Issue 233 - March 26, 1996

The Ministry of Culture will decide on whether or not to register Soros Foundation by April 15

If the Serbian Government keeps its promises, in ten years' time the per capita income will be a quarter of what the Slovenes have now

It seems that Mirko Marjanovic didn't earn anything from the wheat deal either as director of Progres or prime minister, though some of his deputies and ministers did

Something for the Serbian opposition: besides leaders, the parties also need voters and, in many cases, members. Why does the opposition seem like an army that broke apart in maneuvers, if there ever was an army?

An illustration of monocratic rule: 33.4% (51 of 153) of the SPS main board kept their positions after the party congress in March compared to 23.1% (6 of 26) of the executive board

The station is the Independent Radio Penguin (on 90.9 MHz) which changed its name to Radio Tiger on Monday, March 18. It changed from the hands of businessman Giovanni Di Steffano to the hands of another businessman - Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan

The authorities are very sensitive to the criticism that Serbia, at least in terms of the electronic media, does not have enough media freedom and diversity; whenever it can, the ruling party and its trusted people set up a radio or TV station. The strategy is simple and efficient: the conventional state media (RTS and affiliated stations) serve to raise ideological awareness among the masses while commercial and private media serve to entertain and make sure everything is fun.

In this interview with VREME, the head of the homicide department gave statistics on the rising number of murders in Belgrade over the past 10 years (table 1), explained that the number of murders with NN (unidentified) perpetrators was growing and that people were trying to hide more crimes than before. Gvozden Gagic confirmed the impression that there is an increasing number of young (often underage) killers in Belgrade but stressed that fact should be viewed as part of the overall rise in the number of murders:

Vojislav, 24, is a handsome young man from a decent family. He had a six-year relationship with Ivana, a girl from a respectable family also. Everything seemed to be perfect. Last Monday, an apparently dejected young man with a trembling, barely audible voice, was telling the judge what happened in his Belgrade home on August 28, 1995.

The 90's in Serbia have imposed a new style of living - mere survival. The family at all costs sticks together, protecting itself from forcible destruction of privacy, standard and breakdown of the moral system of values. The most important thing is the animal struggle for survival until the next day, week and month. The day-to-day life of the 90's has deprived the family even of the usual entertainment and pastime and imposed the "turbo-folk" music