NICOSIA (AFP) – A Cypriot businessman and his brother appeared in court yesterday on suspicion they destroyed scores of pine trees because they were obstructing the view of advertising billboards. The advertising company owner and his brother are accused of destroying 233 pine trees mainly on public highways on the island by injecting pesticide or herbicide through holes drilled into the trunks. The men, who deny any involvement, could face maximum jail terms of three years if convicted. “According to the forestry department, the cost of damage to the trees – which average 27 years old – is 21,127 euros,” investigating officer Iosif Katsouides told the court. “But this is not only about money. the damage is catastrophic to the environment,” he said.

PRISTINA (AFP) – Citizens of the breakaway state of Kosovo began receiving their first official passports yesterday, five months after its ethnic Albanian leaders declared unilateral independence from Serbia. “This is an historic day for our country and for all Kosovar citizens,” Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said during a symbolic presentation of the first passport. The new passports are blue and adorned with the emblem of the fledgling Kosovan state: a shield with six stars along the top and a map of the territory inside it. “We are completing our state. Today’s journey marks the final step for citizen of Kosovo,” Thaci added.

SOFIA (AFP) – Positive dope tests from the Bulgarian men’s and women’s weightlifting teams, which have already withdrawn from the Beijing Olympics, have been confirmed, the national federation said yesterday. “We received a letter from the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) confirming that our athletes’ B samples also contained the banned anabolic steroid metandienon,” federation chief Anton Kodzhabashev told AFP. The IWF was expected to meet during or after the Olympics to decide which sanctions to impose on the Bulgarian athletes and the federation as a whole, he added. The Bulgarian teams already withdrew from the Games in late June after the A samples of all 11 athletes on the preliminary squad tested positive for the banned substance.

Kidnappers released the wife of a Bulgarian soccer club boss yesterday after holding her for 19 days, police said, hours after her husband made a surprise TV appearance to announce a donation to charity. A police patrol found Kamelia Boncheva, wife of Litex Lovech soccer club chairman Angel Bonchev, “alive and well” early yesterday in the Sofia district of Kazichene. The bizarre hostage drama began May 21, when Bonchev was reported missing by his wife, who said he had disappeared while she waited nearby for him to park their car in Sofia’s upscale Darvenitsa district. The kidnappers released Bonchev on July 11, but snatched his wife as she attempted to pay an undisclosed amount of ransom. Boncheva was freed hours after her husband made a surprise TV appearance late Tuesday to announce he had donated 157,000 euros ($247,000) to charity. (AP)

Officials say two workers have died in an accident at a French-owned cement factory in eastern Romania. Eugen Bola, a labor safety enforcement official, said the two died yesterday in an accident involving an industrial cement mixer. The plant in Medgidia, near the Black Sea, is owned by Lafarge SA, the world’s largest cement maker. (AP)

Bulgaria’s parliament approved yesterday the purchase of two secondhand Belgian frigates and a minesweeper to help bring the country’s navy up to NATO standards, its press office said. The government had already agreed to buy the three ships but had to obtain parliament’s approval before signing the contract. The price of the deal is 54 million euros ($85.8 million) to be paid in installments by 2015. (AFP)