BELGRADE (AP) - In the first police action against anti-government demonstrators since President Slobodan Milosevic was ousted, some 2,000 workers were prevented yesterday from rallying in front of the Parliament building during a crucial debate. No major clashes were reported, and no one appeared hurt, as dozens of riot police pushed the workers away from the assembly building in downtown Belgrade. Meanwhile, inside the assembly building, Serbia’s Prime Minister Zoran Zivkovic defended the work of his Cabinet during a debate on a no-confidence motion sponsored by opposition parties, including Milosevic loyalists. “Serbia has become a normal country,” Zivkovic said. “That is our greatest success; that is what the citizens expected of us.”

ZAGREB (Reuters) - German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, apparently contradicting his EU partners, said yesterday Croatia was cooperating fully with the UN war crimes tribunal and deserved to start accession talks soon. In a joint news conference with Croatian Premier Ivica Racan, Schroeder said he was impressed by reforms implemented since 2000. “Croatia is cooperating with the tribunal. You cannot arrest someone who isn’t here... and there should be more understanding for this,” Schroeder said. “The one thing (EU talks) should not be conditioned by the other,” he said. Schroeder is the first German chancellor to visit Croatia since its 1991 independence.

Albanian environmentalist groups protested yesterday the arrival of a ship with genetically modified corn and soybean flour brought as aid from the US to Albanian farmers, saying it would destroy the country’s biodiversity. The Malta-registered ship TK Liverpool Valletta brought 6,900 metric tons of corn and soybean flour, part of a 16,000-ton aid shipment from the US government under an agreement with Albania as part of its Food for Progress project to the world’s underdeveloped countries. (AP)

Two Kurdish politicians were jailed yesterday for electoral fraud in a controversial case that had threatened the cancellation of Turkey’s 2002 polls. Mehmet Abbasoglu, the former head of the pro-Kurdish Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP), and his aide Nurettin Sonmez were sent to a prison in Haymana, near Ankara to serve terms of nine months each. (AFP)