Mitrovica

The Serbian weekly Vreme has called on the director of Kosovo Police, Rashit Qelaj, to investigate the fire that broke out in the vehicle driven by three of its journalists and a reporter of the French-language website Le Courrier des Balkans on January 4.

Kosovo police on Tuesday stopped the players and management of Serbian basketball club Partizan from entering the country, where they planned to support Kosovo Serbs protesting against Pristina's recent tax hike on Serbian imports.

Serbian media reported that Partizan were planning to play a friendly match with Trepca basketball club from the mostly-Serb area of northern Kosovo.

MPs of the Belgrade-backed party in Kosovo, Lista Srpska, spent Sunday night in the Kosovo parliament building and vowed not to leave until they met EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who was due in Kosovo.

As a crisis over Kosovo's import tax hikes continues in Serb-majority northern Kosovo, a former Serbian Minister for Kosovo, Goran Bogdanovic, says that he expects a "status quo" to settle in before the import taxes on Serbian products are scrapped.

"I believe that this decision [to raise taxes on Serbian imports] will be revoked very soon," Boganovic told BIRN.

According to the northern-Kosovo based KoSSev website, Bahtiri is proposing that he should govern a "united (Kosovska Mitrovica."

"I demand that the Kosovo government take all the necessary legal actions to immediately abolish the decision to divide Mitrovica into two municipalities," Bahtiri wrote on his Facebook profile.

Protesters rallied on Tuesday in the north of the divided town of Mitrovica, carrying placards with messages like "EU open your eyes", "All we are saying is give peace a chance", "They are beating and terrorising us", "We want peace - not new wars" and "Don't shut us in a ghetto".

Courts in the north of Kosovo are plagued with stalled trials and postponed hearings, which some blame on a backlog of cases and lack of translators, while others claim that the courts themselves are not doing enough.

Some Kosovo Serb representatives say that employees of institutions funded by Serbia in Kosovo are being pressured to attend a rally in support of President Aleksandar Vucic, and fear reprisals if they do not show up.

A report published on Monday by the Kosovo Chamber of Commerce said 84 per cent of 505 companies that were interviewed say the business situation in the country is improving.

The head of the Chamber of Commerce, Safet Gerxhaliu, said the private sector had seen positive growth, despite being buffeted by political events.

Serbia and Kosovo are due to meet for another round of EU-mediated talks in Brussels on February 26 and 27.