TIRANA (Reuters) - Europe's main security and democracy forum urged Albania's political parties on Monday to improve a disputed new electoral code that has prompted 10 members of parliament to go on hunger strike. Sitting in the debating chamber under a banner declaring «Votes are sacred,» the MPs entered the seventh day of their fast as police manned cordons outside the building, where hundreds of protesters had gathered. The lawmakers, all from small parties, believe the proposed new regional system of proportional representation will greatly reduce their number of seats in next year's general election. The ambassador of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Robert Bosch, told reporters it would «not rubber-stamp» the election code.

BELGRADE (AFP) - A top US official urged Kosovo yesterday to support a deal that would allow the deployment of a European Union police mission, but the Kosovo president reiterated his opposition. Daniel Fried, the US State Department's top diplomat for European affairs, held talks with President Fatmir Sejdiu over a deal between Serbia and the EU on the 2,000-strong EU police and justice mission in Kosovo (EULEX). «I believe that despite the questions, concerns and even disagreement... the way forward can be found that allows EULEX to deploy promptly and throughout Kosovo,» Fried said. The United States «support the deployment of EULEX as soon as possible,» Fried said, adding that the EU's goal of activating the mission in December would be the best timing. Fried said the plan could «do a lot of good and no harm, but we respect the fact that the Kosovo government has a different view.»

BUCHAREST (AP) - Romania Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu yesterday proposed lowering taxes and injecting over $12.6 billion (10 billion euros) into the economy over the next four years to support the country through the financial crisis. Tariceanu, facing elections on November 30, urged his cabinet to prepare for «a quick implementation of anti-crisis measures» starting January 1, 2009. His center-right Liberal Party is running third in election polls but hopes to be in a coalition government to implement the measures.

Police in the northern Bulgarian city of Ruse seized 70 kilos of heroin from the back of car and arrested a Bosnian thought to have been transporting the load, the Interior Ministry said yesterday. The heroin was divided into small packages and piled into two plastic bags in the back of the vehicle, which was parked outside a hotel, said a ministry statement. A Sarajevo-born man with a German passport, identified only by the initials E.K., was arrested while getting into the car, it added. (AFP)

Workers at one of Bulgaria's biggest state-owned armory companies VMZ staged a brief strike yesterday to demand pay rises and more information about the company's future, national radio reported. More than 500 workers at the VMZ unit in the village of Iganovo stopped work for an hour in the morning, the radio said, citing Podkrepa union leader Georgy Katzarov. Katzarov threatened renewed strikes at a later date if the workers' demands were not met. (AFP)