Comrades Get Taste of Capitalism

Ronald’s gone red, trumpeted the media covering the opening of the Belgrade, Yugoslavia, McDonald’s, the first in a communist country. Police stood guard as curious customers waited in line for hours Thursday for Big Macs and fries, and they were ecstatic with the eatery that vows “to do it all for you.” “I think this restaurant has no competition in Belgrade,” said Milica Danic, a housewife who treated her son to a cheeseburger. “It is much cleaner, the service is faster, the interior is nicer and it is not too expensive.” Yugoslavia already has something akin to a hamburger--the Pljeskavica, which is ground pork and onions on a bun. But McDonald’s figures a little capitalistic competition won’t hurt. “Our aim is not to destroy the Pljeskavica on the Yugoslav market,” said Predrag Dostanic, managing director of the Genex-McDonald’s. “We want to change customs of the local people used to completely different eating habits.” Consequently, Dostanic said that lounging at tables after a meal will draw a warning, and smoking is forbidden. This contrasts sharply with the Yugoslav custom of smoke-filled restaurants in which friends linger for hours chatting after a meal.

--Thin but full of good cheer, Delaware Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. joked to reporters outside of Walter Reed Memorial Hospital: “I’ve asked you all to come today because I’ve decided to announce that I am re-entering the race for President.” The former Democratic presidential candidate was released after 11 days in the hospital for treatment of a blood clot that had lodged in his lungs. Last month, Biden underwent surgery to correct an aneurysm in an artery that supplies blood to the brain and was scheduled to have similar surgery on another artery when the blood clot was discovered. The second arterial surgery now is likely to be performed by the end of May. Saying “I probably don’t look very hot, but I feel fine,” Biden declined to talk politics. “If you are out of the loop more than a couple of days in this race, you are really out of the loop,” he said. Biden dropped out of the Democratic presidential race last Sept. 23 amid a controversy that he had plagiarized a British labor leader’s speech.

--It took his fascination with ancient Egypt to lure pop star Michael Jackson from his Denver hotel suite, where he has been secluded for most of his three-night concert series. The lure was a touring exhibit on the Pharaoh Ramses II that is at the Museum of Natural History. Jackson and a small party arrived just before the museum was to close to view the exhibit, museum officials said.