BELGRADE (AFP) – As many as 41 percent of Serbs are willing to sacrifice EU entry in order to stave off granting independence to the Serbian province of Kosovo, according to a survey published yesterday. Thirty-seven percent want Serbia to break off diplomatic ties with nations that recognize a possible declaration of independence by Kosovo, said the report by Center for Free Elections and Democracy. The survey of 1,632 people, conducted in early September, showed that 10 percent of Serbs were even prepared to go war to keep the disputed province.

BELGRADE (Reuters) – Momentum is building for a long-overdue ban on cluster bombs that kill or maim thousands each year around the world long after wars have ended, activists said yesterday. “We are convinced we will have very strong support for the treaty banning cluster munitions in 2008,” said Steve Goose, director of the arms division of Human Rights Watch, one of the groups meeting at a conference in the Serb capital Belgrade. Cluster bombs, in use for six decades, are one of the most controversial weapons of modern warfare. Dropped from planes or fired by mortars, containers of up to 250 bomblets burst open and fall over an area the size of four city blocks.

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s president said yesterday he was confident his Balkan nation could implement EU-requested reforms to start entry talks with the bloc by 2008. President Branko Crvenkovski met in Brussels with EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, who has been reluctant to give a date by which FYROM might meet all the requirements to start EU membership talks. But the FYROM president insisted there would be progress next year. “We are going to get the date for the accession talks in 2008 and will meet all the criteria,” Crvenkovski told reporters after meeting with Rehn. FYROM still must reform its police force, judicial system and public administration, Rehn said, as well as improve its fight against corruption. (AP)

Kosovo’s former PM Ramush Haradinaj was temporarily released from UN custody yesterday to attend a relative’s funeral, the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal said. Haradinaj is standing trial in The Hague for alleged war crimes committed when he was a commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army during the 1998-99 conflict in the contested Serbian province. Earlier this year, judges refused to let Haradinaj return home during the court’s summer recess, after prosecutors argued that his return would add to a climate of fear among witnesses. (AP)