Labor Heroes

The spring sowing is running late but the Serbian state TV (RTS) is there to remind us of times when we beat all problems by working hard.

A half hour documentary called "All Ruza's Battles" showed the story of a female version of "heroes of socialist labor". Ruza Bozic, a worker and recorder on a tractor was not lucky enough to end up on a bank note but she's remembered as "frail, small woman who didn't get off her tractor for 48 hours running" beating all the men of those post-war times.

The spirit of those times and unselfish sweat came in the form of old newsreels and newspaper headlines with the proletarian hymn "Long Live Labor" in the background.

Anonymous

The RTS airs a music quiz show on every weekday at 6:00 p.m. featuring two people competing in six events. One of them is the "wall of knowledge": a wall was built with bricks containing questions to hide someone's picture.

When the right answer to a question is given, the brick is removed showing a piece of the underlying face.

In a recent match, Perica and Vladan answered every question but did not recognize the face behind the wall. Sometimes that happens but in this case they didn't recognize one of the most famous figures in Serbian history. The portrait was of Nikola Pasic, a famous political figure.

In an effort to find out why they didn't recognize the man, VREME staff leafed through high school history text books but only found Pasic in a group portrait. It was enough to name a square in Belgrade after him.

The Greeks

Valjevo finally got a Serb-Greek friendship society, the 27th branch of that organization. There were no Greeks there but the important thing was to set up the branch with full honors. So Greek music was played and Metaxa was served but the band didn't seem to know more than one Greek tune.

But the contributions of the Valjevo branch don't stop there, its members know how to promote cooperation on an economic level. Namely, Serbs would go to Greece to help with the tangerine harvest and brethren Greeks would come to Serbia to help pick raspberries.

Offense

Last week, Belgrade dailies reported that former Formula 1 driver Ricardo Patrese lost his driving license for exceeding the speed limit.

Just a few months earlier, due to ice on the Pozarevac road, racing ace Marko Milosevic had an accident. Two other people were injured in his car. Although a lot of time has passed since then, the public has not been informed of the outcome of the investigation and we can only assume that the cause of the accident was excessive speed.

Do racing drivers have immunity here or do they only have to be the president's son?

Dayton Protectorate

The Forum for International Politics and International Relations was set up in Belgrade last week as a non-governmental and non-partisan organization. Its founders, including prominent professional diplomats, international law experts, commentators and public figures, will try to organize debates on foreign policy and international activities to contribute to a rational insight into the position of the FRY and its international powers and influence. The first debate at the Forum opened a series of relevant topics stemming from the Dayton protectorate on the FRY which includes international activities under the overseeing of the international community, the fact that the FRY has no vision, concept or strategy in its activities and the actual situation where, far from the public eye, foreign policy and diplomatic activities are conducted by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.

Six years after the Berlin wall fell, there are plans to invite guests from Slovenia and Macedonia.

Bombing the Catholic Church

An unidentified terrorist threw a bomb at the offices of the St. Ane Catholic church in Belgrade on the night of Tuesday, April 9. His holiness, Serb Patriarch Pavle, on behalf of the holy synod, clergy and all Orthodox Serb faithful, expressed the deepest regret and condemnation of the attack: "We feel that the crime was committed by a person who hasn't had enough of the misery the civil war brought us and who wants to present the Serbs as a people of hate and crime," the Patriarch said in his letter and added the hope that the perpetrator will be caught. Ten days earlier a bomb was thrown at the Bajrakli mosque in Belgrade.

Ministers and Concessions

Milutin Cirovic, vice-president of the Yugoslav Economic Chamber, asked a chamber meeting to eliminate the possibility of ministers holding directorial posts. "It's not alright for ministers to be directors or members of management boards in state companies since they are biased which is evident in the way deals and concessions are given by the state," Cirovic said.

His colleague Nikola Stojsic, president of the Vojvodina Economic Chamber, was even more direct. He suggested that the chamber publish a list of ministers and all the posts they hold along with their earnings.

Asanin released

Darko Asanin was released due to a lack of evidence. He was arrested in Rhodes on October 12 last year at the demand of the Belgian police for suspicion of the murder of Enver Kadri, chairman of the Albanian rights committee, in Brussels in 1990. As soon as he was arrested, Asanin was reported by the domestic and foreign press to have committed assassinations of political rivals abroad for the state. His friends said feverish activities at the highest levels were launched in Belgrade to get him released. A way had to be thought up for the Greeks to hand him to us and not the Belgians. The Greeks were handed a request which said the FRY also wanted Asanin for the Kadri killing but the Greeks said that was not enough since there had been an investigation which was discontinued in the FRY. So something had to be contrived, as defence lawyer Toma Fila said. Asanin was indicted for a killing in Belgrade which he wasn't involved in at all. That was enough for the Greeks to hand him over. Three days ago he was released from jail because of lack of evidence in the Kadri killing. There was no mention of the crime that he was extradited from Greece for.