GENEVA (AP) – Thousands of Iraqis who sought refuge in the relatively safe north of the country are now fleeing cross-border shelling by Turk forces, the International Organization for Migration said yesterday. Artillery bombardment of border areas by the Turk army has also hampered the work of the IOM’s staff in the region, a group official said. “A couple of thousand (uprooted Iraqis) have been displaced due to this bombing,” Dana Graber Ladek told reporters in Geneva, noting that many of those affected had already fled violence in other parts of Iraq.

BANJA LUKA (AFP) – The top international envoy to Bosnia, Miroslav Lajcak, warned yesterday that a deadline was nearing for the country to agree on key police reforms. “Time is running out, the deadline to adopt a protocol (on police reforms) is September 30,” he said in an address to Bosnian-Serb lawmakers. “The train is leaving and will not return for at least another year. The essence of police reforms is the issue of... your future in Europe.”

Serbia’s police yesterday banned a neo-Nazi march planned for next month in a northern city after an outrage among Jewish and liberal groups. The group Nacionalni Stroj, or National Guard, had announced plans to hold the October 7 march against the secession of Serbia’s separatist Kosovo province in Novi Sad, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Belgrade. Serbia’s police, apparently acting on protests by human rights and other non-government groups, said in a statement that the march would be banned. Goran Davdovic, the leader of the neo-Nazi group, has said the protest was intended against all forms of “separatism, sects and divisions” in Serbia. (AP)

Twenty people have been found infected with brucellosis in southern Bulgaria after four others fell ill with the rare animal disease from contact with sick goats and sheep, a veterinary officer said yesterday. Earlier this month 121 people in Harmanli were tested for brucellosis following an outbreak of the disease in a herd of goats in the southern town. Twenty samples were clearly positive while three were borderline, Harmanli veterinary service chief Delcho Yanev said on the national radio. (AFP)

Nearly 102 kilos (225 lb) of heroin with a value of –6 million (US$8.5 million) have been seized on the border between Bulgaria and Turkey, Bulgarian customs said yesterday. In a joint operation with the US Drug Enforcement Administration and Turkish customs police late Tuesday, Bulgarian customs officers said they seized 200 packages of the drug in a Turkish truck crossing the Kapitan Andreevo border checkpoint in southeast Bulgaria. (AFP)