Milosevic Loyalists Vote to Oust Premier

Lawmakers loyal to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic voted to oust the country’s premier, ignoring warnings that they could be provoking a war between the nation’s two republics, Serbia and Montenegro. Radoje Kontic’s firing came after he refused to clamp down on reformist leaders in his native Montenegro. Milosevic’s hard-liners, who hold a majority in both chambers of parliament, must select a new premier and Yugoslav government within a month. In England, it was announced that the Contact Group--six nations that monitor the Balkans--had agreed to ease sanctions on Yugoslavia after Milosevic began talks with ethnic Albanians on a political settlement to the crisis in Kosovo.