BERLIN - Parliament voted yesterday to extend for one year its mandate for German soldiers to serve in NATO’s international peacekeeping force in Kosovo (KFOR). The current mandate ends on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping told Parliament that Germany would reduce the number of its troops deployed in the Balkans by 1,000 from the current total of 6,900 in Bosnia, Kosovo and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). (AFP)

THE HAGUE - The bodies of 45 civilians found near the Kosovo village of Racak in early 1999 had not been brought in from elsewhere, a British policeman who investigated the killings said yesterday, as the UN human rights court continued to hear testimony about a massacre which helped spark NATO’s intervention in Kosovo. “All the indications show that the deceased died on the spot where we found them,” officer Ian Robert Hendrie said, testifying at the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. (AFP)

Five people were killed after a boat on a pleasure trip sank at the entrance of the Bosphorus, reports said yesterday. At least 20 people were on board the Turkish-flagged Adler 2 when it sank late on Thursday about 7 meters (23 feet) off the coast of the Istanbul suburb of Uskudar, private NTV television said. The reason why the boat sank was not clear. (AP)

A senior US State Department official suggested late on Thursday that her government planned to cut its funding for programs it no longer deems crucial to building peace in Kosovo. Elizabeth Jones, US assistant secretary of state for European and Euro-Asian affairs, said that while her country’s support for the development of democratic institutions in Kosovo remains strong, it would gradually reduce its involvement in the province. (AP)

Romanian journalists yesterday slammed a new law that forces newspapers to print replies to critical articles, saying it threatened their freedom of expression. The law on the “right to reply,” passed by the left-dominated Parliament late on Thursday, stipulates hefty fines for newspapers which fail to print a response from persons or institutions who feel a press report has harmed their rights or interests. (Reuters)

Turkey advised its nationals yesterday against traveling to India and Pakistan because of military tension between the two nuclear powers over Kashmir. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Turks should avoid visiting regions close to the India-Pakistan and Pakistan-Afghanistan borders, and rural areas in India and Pakistan. (AFP)

A group of Kosovo Serbs on Thursday pledged to build a 35-metre-high (115-feet) monument to US President George W. Bush, calling him “the world’s greatest fighter against terrorism,” according to local news reports yesterday. Although initially hostile to the USA, which spearheaded the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against the Serb-dominated army in Kosovo, many of the region’s remaining Serbs now consider NATO, and therefore the USA, as their protectors against the ethnic Albanian majority. (AFP)