More than 150,000 people gathered in front of the Yugoslav parliament in central Belgrade yesterday evening in a protest against the regime of President Slobodan Milosevic.
After the start of the rally, a tear-gas bomb was thrown, sending dozens of people running to hide, and a man was taken away by ambulance. However, the protest continued.
The demonstration, organised by a group of opposition parties, started at 7.20 p.m. (6.20 p.m. Irish time) with the old Serbian hymn God Give Us Justice.
The official speaker of the rally read a message of support coming from the pretender to the former Yugoslav royal throne, Prince Alexander Karadjordjevic.
Protesters waved party and Serbian flags and placards addressed to Mr Milosevic calling for "change" and the president's "dismissal". A group of some 30 people carried a banner saying: "Serbs from Kosovo".
Opposition activists were distributing leaflets bearing the slogan "Dismissal" and small paper flags to passers-by.
Two activists of the Democratic Party (DS) were beaten earlier yesterday by three men, one of them carrying a gun, in central Belgrade, the independent news agency, Beta, reported.
Earlier, Mr Vuk Draskovic, leader of the opposition Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO), dealt a blow to the organisers of the rally, saying it was too late to demand a transitional government, the demonstration's main theme.
"The SPO considers it is too late to demand a transitional government through an agreement between the regime and the opposition," Mr Ognjen Pribicevic, an adviser to Mr Draskovic, said yesterday.
The idea of a transitional government was proposed by a group of independent Serbian economists, the G-17, and has been supported by many opposition parties, including the SPO.
"We think that the [public] attention and pressure should be focused on early elections and getting the best conditions for these elections," said Mr Pribicevic.
Serbian elections could be brought forward and held in November, Beta reported on Wednesday. It quoted sources close to ruling and opposition parties.
The Serbian parliament, dominated by the regime of Mr Milosevic, is expected to decide next month, according to the sources close to Mr Milosevic's Socialist Party and the SPO, Beta also reported.
Earlier this week, Mr Draskovic said the SPO would be prepared to participate in early elections if a repressive information law was revoked. He also called for changes in electoral law.
"In the past week or 10 days, the regime categorically expressed its opposition to the idea of a transitional government. It is obvious they do not want to negotiate about that," said Mr Pribicevic, when asked why the SPO had changed its policy.
"So the only one way out [of this crisis] is in the elections . . . and that will be the SPO's policy in the near future."
The highest representatives of the ruling coalition have been repeatedly saying that the regime is ready to call early elections.
Mr Draskovic had dealt a first blow to last night's rally when he announced on Tuesday that he would not address the crowd and that Mr Spasoje Krunic, another SPO official, would make a speech instead.
Meanwhile, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) announced yesterday it had met a NATO-imposed deadline for the storage of 60 per cent of its weapons at depots guarded jointly by the KLA and NATO-led Kfor peacekeepers.
Gen Agim Ceku, chief of the KLA general staff, told reporters in Pristina. "We are happy to inform you that the KLA has fully complied."
Kfor had no immediate official reaction to the declaration.
The KLA is scheduled to disband in another month, opening the way for elections next year and a return to civil government.
Meanwhile, EU foreign ministers will discuss the future of sanctions on Yugoslavia at a scheduled informal meeting in Saariselka, Finland, in two weeks' time, officials said yesterday.
The sanctions, imposed for the last two years over Belgrade's crackdown on ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, will be part of a broad discussion on the EU's Yugoslavia policy.
Some 1,120 Gypsies from Kosovo arrived in the port of Bari, southern Italy, yesterday. The refugees, who left Montenegro on Tuesday, were located by the Italian navy in the Adriatic and their 25-metre vessel taken in tow. At least 40 people, who fell overboard as the vessel pitched and rolled, were rescued by the navy. The refugees included 498 children.
Officials said another 350 Gypsies arrived in the southern port of Brindisi.
Gypsies are fleeing Kosovo fearing reprisals for allegedly collaborating with Serbs.