Tony Blair announced on Monday that Britain was making available pounds 10m as an initial response to the crisis.In the space of two days, 170 Italian military personnel, working with Italian and foreign aid workers, should be able to provide shelter for some 20,000 refugees. Thirty-eight buses, donated by Italian city transport authorities, will ensure the transport of exhausted families crossing the border into Albania to camps being established by the UNHCR in other parts of the country.The San Marco is expected to head back to Bari to load more relief supplies. Its sister ship, the San Giorgio, may also be deployed to transport further goods.Italy’s Interior Minister, Rosa Russo Jervolino, led an Italian delegation visiting the Albanian town of Kukes yesterday to see what is needed. An $8.5m (pounds 5.3m) pledge had been received from the United States over the weekend.
Britain has provided a transport plane to airlift tents and blankets to Albania, UNHCR said yesterday.Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, said yesterday that the situation in Kosovo had deteriorated rapidly over the past 24 hours and it was clear substantial further assistance was needed.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said it had held an emergency meeting yesterday with aid providers and had urged them to make direct donations to the countries taking in the refugees – Albania, Macedonia and the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro – concentrating on shelter, transport and medical assistance. THE EUROPEAN humanitarian relief operation got under way at dawn yesterday as 30 truck-trailers rolled off the Italian warship San Marco at the Albanian port of Durres. They were followed by 40 buses, 5,000 tents, 50,000 sleeping bags, 50 toilets as well as camp kitchens, food and medical supplies. Fisk recently received the London Press Club award for outstanding reporting.. David McKittrick, our Ireland correspondent, was also shortlisted for the award, which is presented annually in the memory of George Orwell. The judges of the award, which recognises contributions to the art of political writing, said of Fisk: “His report on the aftermath of the Gulf War, in particular its consequences for the children of Iraq, formed a sustained and impassioned humanitarian campaign. Moved by his powerful writing, readers of The Independent sent in pounds 100,000 for the underfunded hospitals where these children lay sick and dying”.

ROBERT FISK, our Middle East correspondent, was awarded the Orwell Prize for outstanding journalism last night. In reality, Yugoslavia has shrewdly kept most of its mobile anti-aircraft missile defences intact, keeping them deactivated and moving them around to avoid Nato target positioning. Whenever air- raid alerts suggest a threat to MiG airfields, Yugoslav jets are scrambled, either returning to their air bases after the alert or, if their airfields are damaged, landing on the great highways that Tito built for just such a purpose more than 20 years ago.In other words, despite all the Nato bombing, the Yugoslav armed forces are far from down and out Just who, one wonders here these days, is wagging the dog?. Four MiG pilots were promoted by President Slobodan Milosevic, and a medal of honour went to two senior officers for defending “the Fatherland’s airspace”.So much for the gongs. And indeed, yesterday’s issue of Soldier magazine – the journal of the Yugoslav armed forces – shows that Serb and Montenegrin pilots are praised as much here as Nato’s warriors of the air are on BBC World. Yesterday, for example, Care Australia reported that nine Serb refugees from Krajina, captured by Croatian forces more than four years ago, had been killed in Cacak, 85 miles from Belgrade, where they had been living in an abandoned barracks attacked by Nato.General Smiljanovic insisted that Yugoslav air defence forces had shot down seven Nato aircraft – Nato says it has lost only one – and three helicopters, more than 30 cruise missiles and three pilotlessdrone reconnaissance aircraft.Nato denies the helicopters although it has made no comment about lost drones or missiles destroyed by ground fire The general went out of his way to praise his MiG-29 pilots. Other reports said that KLA “terrorists” had attacked military positions immediately they had been targeted by Nato Clearly, there have been Serb civilian casualties.

