[Photo shows several thousand angry demonstrators gathering outside the parliament building in the Macedonian capital, Skopje, to protest against what they see as the government's leniency towards ethnic Muslim Albanians fighting for equal rights] 


BELGRADE (Islamweb & Agencies) - Yugoslavia moved closer Monday to handing over former President Slobodan Milosevic for an international trial on Kosovo war crimes charges, taking the first legal step required for his transfer to the U.N. court in The Hague.
Yugoslav Justice Minister Momcilo Grubac forwarded to a local court the U.N. tribunal's request for the Milosevic's transfer, as he is required to do under a decree passed Saturday by the Yugoslav government, an official statement said.
But lawyers representing the former president, ousted in October and arrested in April on suspicion of abuse of power, vowed to try to prevent the country's new reformist authorities from sending him to the Dutch-based tribunal.
The decree, passed less than a week before a donors' meeting at which cash-strapped Yugoslavia hopes to raise nearly 1.3 billion, states the court must inform the Justice Ministry within three days of the result of the tribunal's request.
The United States said Monday it had still not decided whether to attend the donors' conference.
The decree sets out an appeals procedure for those indicted who are already subject to criminal proceedings in Yugoslavia, in theory lasting up to 23 more days.
Yugoslav leaders have said that Milosevic and other suspects could be transferred within two to three weeks.
The statement from the government of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic, said the justice minister's request means ''concrete cooperation'' with the U.N. tribunal had been launched in line with the federal decree.
EU SAYS CONFERENCE TO GO AHEAD
In Luxembourg, the European Union said the June 29 donors' conference in Brussels would go ahead as planned following the government's adoption of the decree.
But a U.S.-based rights group said there was little concrete evidence of Belgrade's cooperation and that the decree had loopholes.
Lawyers for Milosevic Monday lodged an appeal against the decree with Yugoslavia's Constitutional Court, saying it violates a constitutional ban on extraditing Yugoslav citizens.
Milosevic's once-ruling Socialist Party said it would hold a protest rally against the decree in Belgrade Tuesday evening.
The reformers who ousted Milosevic say handing a suspect over to the tribunal does not amount to an extradition as it is a U.N. institution, not a foreign state.
If upheld, the decree paves the way for a high-profile trial of the man who led Serbia and Yugoslavia for more than a decade on charges of crimes against humanity linked to mass killings and expulsions in the Kosovo conflict in 1999.
Reformers had spoken out against sending Milosevic to the tribunal, which many Serbs have considered biased against them.
But government officials appeared over the past few weeks to have been preparing public opinion, revealing news of mass graves and offering alleged evidence of a war crimes cover-up ordered by Milosevic.

Macedonia on Brink After Protests, Fresh Fighting
SKOPJE (Islamweb & Agencies) - Macedonia teetered on the brink of civil war on Tuesday after a Western bid to end an army assault on ethnic Albanian fighters sparked fierce protests in the capital and heavy fighting elsewhere.
Police reservists armed with Kalashnikovs broke into parliament and fired volleys into the air while thousands of Macedonian Slavs, including some unarmed army conscripts, cheered them on.
``Albanians to the gas chambers! Give us weapons!'' people chanted while others fired shots in the air from the square. The numbers grew as news spread that a policeman had been killed.
Macedonia's hawkish Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski slammed NATO for escorting what he called ``terrorists'' out of the village of Aracinovo under a cease-fire deal and pledged to wipe them out, saying they had launched an attack on police
Heavy exchanges of fire broke out around the western town of Tetovo shortly after the Albanians left Aracinovo under an escort including U.S., French and Italian soldiers as well as international monitors.
The evacuation was completed without incident, but a crowd of Slav Macedonians stopped one of the convoys from returning to the capital, throwing stones and blockading the road.
The convoy, led by U.S. soldiers, waited for several hours before turning back. A diplomat with the group, contacted by telephone, said it had returned to Aracinovo, where it appeared to be preparing to stay the night.
PANIC AMONG ALBANIANS IN CAPITAL
The crowd in the center of the capital began to filter away after midnight. Most of the streets in the suburbs became eerily quiet, with cafes and bars closed.
``Albanians are in a panic and everyone's preparing to leave. For now, we are staying at home and waiting to see what will happen,'' said one young Albanian man who lives in an Albanian-populated quarter of Skopje.
The violence left Western diplomats at a loss. They had been hoping the Aracinovo deal would be a first step toward easing tensions and edging toward a political settlement involving Albanian disarmament in return for more rights for the minority.
Analysts said if any conclusion could be drawn from the day's events it was that neither of the warring sides was ready for peace.
There were fears that mobs might attack Albanian property overnight, as happened in the southern town of Bitola in early June after police from the town were killed in Albanian ambushes, but there were no signs of that by the early hours on Tuesday.
The Albanian commander of Aracinovo, contacted by telephone on Monday, said that the Albanian fighters had two ``brigades'' in the capital which could be activated if necessary.
So far the four-month-old ethnic Albanian revolt for equal rights has been mostly confined to skirmishes with the security forces, but diplomats fear it could take just one incident to tip the country over into an all-out war.