Little enthusiasm for the birth of nation

OFFICIALS yesterday faced the difficult work of institution-building after reshaping the troubled nation of Yugoslavia into a new country with a new name. Residents greeted the change with little enthusiasm.

Serbia and Montenegro, as the country now is called, is all that is left after a decade of war that broke Yugoslavia into pieces.

An EU-brokered accord approved by parliament on Tuesday leaves the two republics only loosely united, and they could break up for good as early as 2006.