A BRIEF LOOK AT CROATIAN PRESS ON FRIDAY

ZAGREB, Jan 10 (Hina) - The Zagreb daily Vjesnik says in its Friday edition that Croatian President Franjo Tudjman will announce constitutional changes in a state of the nation address to both houses of parliament on Jan. 22. The front-page article says that constitutional changes will be made at "a language and style level," describing as groundless speculation that a President would be elected by parliament and that the upper House of Counties will be abolished. In a commentary headlined "Speculation and Untruths", Vjesnik rejects media reports that President Tudjman has for a second time been transferred to the Walter Reed military hospital in Washington for further medical treatment. Stressing that "all this misinformation has been denied by the President's Office," the paper says that Tudjman has not left Zagreb and that his health has not deteriorated. Another Zagreb daily, Vecernji List, comments on a statement by a member of the Yugoslav army elite 63rd Paratroop Brigade based in the southern Serbian town of Nis, who spoke of actions his unit had carried out during wars in Slovenia and Croatia. In an interview with the Belgrade magazine Duga the man, who has participated in anti-Milosevic demonstrations in Nis, said that his brigade destroyed power transmission lines near the Krsko nuclear power plant in Slovenia and that it also blew up a synagogue in Zagreb. He claimed that he had not participated in those actions. The article, headlined "It's Never Late for Truth", emphasizes that this is an important confession because the world still accepts "the hundred times repeated Serb lie of Croatian antisemitism." The blowing up of the Zagreb synagogue was blamed on the newly-emerged Croatian democracy for the sole purpose of vilifying and excommunicating it from the democratic community of nations, Vecernji List says. (hina) vm 101228 MET jan 97