CLUJ (AP) - Floods caused by melting snow swept through parts of northwest Romania over the weekend, leaving a 6-year-old boy and a 66-year-old woman dead, authorities said yesterday. The two victims, identified as Kerekes Teofil and Aurelia Pop, drowned in separate incidents as they were swept into the water while trying to cross bridges. Floods affected 141 towns and villages in 18 counties and swelling rivers damaged dozens of bridges and roads, according to the Environment and Water Ministry.

ZAGREB (AFP) - Croatian President Stipe Mesic said yesterday he expected his country’s membership talks with the European Union, delayed over its failure to detain a key war crimes suspect, to open by July, although the bloc did not specify any new date to start them. “I believe that it will happen already in the first half of the year,” Mesic told national radio. “Many within the EU are aware of all the efforts Croatia has made, they are aware that Croatia should be the leader in this part of Europe.”

Bulgaria will be able to complete its judicial reform in time to meet EU entry criteria, Justice Minister Anton Stankov said yesterday, days after a top EU official urged the country to speed up reforms. Current legislation allows criminal investigations and trials to drag on for years, and changes to make the penal procedures law more efficient are the key element of Bulgaria’s judicial reform. “By mid-May, the new Penal Procedure code will be introduced in Parliament, and by the year’s end it will be adopted by the legislators,” Stankov told reporters after a meeting in Sofia with the ambassadors of EU member states. “I assured them that all EU deadlines will be met.” (AP)

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe agreed yesterday to help guide reforms in Serbia’s Parliament to bring the assembly in line with Western standards. The director of the OSCE mission in Belgrade, Maurizio Massari, and Parliament Speaker Predrag Markovic signed an agreement outlining steps toward reform. (AP)