PRISTINA (AFP) - Former ethnic Albanian rebel leader Ramush Haradinaj has been nominated to become prime minister of Kosovo despite a UN war crimes investigation into his guerrilla activities. A spokesman for Haradinaj’s political party, the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), said the former guerrilla had been promised the premiership under an agreement with President Ibrahim Rugova’s Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK). “Mr Ramush Haradinaj is the new prime minister of Kosovo. His and the names of the other members of the cabinet are expected to be confirmed in the first session of the new parliament at the beginning of December,” AAK spokesman Ernest Luma said.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The EU should wrap up accession negotiations with Romania before the bloc’s summit on December 16-17, but not this month as many officials had hoped, diplomats said yesterday. The delay will deny Prime Minister Adrian Nastase’s leftist camp a boost ahead of a November 28 general election, but the postponement is for technical rather than political reasons, they said. Former EU Enlargement Commissioner Guenter Verheugen had predicted negotiations could be concluded in November, but the EU decided it needed more time to study Romania’s entry terms in the areas of competition policy and justice and home affairs.

Turkey’s prime minister took the Muslim world to task yesterday over its poor economic record and said it must embrace market reforms. “Muslim countries account for 20 percent of the world’s population but only 5 percent of the world’s income,” Tayyip Erdogan told delegates from the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). “The time has come, already long since, for self-criticism,” said Erdogan. “The driving force of globalization is the economy, investment, the private sector,” he said, adding that Muslim countries should encourage private ownership and enterprise. (Reuters)

Turkish firefighters were struggling yesterday to put out a fire aboard a tanker ship carrying crude oil near the entrance to Turkey’s straits, the Anatolia news agency reported. The fire broke out aboard the Liberian-flagged Gemmar Prokres, which was carrying 74,000 tons of crude oil from Russia to Italy, Anatolia said. The cause of the fire in the Aegean Sea near the entrance of the Dardanelles was not known. (AP)

Romania can’t afford to write off Iraqi debt as the Paris Club of creditor nations agreed to do over the weekend, Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana said yesterday. Iraq’s debt to Romania is estimated to have reached about $2.5 billion (2 billion euros) and dates back to the Communist rule of Nicolae Ceausescu, who had strong ties to Saddam Hussein. (AP)

Turkish football authorities have taken far-reaching steps to halt crowd violence at matches after a fatal stabbing at the weekend triggered a media outcry and government calls for tough action. The Football Federation issued a statement ordering tighter security and better organization, including a ruling that clubs should no longer organize travel for supporters traveling to away matches. Cihat Aktas, a 16-year-old visiting Istanbul on holiday, died on Sunday at a match between Besiktas and Rizespor after he was stabbed in a fight with another fan of Besiktas, one of the city’s three major clubs. (Reuters)