The film report – and the arms – appeared to be new; they included a large number of anti-armour weapons, apparently of Austrian manufacture. The Kosovo town of Djakovica had been attacked by Nato forces, viewers were told, and dozens of civilian houses damaged as well as the town’s Catholic church and monastery.Serbs were outraged to be told that the Serb village of Gracanica had been almost totally destroyed by Nato bombs. Film at a different clinic showed children, said to be Albanian as well as Serb, with stomach wounds.Third item on the national news here in the past 24 hours was a dramatic report of a Yugoslav interception of Albanian “terrorists” carrying weapons into Kosovo, 13 of whom had been killed, the remainder having fled back across the border. “Such a pity! If it had come as a friend, it would still be flying.” He insists that Yugoslavia has sustained “minimal losses” among its air-raid personnel – just seven soldiers killed and 17 wounded (a lower figure than the weekend’s) – while admitting “severe damage to stationary facilities and infrastructure” costing $300m (pounds 183m).While Western television viewers were watching exhausted Kosovo Albanian refugees talking of Serb executions and “ethnic cleansing”, their Serb counterparts were seeing a badly damaged hospital in Pristina reported to have been bombed by Nato and a damaged maternity ward in which 51 babies were reportedly rescued from incubators as the air attacks began. “It flew from New Mexico to come to rest on Serb territory,” he says sarcastically. When America’s downed F-117A “Stealth” fighter-bomber comes up on the big screen, the general is in top form.

A map showed guilty nations coloured in purple, the innocent – and Russia, of course, is a very big innocent – in white.General Smiljanovic reels off the codenames of Nato jets involved in the air bombardment with all the panache of a Nato commander: F-15s, F- 16s, F-18s, EAGD “Prowlers”, A-10s, E3-Awacs, Mirages, Tornados, Harriers and B-52s. In a massive room dripping withchandeliers and decorated with two gold twin-headed eagles of Serbia and Yugoslavia, the general was even equipped with a slide projector to illustrate Nato air strikes and those countries involved in the “aggression” against Yugoslavia. While RAF officers talk to journalists in Brussels, Yugoslav Air Defence Commander General Spasoje Smiljanovic invited us for a Yugoslav armed forces military assessment in Belgrade. For to live in Belgrade just now is to see the Balkan war through a looking- glass. While BBC World and Sky TV show a war in which Kosovo Albanians suffer, Belgrade television portrays Nato’s attacks as an act of international aggression against an innocent nation – Serbia – which is fighting for its life against KLA “terrorism” in Kosovo.
Instead of fleeing Albanian refugees, it shows bombed-out Serb homes in Kosovo, wounded children – Albanian and gypsy as well as Serb – in a damaged Pristina hospital, and a massive haul of arms captured from Kosovo Albania guerrillas by young Yugoslav soldiers, one of whom eagerly passes on his love for his mother in Subotica the moment a microphone is waved in front of his face.Even the military briefings are a mirror-image of Nato press conferences. JUST AFTER Nato’s air strikes on Yugoslavia began last week, Belgrade state television entertained its viewers with Wag the Dog. It took a genius to show at such short notice a perfect copy – equally perfectly sub-titled into Serbian – of Hollywood’s fantasy about an American president who manufactures a totally artificial war in Albania to escape from private scandal.

Unlike the other “smart” weapons used so far in Operation Allied Force, in the Gulf War or in Operation Desert Fox against Iraq, it does not need clear weather.
The system is carried on the US B-1B long-range heavy bomber, four of which yesterday were on their way to the Balkans region from bases in different parts of the United States. NATO YESTERDAY deployed a new weapon in its fight against Yugoslav forces in Kosovo, a devastating bombing system which can operate accurately in bad weather and which gives no warning to the forces it is attacking. Of the six nights of the campaign so far, they have flown on only two sorties when their laser-guided bombs have been successfully dropped on targets.. Canada has also announced that it will send six more CF-18 fighters to double its presence.Bad weather has dogged the air campaign, leading to hundreds of missions being aborted because the aircraft could not be sure of dropping their weapons accurately.”We are determined, and the pilots are absolutely determined, to avoid civilian casualties if humanly possible,” said Sir Charles Guthrie, Britain’s Chief of the Defence Staff.The experience of the RAF Harriers has been particularly frustrating. America will also make use of unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Predator surveillance aircraft.The US has moved six more A-10 ground attack aircraft down to Aviano in Italy from elsewhere in Europe as it shifts its targeting, the Pentagon said. But so far, the weather and fears of attack from Serb anti-air defences have made it impossible to use such aircraft. Attacks would be escalated in number, and more aircraft – possibly including helicopter gunships – could be used.

