BUCHAREST (AP) – Romanian companies in the chemical and fertilizer industry said yesterday they will lay off some 800 workers as their businesses feel the effects of the global economic crisis. Oltchim, located in the city of Ramnicu Valcea in central Romania, said 550 workers would be laid off in December as the company tries to shore up its finances. The company, which has about 5,000 employees, also said in a statement it will reduce its production by 20 to 40 percent this month. Another fertilizer company, Azomures, said Thursday it will cut up to 250 jobs due to a drop in prices and demand for its products. It is situated in the northwestern city of Targu Mures. The announcements follow similar cuts from other companies preparing for a long and deep economic downturn.

BELGRADE (AP) – Mental patients who disappeared in the aftermath of the Kosovo conflict may have fallen victim to organ-traffickers in neighboring Albania, Serb prosecutors said yesterday. Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor spokesman Bruno Vekaric told AP that authorities have evidence as part of an investigation into the fate of more than 300 Serbs allegedly abducted by ethnic-Albanian rebels during and after the 1998-99 Kosovo war. Vekaric said the disappearance of 40 people in 2001 from a mental hospital in the Kosovo town of Stimlje may have been linked to the alleged ring. Vekaric alleged the patients were transported to Albania in vans and have not been seen since. “The reliable evidence fits the picture that something gruesome was going on in Albania,” Vekaric said. However, the UN war crimes tribunal investigated in 2002 and 2003, and concluded there was insufficient evidence to prove the ring existed.

SOFIA (AP) – The Bulgarian prime minister said his country will withdraw its small military force from Iraq at the end of the year. Bulgaria has 155 servicemen at a camp near Baghdad, where they handle the security of detainees held there. Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said yesterday after a cabinet meeting: “The presence of the Bulgarian military contingent on a humanitarian mission in Iraq ends on December 31.” Stanishev had pledged to withdraw Bulgarian troops from Iraq as part of his election campaign in 2005.

A court has ruled that a former Serbian diplomat who is accused of helping a Serb college student flee criminal charges in the United States must be released from jail. Slobodan Nenadovic was jailed in October while authorities investigated allegations that while working as a Serb consul in New York he provided forged travel documents that allowed Serbian Miladin Kovacevic to return home after being released on bail in the US on assault and battery charges. As a basketball player at Binghamton University in New York state, Kovacevic is accused of brutally beating American schoolmate Bryan Steinhauer on May 4. (AP)

Patriarch Pavle has withdrawn his resignation as head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, it said on Thursday, a move welcomed by bishops who want to avoid disputes over any successor to the influential church. The Serbian Orthodox Church has no direct influence over politics, but many political leaders seeks its support for their decisions. Serbian Orthodox bishops rejected on Wednesday the resignation of Pavle, 94, who has been in hospital for a year and whose duties have been taken over by the Holy Synod. Every patriarch is elected for life. (Reuters)

Bosnia’s police force said yesterday it had strengthened security measures for two senior politicians after they received “serious” death threats. Sarajevo-based newspapers reported that Mirsad Kebo, the deputy president of the Muslim-Croat half of Bosnia, said he had received “verbal threats” earlier this week. “During a meeting, I was told that a large amount of money would be given for my and (Sulejman) Tihic’s liquidation,” Kebo was quoted as saying in the daily Oslobodjenje. Tihic is the president of the strongest Muslim political grouping in Bosnia, the nationalist Party of Democratic Action. Kebo said he believed the threat was related to his recent initiative to introduce a package of laws designed to fight organized crime. (AFP)