suvodanje have had trouble with electricity - and a low voltage. With the Electrical Supply Company's approval they put up the wires and all that remained was for them to be linked to the sub-station. The villagers from villages in the vicinity refused to give their approval, fearing that the voltage would drop. Fitters came to link up the wires eight times with police escort, but were chased away by the villagers. Nikola Bircanin says that two women managed to chase away eight policemen. "We really have a humane police force," said Bircanin shaking his head, "but I've heard that they can behave differently."

Villagers from the hamlet of Bircani have written to the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Energy and the Serbian President personally, but to no avail: the women were always stronger than the police. The villagers have a decision from the Serbian Supreme Court which says that the linking up must be done in the presence of the police. A compromise has been offered: the Electrical Supply Company will build a new sub-station for which the villagers of Bircani will have to pay - 11,300 dinars. The fact that they bought the wires and that it cost them dearly, is neither here nor there.

 

Standard

Compared to the same period last year (May 1994) has your standard...

Deteriorated 34%

Remained the same 35.2%

Improved 23.2%

Can't assess 7.4%

Source: Partner Agency

This telephone survey was carried out in May 1995.

The survey covered 300 persons living in the territory of Belgrade.

 

Wall

That the front line can become a tourist attraction has been proved in Vietnam. Twenty years after the end of the war, the Vietnamese Government intends to rebuild the remains of "McNamara's line" - an electronic "wall" and turn it into a source of income. Known as the "Magic Eye", the line was supposed to prevent troops from the North from infiltrating into South Vietnam. The building of the wall started in 1966 and lasted three years. It was protected by a 500 meters-wide minefield and was supposed to extend for several hundred kilometers, but never reached the planned length because of the fighting. It remains for us to hope that our war "walls" will become a part of tourist itineraries too. Only the warlords know how long we will have to wait before this happens.

 

Entrance Exams

The Post-Telegraph-Telephone Company has invested in an automat which will help future secondary school students with their entrance exams. The automat asks five Maths and Serbian language questions daily. The automat (dial 9843) has a total of 200 questions and will operate until 20 June.

 

Festival

This year's music festival "Belgrade Spring" will be held from 20-25 June.

When the organizers approached the City Government it only came up with moral support. The Ministry of Culture offered 25,000 dinars, but the musicians were in no mood to sing for peanuts and the festival was postponed.

Luckily, the textile company "Yumco" from Vranje agreed to be the general sponsor so that this event which is regarded as a cultural-educational manifestation (meaning that it fully expects state sponsorship) will be held.

 

Laughter

Serbian national worker Dragos Kalajic, on returning from Serbian Bosnia writes of Serbian laughter in the latest issue of the Belgrade bi-weekly "Duga": "... in a Serbian fortress I came across soldiers who, on seeing US Secretary of State Christopher Warren on television, started laughing uproariously. His face and the obvious similarity with reptiles and rodents are convincing proof of the direction that 'progress' in the modern civilization of the West is taking. The grimace of confusion and disappointment which are imprinted on his face testify to the state of a spirit living at the bottom of a subhuman life. The laughter I am listening to and in which I participate is unthinkable in the West where only rare individuals can notice what we are laughing at on the above mentioned face."

This is followed by the point of the whole story: "This laughter of the Serbian fighters is one of the gifts of defended freedom. Today, in the USA, under the law of 'political correctness' such laughter would be severely punished. And it is precisely this enforcing of rules through 'political correctness' which reveals the fears of the self-proclaimed lords of the 'new world order' from the truth whose light destroys all tricks and illusions, and on which is based and of which is made this dishonest and parasitical, anti-human and anti-life world order."