HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuban leader Fidel Castro said US President George W. Bush is so unpopular he had to travel to Albania and Bulgaria to get attention free of protests. “Bush is craving affection,” the convalescing Castro wrote in his latest column, titled “The tyrant visits Tirana” and published yesterday by Cuba’s Communist Party newspaper Granma. “He really enjoyed his reception without protests in Bulgaria,” Castro, 80 and sidelined from power by illness, said of his ideological nemesis. Bush, whose popularity is at its lowest due to the Iraq war, delighted Albanians on Sunday by supporting independence for the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo.

TIRANA (AP) – What happened to the president’s watch? One moment President George W. Bush was glad-handing Albanians on Sunday, proudly sporting a watch with a dark strap on his left wrist. Moments later, it was gone. Did it fall off? Did one of his bodyguards remove it? Or did one of the crowd artfully slip it off his wrist and pocket it? The United States Embassy in Albania yesterday emphatically denied that Bush’s watch was stolen during his visit to the country, where he was acclaimed as a hero. The Albanian media – and international websites – are buzzing with video showing Bush’s wristwatch apparently disappearing while he was shaking hands with people in Fushe Kruje, 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of Tirana.

Serbian police said yesterday they had discovered a large cache of rifle bullets and bomb-making material in a series of raids in a tense Muslim-populated region. About 10,000 bullets and 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of plastic explosives were discovered Monday in the tense southern Sandzak region bordering Kosovo, Serbian Interior Minister Dragan Jocic said. He said that the police believe the weapons were intended for “terrorist actions” by Muslim extremists against targets in the region, including a local police station. (AP)

Romania’s prime minister held talks yesterday with EU leaders on his country’s troubled justice system, amid concerns that the government lacks commitment for further reforms. Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu said he believed an EU report, due June 27, would give a positive review of Romanian and Bulgarian efforts to meet EU standards. “We are waiting with confidence,” Tariceanu told reporters in Brussels after meeting with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, EU Parliament chief Hans-Gert Pottering and other officials yesterday. (AP)