Note: forwarded message attached.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail!
http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/
--- Begin Message ---
Reuters. 5 January 2002. Yugoslavia stands firm on bank closures.
BELGRADE -- Hundreds of employees barricaded themselves inside four
Yugoslav banks on Friday in protest at a government decision to close
them, the country's largest such corporate shutdown ever, affecting
8,500 people.
Federal Finance Minister Jovan Rankovic announced his resignation after
voicing criticism of the closures.
But Yugoslav officials showed no sign of bowing to pressure to reverse
Thursday's decision to close Beogradska Banka, Beobanka, Investbanka and
Jugobanka as part of World Bank-sponsored reform of its fragile
financial system.
"There is a freedom to protest, there will be no force used to stop
them, but these banks are not working any longer," Yugoslav central bank
governor Mladjan Dinkic told reporters.
Analysts say closing inefficient socialist-era companies is inevitable
by authorities introducing a Western-style market economy following the
2000 ouster of authoritarian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
Once relatively prosperous in communist eastern and central Europe,
Yugoslavia plunged into poverty in the 1990s as a result of war [read:
NATO] and Western sanctions against Milosevic's government.
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
--- End Message ---
