ZAGREB (AFP) – Croatian citizens have handed authorities more than 16,000 illegally held arms in the past 10 months, most of them left over from the country’s independence war, officials said yesterday. The firearms, as well as some 640,000 rounds of ammunition and more than 720 kilos (1,584 pounds) of explosives, were collected in a joint campaign by the Interior Ministry and United Nations Development Program, a statement said. “These are impressive figures which reflect... the growing realization among the public that owning a firearm makes you and your family nine times more likely to be a victim of armed violence,” UNDP representative Yuri Afanasiev said. The campaign, which has been conducted throughout Croatia since September last year, will end tomorrow, when an amnesty is lifted. “We want to send a clear message to the citizens – you do not need those weapons any more,” said Interior Minister Berislav Roncevic. “They give a you a false sense of security but they can be a major source of insecurity,” he added.

BRUSSELS (AP) – The foreign minister of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) said yesterday he expects his country to get a date soon for the start of European Union membership talks despite an EU warning after election violence. “We’re not prepared to become a member of the EU tomorrow but we’re prepared to start the negotiations tomorrow. I think this year we will be given a chance,” Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki told journalists after lobbying EU officials for early talks. Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel of Slovenia, which holds the rotating EU presidency, will soon travel to FYROM to assess its progress.

TIRANA (AP) Albania’s Defense Ministry says it will send 62 soldiers to Chad and the Central African Republic as part of a European Union mission to protect refugees from Sudan’s Darfur region. Lawmakers voted late yesterday to contribute to the EU force. The soldiers will spend a year in the area. The ministry did not say when they would leave for Africa. The EU is sending a 3,700-strong force to the two countries to protect nearly half a million Sudanese refugees and Chadians displaced by the violence in Darfur and a rebellion in the east of Chad. Albania has small army units in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq. The predominantly Muslim nation received an invitation to join NATO in April and expects to become a full member next year.

Bulgaria will increase its troops in Afghanistan by 70 soldiers, boosting its deployment in the NATO-led forces to 340, the government decided yesterday. The new NATO member will send 50 more soldiers to its 220-strong contingent that guards the airport of the southern Afghan town of Kandahar and 20 more to join 50 soldiers in the capital Kabul, the government said in a statement. The deployment is expected in the next few days. Washington has urged NATO partners to send more soldiers to Afghanistan, where Afghan and international forces have struggled to contain Taliban attacks and suicide bombs. (Reuters)

A Serbian court yesterday cleared Marko Milosevic, son of the late leader Slobodan Milosevic, of assault charges relating to beatings and threats against political opponents. The court in Milosevic’s hometown of Pozarevac based the ruling on lack of evidence and said the statute of limitations had expired on the charges, the state Tanjug news agency reported. Marko Milosevic had been charged with violent behavior, beatings and causing severe bodily harm to members of the opposition movement Otpor in 2000. “The court decision hurt more than the beatings,” Radenko Lukovic, who suffered serious injuries, told national broadcaster RTS. (Reuters)