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# World Bank urges disbursement of aid to Kosovo before winter
# Kosovo Faces Another Rough Winter - U.N. Official
# EU bank seeks rebuilding role
# Directors named for Radio Television Kosovo (RTK)
 

http://asia.yahoo.com/headlines/290999/world/938550780-90928203355.newsworld.html

World
4:33 AM GMT+8, Wednesday September 29

World Bank urges disbursement of aid to Kosovo before winter

WASHINGTON, Sept 28 (AFP) - The World Bank and the European Union on Tuesday urged donors to make good on their financial pledges to Kosovo before temperatures plunge in the Balkans and the first snow falls.
     They also reminded United Nations authorities in the province to take "all necessary steps" to ensure that the Kosovo budget is fully accountable and transparent.
     The appeals were issued following a meeting here of a steering group that was formed at a June summit of leading industrialized nations to oversee the reconstruction of Bosnia-Hercegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia and Romania, as well as Kosovo.
     At a July conference, donors pledged more than two billion dollars for Kosovo, a mainly Albanian province of Serbia devastated earlier this year by anti-Albanian Serbian violence and a 78-day NATO bombing campaign.
     To date between 400 and 500 million dollars have actually been disbursed, according to the World Bank.
     "We urge donors to disburse quickly their pledges" to help the population prepare for the brutal Balkan winter, the steering group said in a statement.
     World Bank President James Wolfensohn said Kosovo would likely need about 2.5 billion dollars in total over the next two to three years. But he stressed that the goal now was to get the recovery underway.
     "I think the back of the program has been broken. What we need to look at now is implementation of projects, how we can get the area established with its own framework so that we cannot only have outside assistance but ... get things generating again so that the private sector can come in."
     Another Kosovo donors' conference is scheduled for mid-November, where according to Wolfensohn, project implementation rather than winning pledges of additional money would top the agenda.
     The steering group meeting, co-chaired by European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Pedro Solbes Mira, also urged UN authorities, who now administer Kosovo, to hasten measures to transform the province into a market economy friendly to private investment.
     "We recognize that substantial challenges still lie ahead as (the United Nations) works to implement its plans to address urgent issues as well as longer term reconstruction needs," the statement said.
     The steering group convened here during the annual general assembly of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Copyright © 1999 AFP

Wednesday September 29 4:32 PM ET

Kosovo Faces Another Rough Winter - U.N. Official

By David Ljunggren

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The top United Nations humanitarian official in Kosovo Wednesday said the war-torn region faced another rough winter and that thousands of people would be forced to spend it in tents.
     Dennis McNamara, deputy special representative in Kosovo's U.N. administration, warned the 800,000 or so refugees that contrary to their expectations, there would be no major housing reconstruction before winter began.
     ``It will certainly be a tough winter for many Kosovars, I'm afraid, yet again,'' he told a U.N. briefing. ``Some of us believe it might get more difficult before it gets better in Kosovo.''
     More than 100,000 houses were damaged or destroyed during Serbia's offensive against Kosovo's Albanian majority, which ended after a NATO air campaign earlier this year.
     The United Nations and aid agencies are racing against time to ensure that as many people as possible get basic repair materials before the first snows.
     ``There will be no major housing reconstruction in Kosovo before the winter. This is a very important message we need to get out, including to the Kosovars, many of whose expectations have been unduly raised, partly by our presence I'm sure,'' McNamara said.

REPAIR KITS TO BE AVAILABLE

He said the United Nations and other aid agencies would provide temporary repair kits capable of patching up one basic room in 50,000 damaged houses. An estimated 350,000 people could spend the winter inside as a result.
     ``The other 300,000 to 400,000 people whose homes have been completely destroyed ... will have to continue being accommodated with host families, relatives and friends, in tents and elsewhere during the winter,'' he said.
     ``We're in the middle of a very difficult and complex phase in this operation and I think many of us also realize winter will be an extremely testing time for the entire operation.''
     McNamara also said he was worried by the number of revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians on local Serbs in the region.
     Tensions between ethnic Albanians and Serbs remain high and several people have been killed in revenge attacks. Two Serbs died in a rocket grenade attack Tuesday in the southern Kosovo town of Kosovo Polje.
     Some Gypsies have already fled Kosovo, fearing violence from Albanians who accuse them of siding with the Serbs.
     McNamara said ``attacks continue on a regular basis against Serbs in Kosovo and less acutely, but consistently, the Roma Gypsy population in parts of Kosovo.''
     ``We believe that more than 100,000 Serbs and several thousand Roma have left Kosovo and Montenegro in recent months, including since we arrived.''
     He said that since the end of the war in June, 44 people had been killed and 194 injured by mines and unexploded bombs.

