BELGRADE (AFP) - Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said yesterday he was dissatisfied with the way the talks on the future status of Kosovo were developing. In a statement from his office, Kostunica said he told the chief UN negotiator in the talks, Martti Ahtisaari, during a meeting here that he was “particularly dissatisfied with the way the talks are led and directed by the (UN) mediators.” Ahtisaari made no public statement during a brief visit to the Serbian capital ahead of the next round of talks between Serbian and ethnic Albanian representatives, due to start in Vienna today.

BUCHAREST (AFP) - Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur said yesterday that new cases of bird flu had been found in Romania, as the European reference laboratory confirmed the presence of the potentially deadly virus in the country. “In total, 34 centers (of bird flu), including one in Bucharest, have been counted” since the disease re-emerged in Romania 10 days ago, Flutur told a news conference. The virus has also been found in 24 other “potential” locations, including one in the capital, the minister said, adding, “It is a matter of hours before the virus is isolated in the second center” in Bucharest.

A judge barred a Syrian al-Qaida suspect from a courtroom yesterday because he wore an orange jumpsuit, in an apparent protest at the treatment of detainees at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay. Police said Loa’i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, accused of masterminding the 2003 bombings in Istanbul, had been wearing normal clothes when he left for the courtroom but then removed them in the prison van while on the way to an Istanbul court. (AP)

A Turkish soldier was killed and two were injured yesterday by land mines in the mainly Kurdish southeast, where security forces are fighting separatist rebels, security officials said. A sergeant was killed and another soldier was injured when they drove over a mine in the province of Diyarbakir. (Reuters)