1. EU set for Serbia deal on Kosovo.
BBC News Friday, 14 December 2007, 12:25 GMT
EU set for Serbia deal on Kosovo
 Serb football supporters protest against Kosovo independence |
European Union leaders are expected to offer Serbia a fast track route towards candidacy for EU membership.
The plan is seen as a way of keeping the Balkans stable, with Kosovo set to declare independence from Serbia, which has already rejected the "trade-off".
EU leaders, meeting in Brussels, are also likely to pledge to step up preparations for a big police mission in Kosovo if it leaves Serbia.
Kosovo's future is widely seen as the biggest test for EU foreign policy.
EU set for Serbia deal on Kosovo
2. Del Ponte exits in pride and frustration.
BBC News Friday, 14 December 2007, 14:21 GMT
Del Ponte exits in pride and frustration
By Paulin Kola, BBC News
 Four suspects got away |
Carla del Ponte walks out of the office she has occupied for the last eight years in The Hague satisfied - if a little frustrated.
Statistics speak for her achievements at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY): 91 war crimes suspects taken into custody, 63 served with indictments - only four of them still at large - and 44 trials.
In her justice-for-the-victim quest, she reserved a "guilty-until-proven-innocent" treatment for the alleged perpetrators.
Carla Del Ponte says she has always championed the cause of victims. Her tenure "started, continued and ended with them", as she put it last week.
By her own count, more than 3,500 horrendous Balkan stories have been re-told inside the three courtrooms.
The first such tribunal since Nuremberg has been delivering verdicts on very senior officials - and on the history of the Balkans in the last decade of the last century - the bloodiest since World War II.
Del Ponte exits in pride and frustration
3. Regions and territories: Kosovo
BBC News Tuesday, 20 November 2007, 12:22 GMT
Regions and territories: Kosovo
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Kosovo, a landlocked province within Serbia, has been the backdrop to a centuries-old and often-strained relationship between its Serb and ethnic Albanian inhabitants.
The province is administered by the UN, having endured a conflict in the late 1990s which was fuelled by ethnic division and repression. Sovereignty rests with Belgrade. Reconciliation between the majority ethnic Albanians, most of whom seek independence, and the Serb minority remains elusive.