PODGORICA (AP) - Montenegro’s Parliament yesterday formally set May 21 as the date for a referendum to determine the fate of the tiny republic’s union with Serbia. All 68 lawmakers present at the session voted in favor of President Filip Vujanovic’s proposal on the referendum date. The Montenegrin Parliament has 75 deputies, but not all of them attended the session. “The referendum is necessary and should be carried out in such a way that there will be no winners’ euphoria,” Vujanovic said after the parliamentary vote.

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey urged Belgium yesterday to find and extradite a Turkish militant who has gone missing after a Belgian court sentenced her to four years in jail. The trial of Fehriye Erdal, wanted in Turkey on suspicion of murdering a prominent businessman 10 years ago, has badly strained relations between Ankara and Belgium. “We expect (the Belgian authorities) to catch her and send her back to Turkey,” Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told reporters in televised remarks.

An ethnic Albanian was killed and another was seriously wounded yesterday in an “anti-terror” operation by police in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the Interior Ministry said. The action against “a group suspected of terrorism and criminal activities” was launched in the village of Kondovo, 10 kilometers north of the capital Skopje, spokesman Goran Pavlovski told reporters. (AFP)

A Croatian court convicted eight former military policemen yesterday for torturing and killing Serb prisoners of war in 1992, ending a rare and controversial retrial of Croatia’s own troops. The Split county court sentenced two top defendants, a former military prison commander and his deputy, to eight years in prison, state radio reported. One policeman got seven years while five others received six-year sentences, the radio said. (Reuters)

Germany’s foreign minister urged Belgrade yesterday to do “everything possible” to hunt down and hand over top war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, sought by the Netherlands-based UN tribunal. “Germany and Europe do not ask anything more or less of Serbia than was asked of other nations negotiating membership in the European Union,” FM Frank-Walter Steinmeier said during a one-day visit to the Balkan country. (AP)