ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, February 25, 1997 TAG: 9702250116
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
Opposition takes over local media
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia - Belgrade's new leaders, the first non-communists to rule the city since 1945, appointed a pair of well-known independent journalists Monday to an influential television station.
Lila Radonjic, the new chief editor at Studio B, appeared on the evening news, saying an independent course would begin immediately - and that appeared to be the case.
Reports followed on all political parties in Serbia, and the reporting did not favor either the opposition coalition Zajedno, or President Slobodan Milosevic's Socialists, the former Communists.
Radonjic and Zoran Ostjoic, the new director, worked at the station before Milosevic took it over in 1994. Control of the media has been a powerful tool and, although Milosevic agreed to give up control of the city councils, he is reluctant to lose the state-run media.
The opposition took control in Belgrade and 13 other major Serbian towns Friday, following three months of street protests against Milosevic's annulment of opposition victories in November municipal elections.
- Associated Press
Report: Pyramids found in Siberia
BARNAUL, Russia - A Russian news agency reported Monday that archeologists claim to have discovered funeral pyramids in the remote Altai territory of Siberia.
The step pyramids, similar to ones in Latin America, were found last summer in the Sentelek Valley of the Charysh district, Interfax said.
Subsequent research has found that the structures date to the fourth century B.C., Pyotr Shulga, head of the Inheritance scientific research center, was quoted as saying.
The Siberian pyramids were constructed of ceramic plates covered with turf and stone, and are hollow inside in order to allow priests to visit the dead, he said.
Two 2,500-year-old mummies have been found in the same region of Siberia, near Russia's border with Mongolia. Scientists believe they belonged to the Scythian tribes that roamed the steppes from the Black Sea to Mongolia.
- Associated Press
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