The only solution, in his eyes, would be to reduce personnel down to 257.000. The opposition Christian Democrats plead instead for a substantially increased defense budget to get the troops size to about 300,000 again. Speakers tried to outdo each other in their praise of the great leader. Their rhetoric yielded new insights into the thinking of Putin loyalists, who now dominate the bureaucracy, parliament and state broadcasting. Anti-tax activists have been driven underground by police who beat them and threaten their lives.
Farmers form the cradle of China's tax revolt.
About 700 million Chinese citizens are farmers. The operation intensified Sunday, after Prime Minister Georgievski announced that he would ask Parliament to declare a state of war. His annnouncement came ahead of a visit to Skopje by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana Sunday afternoon and NATO Secretary General George Robertson Monday. Macedonia is asking the EU for more support, but the Swedish foreign ministry said the EU would not like to see a declaration of war at this time. So argues Center for Security Policy President Frank Gaffney in his column.