TIRANA (AP) - The European Union has donated 2 million euros to help identify and de-mine areas in Albania's northeast strewn with explosives during the war in neighboring Kosovo, UN officials said yesterday. The UN-led project that began last year is scheduled to be completed by 2005. More than 60 percent of the area in question is expected to be mine-free by the end of the year. During the Kosovo war in 1999, millions of square meters of Albanian territory on parts of the border with Kosovo and Montenegro were mined, in part by Serb forces. Unexploded NATO cluster bombs also fell in the area, as the alliance fought an air war to force Serb forces to pull out of Kosovo. Twenty-seven people have been killed and 216 wounded by the explosives in the region since 1999, according to a government report.

ANKARA (AFP) - The navies of Israel, Turkey and the United States will hold joint search-and-rescue maneuvers in international waters off Turkey's Mediterranean coast next month, the Turkish army said yesterday. The so-called «Reliant Mermaid» drills, which the three countries have been carrying out since 1998, will take place on August 13, according to the statement, carried by Anatolia news agency. Similar maneuvers have drawn the ire of Arab countries and Iran in the past. Turkey will participate with two frigates, two coast-guard boats, two helicopters and a search-and-rescue plane in this year's exercises, while Israel and the United States will send four ships, five helicopters and two search-and-rescue planes in total, the statement said.

Blood pressure problems were to blame for halting former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's marathon war crimes trial again this week, UN judges said yesterday. Milosevic has been unable to attend his trial since last week and proceedings have been adjourned until late August, when the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia in The Hague returns from a three-week summer recess. Judge Richard May told a brief hearing yesterday - which the accused did not attend - that he understood Milosevic was «suffering from problems with his blood pressure,» tribunal spokesman Jim Landale said. May said he had not yet received a formal medical report. (Reuters)

Washington waived its suspension of military aid to five countries after they granted immunity from prosecution to US citizens by the International Criminal Court, the White House said late on Tuesday. Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Djibouti, Mauritius and Zambia had their aid restored by President George W. Bush after they recently concluded immunity agreements with the United States, according to a statement. (AFP)