It was conceived as a means of leverage in peace negotiations.”Mr Bacon admitted: “It is difficult to say that we have prevented one act of brutality at this stage.”Under Phase Two, the current round of attacks are limited to south of the 44th parallel, which roughly divides Yugoslavia in half This division could be overridden in Phase Three. Operation Allied Force “was not planned for this particular scenario. It was never conceived as a campaign to stop the total wipeout of a province. “In terms of the impact on their [the Serbs'] agenda we don’t think we’ve been very effective,” he said.

“We are now beginning to focus more precisely on the troops,” he said.In Brussels, a diplomat said that the mission so far had not turned out as had been hoped. The combination of the weather and the need to hit air defences has so far limited allied attacks against the Serbian troops who are attacking the civilian population in Kosovo. At the same time, the massive ethnic cleansing effort by the Yugoslav military has apparently surprised the West, leaving food supplies it had stockpiled out of reach in Kosovo.America yesterday defended the air campaign against Kosovo, saying that it had known Nato’s military goals would not be achieved overnight.”We always realised this would take some time and it would not be easy to do,” said Kenneth Bacon, spokesman for the US Department of Defense. “I think it will take much longer to degrade the forces as much as we think we need to do,” he told reporters.So far, attacks had hit the Yugoslav air defence system, command, control and communications sites, military and security police targets and defence facilities. In a tacit acceptance that the campaign so far is not achieving the desired result, the allies were considering increasing the pace, scope and focus of the attacks to stop the Yugoslav military. Nato ambassadors met in closed session in Brussels to consider the idea.
The strikes will shortly move into a third phase, the Pentagon said, with attacks aimed more directly at Yugoslav ground forces. Even if it was, we would be doing exactly what we are doing from the air now.”.

“Port facilities were much better in Saudi Arabia,” said Mr Mitchell, “and it took months to get all the pieces for Desert Storm in place. Macedonia and Greece were uncomfortable enough hosting the peace-keeping force of 28,000, and would probably face insurmountable political difficulties if they were asked to allow a much bigger invasion army to gather on their soil.Then there are the logistical difficulties. “Just to get their basic equipment there took three or four weeks,” said Mr Mitchell. Even then, Britain had to beg and borrow men and equipment from almost every corner of the military; with the cuts the armed forces have undergone since then, it would be impossible to muster a force of that size today.Assembling an armoured division strong enough to fight the Serbs would inevitably require the US to take the lead – unlikely, given the degree of opposition in Congress. At its peak, it had a reinforced division in the field, consisting of 40,000 troops, some 200 battle tanks, over 90 artillery pieces and at least 18 attack helicopters. This was planned to be the largest contingent in the 28,000-strong Nato peace-keeping force under British command.Even to assemble a force of that size would take another two weeks, however.

The remaining battle group is on 72-hour stand-by in Germany, but it would take at least 10 days to transport its heavy equipment by sea to the region through Greece.Contrast this with Britain’s contribution to the allied force that fought in the Gulf eight years ago. Fully deployed, they would have had 30 Challenger tanks, 40 Warrior fighting vehicles and 12 AS-90 155mm heavy, self-propelled guns. If the peace talks in France had succeeded, a second battle group would have been added, bringing the British contribution up to 8,000. “The rule of thumb is that an invading force should outnumber the defenders by three to one. Even if Nato took the decision to assemble such a force today, I estimate it couldn’t be done in less than four to six weeks.”It might theoretically be possible to fly 100,000 troops into the region, but it would be suicidal for them to go into Kosovo without the kind of heavy weaponry that in practical terms can be transported only by sea.Britain currently has a reinforced armoured battle group and headquarters of 4,800 troops from 4th Armoured Brigade in Macedonia.

