NICOSIA (AP) – A poll published yesterday gave Cyprus’s new president a 75 percent approval rating two months after taking office, reflecting high support for his efforts to end the island’s ethnic division. The Noverna poll published in the daily Politis newspaper gave Dimitris Christofias a 78 percent approval rating for his handling of the reunification effort. The poll also showed Christofias transcending the island’s traditional partisan divisions. Among supporters of his longtime ideological rivals in DISY, the island’s second-largest party, Christofias had 77 percent support for his reunification policy, the poll found. The high marks are said to be owed to Christofias’s success in breaking a four-year deadlock on reunification talks and to delivering early on some campaign promises.

TIRANA (AP) – Albania’s prosecutor general said Saturday that four Defense Ministry officials have been arrested and accused of corruption in connection with a series of deadly explosions at an ammunition depot. The four officials, including an army colonel, were accused of “corruptive actions... in managing military goods,” according to spokeswoman Holta Zhiti. She refused to give more details, but added that other people were also being investigated. “Their case is linked with the March 15 blast but how it is linked and details on that will likely come out of the investigation,” Zhiti said in a telephone interview.

Several thousand people gathered in northwest Bosnia yesterday to commemorate the victims, mainly Serbs, of a notorious Croatian World War II concentration camp, the SRNA news agency reported. A memorial service for the victims of the Jasenovac concentration camp, known as “Croatia’s Auschwitz,” was held in Donja Gradina, which was once part of the camp. The crowd included survivors, members of the victims’ families and senior Bosnian Serb officials. ”Our holy duty is that Jasenovac victims never be forgotten... for the sake of our future and for the sake of our children’s future,” said Bosnian Serb President Rajko Kuzmanovic. The gathering marked the 63rd anniversary of an escape attempt by some 600 prisoners, only 90 of whom survived. (AFP)

A 76-year-old Croatian man was bitten to death by a pit bull dog on Saturday while he was trying to feed the animal, police and national radio said. The man died on the spot after being attacked by the dog in the coastal town of Solin, some 400 kilometers (248 miles) south of Zagreb, police said. National radio reported that the victim was looking after the dog which was owned by a friend. The animal attacked the man when he opened its cage to feed it. (AFP)