Air-strikes to continue until aims are reached - NATO

NATO has said the air campaign against Yugoslavia will continue until its aims are achieved. Speaking in Brussels after an emergency meeting of the alliance's Foreign Ministers, the Secretary General, said that the military pressure would be maintained until President Milosevic backs down. Javier Solana said that the air-strikes had been taking their toll, but that NATO was not waging a war against Yugoslavia. He also set out five demands, including a halt to Serbia's offensive in Kosovo and the deployment of NATO troops in the province.

Yugoslavia says that a passenger train has been hit in a NATO attack, causing casualties. The Yugoslav military say that the train, which was en route from Leskovac to the Macedonian capital, Skopje, had been hit by a missile. There are reports that the train was on a bridge at the time of the attack. NATO said that it was aware of the reports and was checking them, but could not provide confirmation.

Albania has accused Yugoslavia of provoking a war between the two countries with cross-border shelling. The Albanian President, Rexhep Mejdani, said that his country would not be drawn into conflict even though clashes on the Yugoslav/Albanian border were continuing. He also warned that the war in Kosovo could last for months. A foreign journalist is in a coma and three Kosovar Albanian fighters were wounded following Yugoslav shelling on the Albanian side of the border yesterday.

The fighting between the Kosovo Liberation Army and Serb forces on the Yugoslav-Albania border is continuing today. Britain's Royal Air Force says that its Harrier jets have bombed a Serb fuel depot in Kosovo. The Yugoslav State news agency says that there have also been strikes in the provincial capital Pristina and in Belgrade, as well as in other Serbian locations. An airforce base and an oil refinery were among the targets hit near in Belgrade.

Albania has handed control of its airports and ports to NATO amid fears that fighting between Serb forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army could spread. The Government in Tirana has thrown its support fully behind the NATO offensive against Yugoslavia and has asked NATO to strike at Serb artillery near its border. There are growing fears that fighting in Kosovo may spread to engulf the other neighbouring Balkan states.

In Belgrade, one of Serbia's leading independent newspaper editors Slavko Curuvija has been shot dead by unidentified gunmen. Mr. Curuvija had been in conflict with the authorities for many months over his newspaper's reporting policy.