Balkans

BELGRADE (Reuters) – Serbia and its ally Russia are consulting on joint steps to stop “all forms of violence against Kosovo Serbs”, Serbia’s caretaker prime minister Vojislav Kostunica said in a statement on Monday.

PRISTINA (Reuters) – NATO troops came under automatic weapons fire during Serb riots in the northern Kosovo flashpoint town of Mitrovica on Monday, a French NATO spokesman told Reuters.

MITROVICA, Kosovo (Reuters) – An explosion in the Kosovo town of Mitrovica wounded three U.N. police officers and two NATO soldiers during heavy clashes on Monday with Serb protesters, Kosovo police said. A police statement said the wounded personnel were being evacuated.

MITROVICA, Kosovo (Reuters) – Serbs attacked a U.N. convoy carrying Serb detainees from a raid in Kosovo on Monday, enabling several detainees to escape, a Reuters witness said.

GERDEC, Albania (Reuters) – Albanian troops searched through rubble on Sunday for survivors of a huge munitions blast that razed an army base near the capital Tirana and killed at least nine people.

BELGRADE/PRISTINA (Reuters) – The red box of the buttery ‘Plazma’ cookie, one of ex-Yugoslavia’s best-loved snacks, offers a quick introduction to the dilemma of businesses trapped in the political tussle between Serbia and Kosovo.

TIRANA (Reuters) – About 160 people, including several Americans, were killed or injured on Saturday by a series of large explosions at an Albanian army base on the outskirts of the capital Tirana, government officials said.

MITROVICA, Kosovo (Reuters) – A couple of hundred ethnic Serb protesters took over a United Nations court in the flashpoint town of Mitrovica in north Kosovo on Friday after U.N. police guarding the compound retreated.

PRISTINA (Reuters) – U.N. authorities in Kosovo told Serbia on Wednesday to stop interfering in Serb areas of the new state, where a Serb boycott has fuelled speculation Belgrade is trying to partition the territory.

BELGRADE (Reuters) – Serbia’s government is in deep crisis, nationalist Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said on Friday, accusing his pro-Western coalition partners of giving up on defending Serbia’s claim to Kosovo.