But military strategists say if they had to fight their way in, it would take a heavily armoured force many times bigger.
“There are believed to be about 40,000 Serbian troops in Kosovo, to say nothing of possible reinforcements not far away,” said Phillip Mitchell, ground forces specialist at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Critics of the present strategy of attacking Serbia only from the air argue that soon there will not be a single Albanian left alive in the province, and that the 12,000-strong Nato troops in Macedonia, sent as the advance party of a peacekeeping force, should move into Kosovo immediately. But, leaving aside the constant assurances in recent weeks that Nato would never fight its way into Kosovo, any reversal of strategy is likely to encounter huge physical and political obstacles. AS THE world is confronted with its inability to prevent the “ethnic cleansing” and murder of thousands of Kosovo Albanians, demands for Nato to send in ground troops are getting louder. Flying over this mountainous landscape, where targets are easily concealed, it is likely the planes would have to carry out manoeuvres which could seriously affect its “stealth” characteristics.Even a standard banking turn increases the aircraft’s radar profile by 100 times, sources say.John Davison.

The Secretary of State for Health said the reduction was a “magnificent achievement” and reflected the “massive efforts” of NHS staff.
The Conservatives, however, accused Mr Dobson of fiddling the figures. The BBC said it misjudged the different nature of the Christmas night audience.. A FALL in the number of people waiting for NHS treatment in England means the Government has fulfilled its pledge to cut queues to below pre- election levels, Frank Dobson said yesterday. The BBC admitted its mistake after the Broadcasting Standards Commission yesterday upheld complaints from 18 viewers about the content of the programme.

However, the ITC can fine channels or even take away licences. The BSC has few powers.While the ITC praised ITV for increasing its ratings and introducing new programmes, a detailed reading of the channel’s performance showed it now airs the lowest amount of current affairs in its history. ITV produced just one hour and 25 minutes of current affairs per week in 1998. In 1997, the regulator had asked ITV to increase the amount of factual programming it broadcasts and last year it doubled its 1997 output.

However, most of the new programmes were so-called docu-soaps, or observational documentaries, and the ITC wants ITV to return to more thoughtful documentaries.The BBC has admitted it was wrong to allow a number of jokes about masturbation in the Christmas Day episode of Men Behaving Badly. The Broadcasting Standards Commission said its erotic series, Compromising Situations and Hotline, raised significant issues about whether programmes that include sex for sex’s sake should be allowed on free-to-air channels in the UK.At the time, Channel 5’s chief executive, David Elstein, called the BSC “anachronistic and patronising” for imposing its taste on the public. THE GOVERNMENT’S television watchdog has taken the highly unusual step of describing Channel 5 as “tacky” in its annual report, because of the broadcaster’s use of sex to attract viewers. ITV was also criticised for failing to broadcast more current affairs programmes and for having only “adequate” coverage of the Nato action in Yugoslavia during prime time this month.
The Independent Television Commission, which regulates commercial channels, singled out Channel 5’s late-night “erotic dramas” and factual shows for criticism in its evaluation of how each channel performed during 1998.Channel 5 was criticised for having a high number of breaches of the ITC programme code during the year and for “the tackiness associated with an increased use of low-budget erotic drama in the evening and of various factual programmes on sexual themes”.Factual programmes such as The Real Monty, Swindon Superbabes, Stags and Hens and On the Piste were described as “overly voyeuristic” while the explicitness of Sex and Shopping was “unsuitable for broadcast at any time”.This is the second serious criticism of the channel this year. The ASA felt that this did not represent a general attempt on the part of advertisers to shock but instead reflected a high degree of popular concern with a handful of campaigns.. The Talk Radio poster for a Lorraine Kelly show about prostitution showed a woman’s naked buttocks with one cheek stamped with a barcode.Overall, the number of complaints increased over the previous year (12,217 as against 10,676 in 1997). This is our mission.”Other ads that attracted complaints included ones for Nicky Clarke shampoo and Talk Radio.

The shampoo commercial showed a naked woman perched on the shoulders of a naked man washing his hair in a shower and received 131 complaints. The Sunday Times provoked 142 complaints with a poster designed to promote a series on the photographer Terry O’Neill. The ASA agreed that the image of a bearskin bikini-clad female model on the cross was “tasteless, provocative and blasphemous to Christians”.The authority also took a similarly dim view of a Diesel jeans magazine and poster advertisement that featured four young women dressed as nuns from the waist up, wearing jeans and holding rosaries Behind was the Virgin Mary, also in jeans “Pure virginal 100 per cent cotton,” read the copy “The finest denim clothing. His tragic demise was brought on by the breakdown of his wheel. “Kevin grew bored and died,” said a voiceover, before the dead creature was prodded with a pencil.The film prompted 519 complaints, a level of outrage broadly comparable to that provoked by Irn-Bru. The Independent Television Commission ruled that it did not breach its code, but insisted that it be broadcast after the 9pm watershed.The other common theme of the year was public concern about the depiction of religion and related symbols.