Copyright © 1996-1999 Reuters Limited

Wednesday September 29 1999
World News / Europe

BALKANS: EU bank seeks rebuilding role

By Kevin Done, East Europe Correspondent

The European Investment Bank, the financing arm of the European Union, is seeking a co-ordinating role in the financing of infrastructure projects in south-east Europe as part of international efforts to accelerate reconstruction in the wake of the war in Yugoslavia. Sir Brian Unwin, EIB president, said yesterday that the bank's Balkans task force had identified a first list of potential projects worth around E6bn ($6.3bn), that would satisfy the bank's lending criteria and could take at least three to five years to complete.
     The EIB's study was presented yesterday to the high-level steering group on economic co-ordination in south-east Europe meeting in Washington. However, the EIB still needs permission from the EU to allow it to operate in Kosovo, which remains under Yugoslav sovereignty under the terms of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
     The EIB is conducting a further mission in the region this week to seek to examine more closely projects that include investments in roads, railways, ports and airports as well as in water supplies, telecommunications and energy and the Danube waterway, which has been blocked by the collapse of bridges hit during Nato's 11-week bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.
     Sir Brian said that priorities had to be very clear since investment needs were "enormous" and financial resources were "extremely scarce", and projects must generate "an adequate economic return", he said.
     Financial institutions still face significant obstacles in gaining backing for investment in regional infrastructure projects, as many western governments, in particular the US and the UK, remain reluctant to provide financial support for Serbia, as long as Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic remains in power.
     The EIB said that a special case could be made for restoring urgently the function of the Danube as an international shipping artery serving trade between central Europe and the Black Sea.
     The report says that clearing the Danube "is likely to be take several years", estimating during the latest war in Yugoslavia 50 road bridges were damaged or destroyed, of which nine were across main rivers, the Danube and the Sava.
     Some 19 railway bridges and 12 airports were severely damaged. The destruction in Yugoslavia has badly affected trade between the Balkans and central and western Europe as the country straddles most of the main transit routes.
     The report recommends that projects in the energy sector should prioritise the interconnection of national networks with the aim of improving the quality of power supplies in the region. There is little need for new electricity generating capacity.

© Copyright The Financial Times Limited 1999

News
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
Mission in Kosovo
28 September 1999

Directors named for Radio Television Kosovo (RTK)

PRISTINA, 28 September 1999 - A former president of the Swiss Broadcasting Association, Mr. Eric Lehmann, took up his position as the new general director for Radio Television Kosovo (RTK) today.
     Mr. Lehmann is heading the joint operations of RTK and will direct its transformation into a modern broadcasting company. He will be assisted by two directors - one for radio, Mr. Agim Fetahaj, and one for television, who is expected to be named soon. Both directors will have Kosovo deputy directors. The goal of the transformation process is to replace international staff as soon as possible with local journalists and technicians. RTK ultimately will have complete Kosovo management. The staff of the former Radio TV Pristina have agreed to join forces in this process.
     The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is establishing a public broadcasting service in Kosovo as part of its responsibility for media under the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. The service will be publicly financed, free of political interference and beyond the control of special interest groups.
     The current TV Kosovo and Radio Pristina were put on air quickly to fill an information void that existed. Now the work of installing a more permanent structure is under way. The priorities, in technical terms, include restoring the terrestrial transmitter facility and replacing outdated radio transmitting capacity with modern equipment. At present, RTK broadcasts are available only via satellite.
     As a public broadcasting organization, RTK also will need a legal basis. The drafting of appropriate legislation will follow the lines of other European broadcasting services, in consultation with the Kosovo Media Policy Advisory Board and media in Kosovo. The legislative framework will establish the mechanism for financing RTK and determine labour law status of the employees.
     Following is biographical data on the new RTK directors.

Mr. Eric Lehmann, general director, Radio Television Kosovo

Born in 1947, Eric Lehmann took up journalism with Swiss Radio International (1968). From 1969-1981 he was working for the French channel of Swiss Television and become Anchorman of the French language newscast (Telejournal) from 1981-85. He then was editor in chief of the Geneva-based newspaper La Suisse and became Publisher of the Tribune de Geneve in 1990. In 1992 he was appointed President (Chairman of the Board) of the Swiss Broadcasting Association. In that capacity he was member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Francophone TV Stations. He also held various functions within the Swiss Crisis Emergency Media Service, a unit that is meant to supply the public with multilingual emergency broadcasting in case of disaster or armed conflict.

Mr. Agim Fetahaj, director, Television Kosovo

Born in 1959, Mr Fetahaj completed law studies in Pristina before taking up journalism with Radio Pristina in 1984. After working in the Radio Pristina newsroom, in 1989 Mr Fetahaj become U.S. correspondent for Radio TV Pristina as well as for the Rilindja Daily. Since 1990, Mr Fetahaj has been an international radio broadcaster/editor for the Albanian language service of Voice of America.

The OSCE Mission in Kosovo has specific responsibilities in the areas of police training, media affairs, rule of law and human rights, democratization and elections. More information is available by visiting the website at http://www.osce.org/kosovo

Roland Bless, OSCE Spokesperson
OSCE Mission in Kosovo
Tel.:(+381) 38 500 162 (ext. 118); mobile: (389) 70 250 576
E-mail: info@osce.org
Website: http://www.osce.org

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