NATO war planes carried out six solid hours of bombing attacks on the Pristina area, with 50 bombs and missiles raining down on the Grmija area, the villages of Sofalija, Pomazatin and Belacevac, the Slatina airport and Mount Goles, the state-run Tanjug news agency reported.

"The blockade (idea) is bad. The strikes are bad. When people die, it's bad," Chernomyrdin told supporters at a meeting of his political party. "This is why Russia is undertaking efforts to resolve the conflict peacefully," the former prime Minister was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying.

"The problem in Kosovo can neither be solved by bombing nor by a blockade," he added.

In Washington, NATO leaders meeting for a summit hailed an EU decision to slap an oil embargo on Yugoslavia to tightenthe screws on President Slobodan Milosevic whose forces have driven hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians from the province of Kosovo.

The alliance, which put the finishing touches on a reform blueprint for the organisation on its 50th anniversary, stepped up its campaign on Saturday.It said it would study plans for a possible naval blockade to enforce the oil embargo and to block deliveries of supplies that could help Milosevic's war machine.

"As you can imagine, it makes less sense for NATO pilots to risk their lives every evening over Yugoslavia attempting to deplete the existing oil reserves if oil can enter freely by the back door from other sources," NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said in Washington.

He said it was premature to say how the embargo might be implemented and how Russian vessels, for example, might be prevented from delivering oil.

Moscow said it will continue to provide oil products to Belgrade. As much as 80 percent of Russian exports to Yugoslavia are said to be comprised ofenergy products.

In Bonn, Admiral Hans Franck said the German navy is ready to take part in a naval blockade, while Romanian Foreign Minister Andrei Plesu said his country will join in the oil embargo.

In Belgrade, rescue workers searching for survivors pulled six bodies out of the rubble of the Serbian television (RTS) building Saturday, two days after he building was destroyed by NATO missiles.

A television journalist who requested anonymity told AFP that a total of 15 bodies had now been pulled from the debris, and that numerous bodies remained trapped.

Earlier in the day, RTS reporter Zvonko Mihajlovski said people trapped in the debris were communicating with rescue teams via mobile phones. It was not clear on Saturday evening if they were still alive.

5 kids die in blast

DOGANOVIC, Yugoslavia: Five Kosovo Albanian children died and two others were wounded when a bomb they found near their village exploded, the father of one of the victims said here Saturday.

The children, cousinsaged three to 15, found the bomb near their village of Doganovic, 55 km South of the Kosovo capital Pristina, a distraught Sefket Kodza told AFP.

Kodza said fragments of yellow plastic casing had attracted the children's attention as they were guarding cows in a field. While one of the children ran to alert parents, the bomb exploded.

"We found our children torn to pieces. Two others were injured and we have takenthem to hospital in Pristina," said Kodza. A blood-stained crater could be seen in the field. The Serb Information Centre in Pristina said the bomb had been dropped by a NATO warplane.

Airplanes blast TV centre off air again

BELGRADE: NATO planes bombed Serbian State Television (RTS) off the air for the second time in three days, hitting the main RTS transmitter above Belgrade today.

Yugoslavia's third largest city Nis was also attacked, the second successive night NATO has targeted the south-east Serbian town.

RTS satellite transmissions were interrupted and Belgrade reception wasseriously affected at around 0050 GMT when nato planes attacked Avala, in the hills above Belgrade, the site of Yugoslavia's largest transmitter.The official news agency Tanjug said NATO had hit a generator serving the Avala transmitter. "Aggressor nato missiles hit the electrical generator this morning at 0250 GMT at Avala," it said.

"As a result there is no electricity. The fire that was caused by this attack has been put out," it said, adding that there were no reports of casualties.

Tanjug confirmed that RTS and radio transmissions had been interrupted and announced that Radio Belgrade had begun broadcasting on a new frequency just 10 minutes after the attack.