SARAJEVO (Reuters) – A Bosnian daily said yesterday Serbia and Bosnia’s Serb Republic were preparing the handover of a Bosnian-Serb war crimes fugitive before a visit next week by United Nations chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte. Dnevni Avaz quoted unnamed Bosnian-Serb police sources as saying that ex-security chief Stojan Zupljanin would be arrested in the Serb Republic and handed over to Serbia, in an operation similar to that which delivered former General Zdravko Tolimir. Tolimir was arrested in May in the Serb Republic near the Serbian border. He says he was living in Serbia, was kidnapped, then transferred to Bosnia.

BUCHAREST (AFP) – Romanian President Traian Basescu said yesterday he was worried his country was “going through a demographic desert” because of a drop in birthrates since 1990. “In 17 years, Romania has lost 1.4 million people due to emigration and the lower birthrate,” Basescu said during a conference on population in the central town of Sibiu. “Today, we count only one child per woman. If this birthrate remains as it is, we will have just 16 million residents in Romania in 2050, 11 million in 2075 and 8.5 million in 2100,” he warned. Romania currently has 21.6 million inhabitants. In his speech, Basescu said Romania needed “to urgently review its demographic policies” and called for “solidarity and social cohesion.”

Serbian ultranationalist leader Vojislav Seselj will go on trial for crimes against humanity on November 7, the United Nations war crimes tribunal said yesterday. Seselj, 52, is charged with murder and persecution of non-Serbs during wars with Croats and Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s. The ultranationalist leader has routinely disrupted pretrial proceedings, insulting judges and refusing to cooperate with advisers assigned to him by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague. (Reuters)

The European Union signed visa agreements with five Western Balkan nations yesterday making it easier and cheaper for citizens from those countries to travel to some parts of the 27-nation union. Agreements were signed with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia on simplifying travel documents. The five countries also signed new “readmission agreements” that will oblige them to take back citizens who are in the EU illegally. (AP)

Romanian anti-corruption prosecutors yesterday accused the justice minister and a former telecommunications minister of corruption and asked President Traian Basescu to approve an investigation. The prosecutors say that Justice Minister Tudor Chiuariu and former Telecommunications Minister Zsolt Nagy abused their positions “against the public interest” when they sold real estate owned by the national post office in April to a private company. Chiuariu called the request “foolish revenge” and accused prosecutors of abusing their positions. He said they had asked for the investigation of him a day after he asked for two leading prosecutors to be dismissed. Nagy also denied the charges. There was no word from Basescu on whether he would approve the investigation. (AP)