PRISTINA (AFP) – Three German citizens have been arrested in Kosovo on suspicion of involvement in a bomb attack on the offices of the European Union’s envoy there, police said yesterday. “Police on Wednesday arrested three German citizens in connection with the case,” said a police statement, without revealing more on the identity of those detained. It added that police had been “intensively investigating” last Friday’s incident in which an explosive device was hurled at the Pristina headquarters of the EU special envoy to Kosovo, Peter Feith. No one was injured in the blast, which shattered the windows of the office of the International Civilian Office (ICO). The explosion came amid opposition by Kosovo Albanians to the planned deployment of a European Union civilian mission focused on police, judiciary and customs by early December under an agreement reached between the United Nations and Serbia.

DIYARBAKIR (AFP) – A Kurdish mayor in southeastern Turkey was sentenced yesterday to 15 months in jail for urging support for separatist Kurdish rebels in an interview with a French news channel last year. The court in Diyarbakir convicted Ahmet Ertak – the mayor of nearby Sirnak and member of Turkey’s main Kurdish party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP) – under a provision penalizing diffusing propaganda for outlawed groups. In the 2007 interview with France-24, Ertak had said that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) waging a separatist campaign against Ankara “should be supported as the PKK supported the Kurdish people.” His lawyer said they would appeal the sentence. The DTP is currently facing a possible ban by the constitutional court for links with PKK rebels. The party, which urges a peaceful resolution to the violent conflict in the southeast, denies the allegations.

SOFIA (AFP) – The Bulgarian government said yesterday it had asked parliament to approve the early release of 3,300 prisoners to relieve overcrowding in prisons. According to the Justice Ministry, Bulgaria’s prisons currently hold 12,000 prisoners, three times their capacity. Bulgaria released 3,800 prisoners in 1990 and was planning to free 1,500 more in January 2007 when it joined the European Union. But prisoner protests prompted former Justice Minister Georgy Petkanov to withdraw the proposal. The Justice Ministry now plans an amnesty to mark the 130th anniversary of the modern Bulgarian state in 2009. The amnesty will not include people convicted of murder and grievous bodily harm or those convicted of crimes committed when drunk, the government said. Parliament will have to approve a draft law on the amnesty. Many of Bulgaria’s overcrowded prisons were built in the 19th century and have been criticized by international observers and sparked hunger strikes by inmates.

Passengers have begun traveling on the first new subway line in the Romanian capital since the fall of communism in 1989. Work on the 3-mile (5-kilometer) line has been repeatedly delayed over 19 years due to financial problems. The Cotidianul daily reports that the line cost 145 million euros ($183 million). The fifth line in the Bucharest system opened yesterday and links industrial and residential areas in the east of the city. Bucharest’s system first opened in 1979 and has grown in popularity as traffic worsens on the streets above. Work on the new line started in 1989, the year that communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was ousted and executed. (AP)

Mark Begich’s victory in the US Senate race in Alaska is being celebrated in a Croatian village where his grandfather once lived. Ted Stevens, a veteran Republican senator, conceded defeat on Wednesday in his close election with Begich, a Democrat. Begich didn’t emphasize his Croatian roots. But Croatian newspapers closely covered his election, calling him the first US senator of Croatian origin. Begich’s grandfather left the small village of Podlapaca in central Croatia almost a century ago to seek a better life in America. Croatian Nikola Begic, who says he’s the new senator’s cousin, was quoted by one paper as saying their extended family had endured poverty and wars in the past, so the senator’s victory “may be God’s reward now.” (AP)