“When I’m a burger,” she says, “I want to be washed down with Irn-Bru.”

According to the annual report of the Advertising Standards Authority, published today, the bovine musings prompted 589 complaints – the most for a single poster or press advertisement last year.
The watchdog, which polices non-broadcast advertisements in the UK, disagreed with the complainants, concluding that the majority seeing it would not be offended. But the Irn-Bru cow and a press ad for TCP throat lozenges featuring a man with a tiger wrapped around his neck have prompted warnings from the ASA that advertisers need to take more care when portraying animals. “In past reports,” the statement said, “the ASA has highlighted the need for advertisers to be more aware of public sensitivities when portraying women.”But in 1998, those that attracted most complaints caused problems because of their portrayal of animals.”The ASA’s identification of a national unease about the commercial exploitation of sundry furry animals tallies with concerns expressed about television commercials.The most controversial TV ad of last year featured a dead pet hamster called Kevin. A MOURNFUL looking Jersey cow peers out of what has emerged as the most reviled poster advertisement of 1998. The council wants new laws that will lead to planning consent being refused where there is already an excessive supply of land to quarry.The Government is currently waiting for the quarrying industry to make proposals on how it can minimise harm caused to the countryside but the council believes voluntary measures will be insufficient.Ms Richmond added: “Minerals planning policy risks being stuck in a time warp as the Government begins to green up its act on transport and new housing.”We need a fresh approach which protects the countryside from damaging quarries and reduces the demand for building materials.”From Matlock Bathby John BetjemanHow long before the pleasant acresOf intersecting Lovers’ WalksAre rolled across by limestone breakers,Whole woodlands snapp’d like cabbage stalks?O God, our help in ages past,How long will Speedwell Cavern last?. As you visit areas of south-west England or northern England particularly, you can see huge swaths of landscape have been cut out. This has major implications for our cultural history.”The council has used parts of the countryside with strong literary associations to illustrate the threat posed to the environment by extraction of minerals such as sand, gravel and crushed rock.Its report, Quarry Conflicts, is published at a time when the Government is reviewing its quarrying policy.In addition to areas that have already been scarred, local authorities have permission to quarry a further four and a half billion tons of minerals.

The Independent’s Andreas Whittam Smith is anti (and at least three of this paper’s other columnists are pro); and the ubiquitous Roy Hattersley is “on balance” pro.The diversity and debate in the British press is just what contrasts it with a monolithic media in Belgrade, now Milosevic has shut down B92 radio and other independent services (on Saturday official Belgrade radio cheerfully reported that two pilots had been captured and four Cruise missiles downed, and that the Pentagon had “confirmed the losses”).Nevertheless, the Daily Mail is in a category of its own. Philip Stephens (the Financial Times) is pro, though wants ground troops involved; The Guardian’s Hugo Young is pro; The Express’s Andrew Marr is critical. Two of the most-read Times commentators, Simon Jenkins and Matthew Parris, are strongly opposed. True, The Sun, with its “Clobba Slobba” headlines is doing its best. But just as the support for the war is less gung-ho, so no one has yet turned on the editorialists and commentators who oppose the war to accuse them of being disloyal or unpatriotic, let alone treacherous – even though the Serbian media is closely monitoring British coverage and regularly quotes articles which criticise the war effort.In fact the opinions of commentators haven’t necessarily been easy to call in advance, to judge by a sample from last week. There is much less jingoism in editorialising and commentary on this war – at least in middle-market and upmarket papers – than there was during the Falklands war or even the Gulf war. And the Daily Mail, of which more in a moment, reflects the Tory right, which has been the most condemnatory of the Nato bombing,The Observer’s Suez history is a reminder of something else that has changed.

