Belgrade street protests continue

MORE than 10,000 Serbs turned out on the streets of the capital again yesterday in continued attempts to force the resignation…

MORE than 10,000 Serbs turned out on the streets of the capital again yesterday in continued attempts to force the resignation of the President, Mr Slobodan Milosevic.

Thousands of striking students and about 100 professors rallied outside university buildings and marched through the capital in protest at alleged electoral fraud.

Despite biller weather, tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in the last 11 days to protest the authorities' refusal to accept the results of local elections on November 17th, which an opposition coalition, Together, claims to have won.

Together said it had won control of 15 out of 18 key cities, including the capital, giving Belgrade a non communist government for the first time since 1945.

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On Sunday, the authorities annulled the results in areas claimed as victories by the opposition, and on Wednesday held a partial re run vote in Belgrade.

Officials said yesterday that Mr Milosevic's Serbian Socialist Party had won the new round of voting, taking 58 seats against 31 for Together, with the rest going to minor parties. Together claimed more than 60 seats in the voting annulled by the electoral commission, which is packed with supporters of Mr Milosevic's party.

The mass street protests are the biggest challenge to Mr Milosevic's authority since student protests in 1992 and have received cautious backing from international authorities.