News stories by Vesna Peric Zimonjic, page 9

It would appear at first sight that Ratko Mladic, indicted for war crimes, has little to worry about. A survey shows that two-thirds of Serbs would not tip off the police about him, despite the million euros reward offered by the state.

The gas crisis has unleashed new interest in turning to alternative energy sources in the Balkans.

Two things Serbs never forget to pack when visiting friends and relatives abroad are the kore and the cream. The kore is the traditional hand-made pastry; and the Pavlovic face and body cream has long held its own against more upmarket brands.

EU membership remains the declared goal of many of the countries carved out of former Yugoslavia, but recent developments have made that goal more distant than before.

The Balkans region, crippled by the wars of the 1990s and then pushed through painful transition to a market economy, has been hit hard by the global economic crisis just when everyone believed the time had come for promising new development.

BELGRADE, Dic 26 (IPS) - Serbian journalists, resisting government's attempt to tighten its hold on the national media, are refusing to work with a senior state official who was put in charge of Belgrade's only independent daily newspaper at the weekend.

BELGRADE, Dic 21 (IPS) - Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic has given his support to the peace efforts in Bosnia-Hercegovina of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter who managed to secure a four- month ceasefire in the war-torn state, starting on Friday.

BELGRADE, Dic 14 (IPS) - The civil wars in the former Yugoslavia and the ensuing international economic sanctions have wreaked havoc in Serbia proper which now has to face up the added burden of up to six hours a day of power cuts.

BELGRADE, Nov 22 (IPS) - United Nations forces tasked with the delivery of humanitarian aid in Bosnia-Hercegovina appeared no better off for NATO's dramatic airstrikes on the Croatian Serb air base of Udbina -- in fact, they appeared worse off.

BELGRADE, Nov 12 (IPS) - The countryside that leads from Serbia to the Bosnian Serb controlled territories in northern Bosnia and further west to Krajina has very little to please the eye.