The Times and The Telegraph mirror the Tory front bench which – with reservations – has backed the Government. The notable exception last weekend was The Independent on Sunday, The Observer’s main rival for the liberal audience, which came out unequivocally against the war, arguing cogently that Nato was the wrong institution to be acting as the world’s policeman. But otherwise The Guardian, The Independent and the pro-Labour tabloids The Sun and The Mirror (apart from the latter’s Paul Routledge) have been supportive. The Express has also supported British involvement in the war, although more questioningly.
In this respect the left-of-centre press has broadly reflected the larger political community, in which the strongest support, naturally, is among Government backbenchers who believe in an “ethical foreign policy” and a new international order, in which military intervention to protect the oppressed is regarded as desirable.

The paper was factually right, as it subsequently turned out, but that didn’t stop it suffering obloquy for its perceived lack of patriotism for years afterwards – even though Hugh Gaitskell’s Labour party was also opposed to the war

The Observer’s reverse is symbolic for several reasons. The first is that it is the left to liberal press, which has been most squeamish about war in the past, and which is now the most supportive of Nato. More boldly still, it accused Anthony Eden, the prime minister of the day, of misleading Parliament because he had refused to acknowledge covert Israeli involvement in the operation. THERE WAS something deeply symbolic about The Observer coming out in favour of the Nato bombing on Sunday with an editorial headlined: “There is no alternative to this war.” In 1956 it was the same paper that incurred the wrath of advertisers and readers by opposing Britain’s engagement in Suez. “There is room for only one arty, rather highbrow success at any one time,” says Mr Buckingham.In all, it seems the most important message is for film-makers to break out of the cosy circle of directors, producers and broadsheet reviewers, and step into the dangerous world of the out-of-town multiplex, tabloid feature writers and regional TV stations.With that, they should add a dash of focus group and polling, and be prepared to change their product if necessary – just as the major Hollywood studios do Either that, or keep their integrity and stay poor..

The hardest blow of all was the release and success of Shakespeare in Love at approximately the same time. “The posters were sexy and the trailer was positively raunchy, but they overplayed their hand.”Despite the reviews, the rest of the media coverage was negative, with many lovers of classical music boycotting a film they perceived to demean the cellist’s memory, and the mass-market audience uninterested in the subject matter.Then there was the problem of the title, with some potential viewers inevitably confused by the apparent reference to American First Ladies. “Unless it’s an action thriller and you’re absolutely sure who is going to come and see the film, you’ll want to check” – and that means using preview showings and focus-group discussions, he said.Mr Buckingham would not be drawn on individual film-makers, but another British industry source, well-versed in marketing, said directors and producers frequently had very little idea how to make their films succeed financially.”There are too many people out there who think that, if they have a decent product, it will succeed on its own merits and from the reviews,” she said.There are three main conclusions that film marketeers agree on.First, media reviews play only a minor role in attracting crowds, and are less important than either the press or many directors think.”Word of mouth is by far the most important factor,” said Mr Buckingham.Second, coverage in the main sections of the press, often achieved through the news pages and through feature articles, is very important, but can occasionally be a two-edged sword when it turns out to be of the negative variety.Third, focus groups, the bane of many creative types who prefer to trust instinct, are becoming increasingly prevalent, even in the low-budget, specialist film market, and their influence is spreading backwards through the film-making process so that even scriptwriters may come under their influence.The film industry source points to the example of Hilary and Jackie, this year’s biopic of Jacqueline du Pre and her sister, as a film that fell foul of some of the key rules.”The reviews were very good, and the marketing made a positive effort to open up a specialist film to a much wider audience,” he says. Mr Buckingham spoke off the record at the seminar, but said afterwards that there was an essential issue which film-makers had to tackle as early as possible in the process.Directors and producers have to decide who their audience will be. And consumers are being saturated with information, publicity and informed opinion in greater quantities than ever before.In such a sophisticated world, then, making a great movie plainly isn’t enough.”Marketing is very, very important to ensure that a film gets the results it deserves at the box office,” said Peter Buckingham, director of Film Four, Channel 4’s film distribution arm.