ANEM WEEKLY MEDIA UPDATE

AUGUST 11 - AUGUST 17, 2001

• CRKVENJAKOV RESPONDS

BELGRADE, August 13, 2001 - The Radio Television of Serbia director Aleksander Crkvenjakov said yesterday that the editor-in-chief of Radio Television of Serbia had to have a strong support from their media organisation to do the job.

Crkvenjakov appeared as a guest on the BK Television programme "Nije srpski cutati" ("It is not like Serbs to be tacit"), saying that nobody had been in favour of accepting Gordana Susa for the position of editor-in-chief of the News Programmes of Radio Television of Serbia, and added that the best idea had been to suggest Bojana Lekic, Nenad Cekic, or Zoran Petrovic Pirocanac for that position.

He declined to say explicitly which of them would be the best candidate for the position in his opinion.

While commenting on alleged political meddling in the work of the national Television, Crkvenjakov said that the matter was for the time being "benign", although he did not exclude the possibility of its becoming worse in the future. (Beta)

• HACKERS THREATEN TELECOM SERBIA AFTER PRICE RISE

BELGRADE, August 13, 2001 - If Telecom Serbia does not drop down to the old price and duration of telephone impulses, hackers threatened to block its communication lines by Friday.

Branimir Peric, director of the Directory for Information Technologies for Telecom Serbia, explained that the first attack had come from the direction of Italy, and that they had sent a demand to the Italians to locate the source of attacks and to check with their providers what it had been all about.

Peric added that Telecom Serbia had not brought any criminal charges, and that they had nothing to do with the criminal proceedings which had been initiated against an anonymous person by the District Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade and by the Second Municipal Public Prosecutor's Office.

• NUNS APPEALS FOR END TO POLITICAL PRESSURE ON MEDIA

BELGRADE, August 14, 2001 - The Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia (NUNS) work group for the protection of journalists appealed to the politicians not to exert pressures on the media in their public debates.

In yesterday's statement, the Independent Association of Journalists of Serbia said that with the responsibility to inform the public comes the responsibility to report information from sources in which the media have confidence with regard to their place and position in society.

At the same time, NUNS encouraged the media to do everything while looking for the information, in order to avoid becoming instruments of politicking.

The meeting of the work group for journalists' protection was held to discuss the scandal ensuing from media reports on the murder of former secret policeman Momir Gavrilovic.

• DAILY GLAS JAVNOSTI FACES CRIMINAL CHARGE

BANJA LUKA, August 15, 2001 - Republika Srpska finance minister Milenko Vracar brought criminal charges against the Belgrade-based daily Glas Javnosti on grounds of defamation before the First Municipal Court in Belgrade as a private citizen.

Vracar is asking for 30 million Yugoslav dinars in compensation.

Vracar accused Glas Javnosti of publishing a series of articles containing false information, including an August 1 article claiming that Republika Srpska prime minister Mladen Ivanic would dismiss Vracar in September.

Titled "Ministers Mind Their Own Business," the article contends that Vracar paid 500,000 Deutschmarks to be chosen for the position of the Finance Minister.

However, Banja Luka daily Nezavisne novine reported that the authorship of this article, signed by journalist Dragan J. Vucicevic, was in question.

Vucicevic stressed that he had never written anything about Milenko Vracar. (SRNA)

• OBRAD SAVIC TO RTS: THANKS, BUT NO THANKS

BELGRADE, August 16, 2001 - In his open letter to Aleksandar Crkvenjakov and Rade Veljanovski, dated August 14, Obrad Savic expressed his gratitude for the confidence they had shown by choosing him for the position of editor-in-chief of the Third Programme of Radio Beograd.

Unfortunately, he said, due to exceptional circumstances arising after his selection, he was not ready to take over that exceptionally delicate institutional duty.

Savic clarified his motives in an open letter to the public explaining his misgivings about Radio Beograd's Third Programme.

He wrote in this letter that the spontaneous political campaign that had been staged by the mummified part of the Radio Beograd Third Programme editing committee had excited a media response where the law of the provincial lynching was still being respected.

He added that the Radio Beograd Third Programme had to get rid of the traditional state tutorship and of the political interventions. It should be unburdened from the easy-come budgetary influx, and that basically the Radio Beograd Third Programme would have to correct its quasi-elitist programme schedule, he said.

Only under these circumstances would it be possible to do away with the former shameful history of the Third Programme and to grant amnesty to the politically and professionally inferior wing of their old editing committee, Savic warned.

• CONDEMNATION OF THE BLIC JOURNALIST'S ARREST

BELGRADE, August 16, 2001 - ANEM made a public statement yesterday sharply condemning the arrest and police interrogation of the editor-in-chief of the daily Blic, Veselin Siminovic, and its head editor for domestic politics, Dusko Vukajlovic.

ANEM demanded an emergency adoption of the new media act, which would legally provide for the right of journalists to protect the source of their information.

• TELEKOM SRBIJA ON DoS ATTACK

BELGRADE, August 16, 2001 - Telecommunications monopoly Telekom Srbija issued an official statement yesterday giving more details about the attack on the Internet capacities of this organization.

The Denial of Service (DoS) attack had lasted for about three hours.

Although all the end users felt the effects of that attack, the hackers did not full succeed in their aim of disabling Telekom Srbija's internet service or breaking into its computers.

The time period given by the hackers in their ultimatum last week to Telekom Srbija expires today.

• TELCO MINISTRY WILL NOT SUPPORT THIRD PRICE RISE

BELGRADE, August 16, 2001 - The Ministry of Telecommunications responded yesterday to Telekom Srbija director Dragor Hiber's announcement of a third price rise for telecom services by explaining the ministry would not support this third price rise because they feel it would be too big a financial burden on Telekom Srbija's customer base, an anonymous source told daily Glas javnosti.

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