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Around the World

Serbs defiant, refuse Kosovo peace plan

Setting up new obstacles to the proposed deal during the second day of peace talks near the Arc de Triomphe, Serbs were demanding amendments to a U.S.-sponsored plan - significant changes that foreign mediators called unacceptable.

Serbian President Milan Milutinovic said his side refuses the key part of the plan - having NATO troops implement it - and would sign only the political provision "under the precondition'' that the mediators ''accept all of our complaints."

Milutinovic's comments at the Paris peace talks brought closer the prospect of NATO airstrikes against Serbia.

Western nations sponsoring the talks have said the military and political components of the peace plan are inseparable.

Accusing Serb negotiators of backtracking, U.S. State Department spokesperson James Rubin said ''time and patience clearly are running out'' and that the Serbs must decide ''whether they want a peace agreement rather than a catastrophe.''

In Kosovo, meanwhile, three villages were reported ablaze as Serb-led government forces pushed ethnic Albanian rebels deeper into a snowy mountain range.

''While we are negotiating in good faith, the Serbs are engaged in police and military activity in Kosovo,'' said Veton Surroi, a member of the ethnic Albanian delegation at the talks.

The ethnic Albanian leadership agreed to sign onto the peace plan Monday, making good on a pledge they gave mediators Feb. 23 when the first round of the talks recessed at Rambouillet, France.

But in a sign that all ethnic Albanian factions are not united, hard-line rebels in the northern part of Kosovo accused their negotiators in Paris of selling out on the goal of independence.

''We know it is very easy for them to accept a compromise ... because it wasn't their friends who were killed and whose dying wish was for our people to fight until Kosovo is free,'' said the Podujevo sector commander of the KLA.

The commander, who goes by the nom de guerre ''Remi'' and has been an outspoken critic of the plan, made his statement in Tuesday's edition of the Albanian-language newspaper Koha Ditore.

Diplomats inside the talks, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Serbs had proposed a list of amendments that would radically limit Kosovo Albanian autonomy.

A Western diplomat said the proposals would significantly change the deal.

The diplomats said if there was no progress soon with the Serbs, the negotiations may end by Friday. The United States and its Western allies will then have to decide about possible military intervention to end the Kosovo bloodshed.

The agreement would give the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo wide political autonomy, while keeping the province within Serbia's borders.

The plan provides for 28,000 NATO troops, including up to 4,000 Americans, to enforce it -a provision Serb-led Yugoslavia will not accept.

''We reject foreign troops,'' Milutinovic said.

British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who is co-chairing the talks along with French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine, praised the Albanian side for shoowing ''real courage'' in promising to sign onto the peace plan.

''We need the Serb side to show the same courage,'' Cook said.

Despite international pressure, the Serbs continued to dismiss the Albanian plan to sign.

''Unilateral signing does not mean anything,'' Milutinovic said.

Asked whether NATO bombing of Serbia was now more likely, he responded: ''This is not out of the question, but we are not afraid of that.''

Fighting in Kosovo, a province in Yugoslavia's republic of Serbia, has killed more than 2,000 people and displaced 300,000 over the past year.

The fighting has picked up since the first round of talks ended, with the two sides apparently vying for position ahead of a political settlement.

U.N. refugee officials said at least 9,000 people have been driven out of their homes since Monday alone. The scale of fighting is at its highest level since an October cease-fire, UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said.

In a move that could bring further trouble to the talks, Yugoslavia asked Interpol to assist in the arrest of the head of the ethnic Albanian delegation, Hashim Thaci.

The 29-year-old Thaci is wanted for murder in connection with the Kosovo rebellion, the state-run Tanjug news agency said.

Balloonists heading toward Mexico

Earlier yesterday, the Breitling Orbiter 3 set a record for longest distance flown in a balloon, passing the milestone of 14,236 miles over the Pacific, said Brian Smith, a flight controller at the Geneva control center.

Bertrand Piccard of Switzerland and Brian Jones of England lifted off from the Swiss Alps on March 1. They were expected to cross the Mexican coast near Acapulco late yesterday, and pass over the country in a mere five hours, Smith said.

The support crew in Geneva popped open a bottle of champagne as the balloon came within an hour of reaching the Mexican coast.

"We're very close to it," Smith said. "We will then cross Mexico and pass to the south of Cuba."

The team earlier yesterday had received permission from Mexico and Cuba to fly through their air space, meteorologist Pierre Eckert said.

If the team makes it to North Africa, possibly by Saturday afternoon, it will have traveled more than 26,000 miles and Piccard and Jones will break a record that has eluded the world's top balloonists for years.

"If I get there, I really won't be able to believe it," Piccard told Swiss Television as he raced along at 119 miles per hour.

Since the balloon is traveling at 36,000 feet, it will be difficult to see it from the earth's surface, the control center said.

As they closed in on Mexico, Piccard and Jones were relieved to be leaving the vast Pacific, where they have spent the past six days with little to look at but ocean.

"The crossing of the Pacific has put us through some anguish," the control center quoted Piccard as saying. He noted that the Breitling Orbiter's path near the equator had caused the team communications problems - the huge silver balloon blocked the capsule's antennas from connecting with the satellite nearly straight overhead.

The team had to rely on a ground station in California to relay radio messages to their meteorologists in Geneva.

Jones and Piccard, who had drifted as slow as 30 mph sometimes, finally reached a jet stream southeast of Hawaii for the trip to Mexico.

The balloon will have to leave the jet stream north of Mexico City, because the wind would take them too far north into a busy air-traffic corridor, so it will slow down somewhat to head east out over the Atlantic.

The control center said the speed has helped conserve propane, which fuels the burners in the lower, hot-air section of the balloon. The burners are needed to keep the balloon afloat.

The control center said there may be enough fuel left for the balloon to go farther into North Africa than the 9 degrees west longitude that constitutes the "finish line." Jones would like to land by the pyramids of Egypt.

"It's looking quite possible at the moment," Smith said from Geneva. "The fuel consumption has been slightly better than forecast. We feel we might just fly on a little bit further towards Egypt."

03-17-99