The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Cowen, is to make a four-day visit to the Western Balkans, as part of the preparations for Ireland's EU Presidency in the first half of 2004.

A UN war crimes tribunal envoy handed Yugoslav authorities an arrest warrant for Slobodan Milosevic today and said the country’s justice minister promised to serve it on the jailed former president.

In a concession to Serbia, Nato is ready to consider a plan that would allow Serb forces to put more of a squeeze on ethnic Albanian guerrillas operating just outside Kosovo.