SOFIA (AFP) – A Bulgarian archaeologist announced yesterday that his team had found a gold mask that belonged to a Thracian king in the 4th century BC, near the eastern town of Sliven. “The discovery of this mask proves that the Valley of the Thracian Kings stretches from the center of Bulgaria to the east of the country,” archaeologist Georgy Kitov told AFP. The Thracians lived in southeastern Europe, the Carpathians and the Caucasus from about 4,000 BC to the 3rd century AD. Numerous artifacts from their leaders have been found in the so-called Valley of the Thracian Kings, located between the Balkan and the Sredna Gora mountain chains.

PRISTINA (Reuters) – Police in the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo were fired at on Saturday when they went to check reports from villagers that uniformed men with weapons had been spotted on a mountainside. They fired back but no injuries were reported, police said. Police and troops of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission were searching the area, in northwestern Kosovo near the village of Radisheve, well south of the internal border with Serbia proper. Local sources saw NATO helicopters overhead.

An opposition boycott in Albania continued to hamper efforts to elect a new president in the third round of parliament voting Saturday, leaving only two more attempts before the possibility of a government collapse. Three candidates failed to garner the necessary 84 votes to secure the post Saturday. Bamir Topi, deputy leader of the governing Democratic Party-led coalition of Prime Minister Sali Berisha, led the pack with 50 votes. He did better in the two previous rounds, winning 75 and 74 votes. Neritan Ceka, leader of the opposition coalition Democratic Alliance party, entered the race as the new nominee and received 32 votes. Former Prime Minister and opposition Socialist Party leader Fatos Nano, who is supported only by a small part of the opposition grouping, only had three votes. (AP)