BUCHAREST (AFP) - With the clock ticking on an execution ultimatum, Romanians gathered in solidarity for three journalists kidnapped in Iraq, waving their photos at rallies and offering prayers at masses yesterday. The captors of the three journalists on Friday threatened to kill them unless Romania pledged within four days to withdraw its 860-strong military contingent from Iraq.

JASENOVAC (AP) - Croatian dignitaries gathered at a Nazi-era death camp yesterday to commemorate tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Gypsies and Croat anti-fascists slaughtered here during World War II. Prime Minister Ivo Sanader joined several thousand visitors expressing their condolences for those who perished on the 60th anniversary of an attempted breakout from the prison.

Serbia’s government leader yesterday expressed readiness to compromise over the disputed Kosovo province but ruled out any formal change of borders as demanded by Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians. “We are facing the enormous task of... ensuring that the internationally recognized borders of our country remain where they are,” Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said at a ceremony marking the 190th anniversary of Serbia’s own liberation war against the Ottoman Turks. (AP)

Romania and Bulgaria will today sign EU entry accords, paving the way to join the bloc in 2007. The two countries’ presidents and prime ministers will travel to Luxembourg to sign the EU accession treaty on the sidelines of a regular meeting of EU foreign ministers. Also at the two-day meeting, Croatia will make a new bid to win a green light for EU entry talks, delayed in part over fugitive general Ante Gotovina. (AFP)

An explosion hit a convoy in Afghanistan’s southern province of Kandahar yesterday, and the Romanian Defense Ministry said one Romanian soldier was killed and two were wounded. Afghan officials told Reuters the blast ripped through one of the five vehicles in the convoy on a dirt road in the Arghandab district. (Reuters)