The European Commission has asked EU governments to accept Macedonia as a candidate for European Union membership, an EU diplomat said.

Fouling traffic and tempers, heavy snow fell today on much of Europe that had been deprived of anything more than a dusting for weeks, giving Rome a rare winter blanket and shutting down the main airport in Montenegro.

Croatia’s incumbent president Stipe Mesic promised today to align the former Yugoslav country more closely with the West after overwhelmingly winning a second term in a run-off election.

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic opens his defence case at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal today after months of delays due to his frail health.

THE world’s first cloned ba

The world’s first cloned baby will be born in Belgrade next month, controversial Italian gynaecologist Severino Antinori claimed in an interview.

Former Serbian interior minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic, wanted by the UN War crimes tribunal, killed himself outside the Yugoslav parliament today shortly after MPs passed a law allowing his extradition.

Slobodan Milosevic will today cross-examine his trial’s first witness, when he questions a Kosovar Albanian who testified that the former Yugoslav president had a ‘‘scorched earth policy’’ against Kosovo Albanians.

A moderate ethnic Albanian leader declared that his party swept to power in Kosovo’s elections, predicting that official results released today would give the Democratic League of Kosovo control of the Yugoslav province’s 120-seat assembly.

US President, George W Bush flew to Kosovo today for a brief visit with US troops serving as part of the Nato led peacekeeping force in the Yugoslav province.

Slobodan Milosevic’s wife left Belgrade today to visit her husband in a UN prison in the Netherlands where he is being held pending trial for atrocities in Kosovo.

As Yugoslavia stepped up moves to extradite Slobodan Milosevic to the United Nations war crimes tribunal, the former president’s defence lawyers manoeuvred for time today, filing a request that two Belgrade District Court judges and the prosecutor be dismissed from the case.

Britain's Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said the "end game" is in sight for former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

China has received £19m in compensation from the US for the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo war.