MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia will send a cargo of humanitarian aid to Serbia for distribution among the Serb minority community in Kosovo, Russian news agencies reported yesterday. “The Emergency Situations Ministry is organizing the delivery of humanitarian aid to Serbia for the population of Kosovo,” an Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by ITAR-TASS. Last week Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed his government to prepare deliveries to Kosovo’s Serb minority after Belgrade made a request for medicine, medical equipment and food. The first of several planes were to leave for Belgrade tomorrow with 40 tons of provisions, including baby food, Interfax news agency reported, citing the ministry.

BANJA LUKA (AFP) – A Serbian man suspected of being one of the chiefs of a major drug gang that was smashed in Serbia five years ago has been detained in Bosnia, police said yesterday. “Ljubisa Lindo was detained on Saturday in the region of Bijeljina,” in northeastern Bosnia, after being on the run for five years, police official Gojko Vasic told AFP. The 38-year-old is wanted under an international arrest warrant issued by Serbia, where he is suspected of being an organizer of a major crime group involved in the production of synthetic drugs, Vasic said. His gang was dismantled in early 2003 in the largest anti-drug operation carried out by Serbian police in which more than 30 people were arrested.

The US Embassy in Belgrade says it will reopen its consular section today, more than a month after the embassy building was damaged in nationalist rioting over Kosovo. Parts of the American Embassy building in central Belgrade were set on fire during the anti-Western unrest that erupted after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on February 17. One person died in the rioting, which also targeted other Western embassies. (AP)

The European Union says it will deploy police officers, judges and prosecutors throughout Kosovo, including in Serb-controlled areas. The head of the EU’s rule-of-law mission, Yves de Kermabon, says the deployment “will need some time,” without saying exactly how much. Kermabon was visiting Kosovo yesterday before the EU sends its 1,800-member mission. (AP)

Croatia’s former foreign minister, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, was yesterday named the country’s ambassador to the United States, the presidency said. Grabar-Kitarovic, 39, served as foreign minister between 2005 and early this year. (AFP)