SARAJEVO (AFP) - Bosnia’s main political parties agreed on Saturday to undertake constitutional reforms that would make the country’s complex central institutions more efficient, a condition for closer ties with the European Union. “I’m pleased to announce that we’ve reached an agreement on constitutional reform,” US Ambassador to Bosnia Douglas McElhaney, whose country played a key role during months of talks between the country’s Croats, Muslims and Serbs, told journalists. The reforms would boost the powers of the central institutions, which were weakened by the 1995 Dayton accords that led to the creation of two political entities — the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation. The leaders of the seven strongest ruling and opposition parties agreed to strengthen the nine-member central government by adding two new portfolios and by empowering the prime minister to hire and fire Cabinet members.

BUCHAREST (AP) - Romania is stepping up its preparations for a possible bird flu pandemic, and plans to produce an H5N1 vaccine that has been developed by Hungary, the Health Ministry said yesterday. Romania, which has seen dozens of outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in domestic poultry since October, also plans to order 1 million doses of antiviral drugs and 4 million regular influenza vaccines, as well as medical masks and disinfecting materials. The national Cantacuzino Institute will be upgraded so that it can produce 4-5 million H5N1 vaccines starting next year in collaboration with a Hungarian producer, the ministry said. Hungary first announced in October that the vaccine against the H5N1 strain developed at the National Center for Epidemiology was found to be effective in humans.