Mostar

Around 200 workers from bankrupt firms in the Tuzla region spent Wednesday night in a sports centre of the nearby town of Srebrenik after starting a protest walk on December 24 across the border towards Croatia, aiming to "leave the country" because of their hopeless situation.

The new probe into the former president's death has dismissed reports that the aircraft carrying Trajkovski and his staff might have exploded in mid-air, Bosnian television, FTV, reported.

The probe reportedly also dismissed suspicions that French SFOR soldiers who were running the control tower in the southwestern Bosnian town of Mostar were in part to blame for the crash.

BELGRADE - Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor's Office announced on Wednesday that an investigation has been launched into a mass grave in the village of Radice near Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), suspected to hold the remains of Serb victims of war crimes committed in 1993 and 1994.

"Macedonian president was dead before plane crashed"

SKOPJE -- A draft report about the 2004 plane crash in which Macedonian President Boris Trajkoviski lost his life states the victims were dead before the aircraft fell.

The draft was handed to the Macedonian authorities by Omer Kulic, who chairs an international commission that investigated the crash.

Bosnia's State Investigative and Protection Agency, SIPA, has arrested seven persons in an action codenamed "Gibraltar" after conducting raids in Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Mostar, Posusje and Grude, related to financial crime and corruption.

Among the suspects were some well known names from marketing agencies, the world of television and telecommunications companies.

BELGRADE - "Young Bosnia and the Sarajevo Assassination" (Mlada Bosna i Sarajevski atentat), an exhibition prepared by the Republika Srpska (RS) Archives based in Banja Luka to mark the centenary of the beginning of World War I, will be opened at the Archives of Yugoslavia in Belgrade on September 15.

Jerko Ivankovic-Lijanovic and Milorad Bahilj, Agriculture and Trade ministers in the Federation entity government, were among 11 persons arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of tax evasion and fraud.

Aside from Jerko Ivankovic-Lijanovic, his brother, Mladen, a lawmaker in Bosnia's state-level House of Representatives, and other members of the family were also arrested. 

BELGRADE - On the eve of the International Day of the Disappeared, the Serbian government’s Office for Kosovo-Metohija (KiM) called on the competent provincial authorities, and especially the international community, to use all their powers and make maximum effort to resolve the fate of 1,711 persons gone missing in KiM and punish those responsible for crimes committed in that region.

MOSTAR - Leaders of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) and Montenegro signed in Mostar on Friday the Declaration on missing persons which aims to encourage the search for missing persons and define the responsibilities and role of states in the search for a solution to the problem.

Bosnia's Security Ministry is seeking the dismissal of Goran Zubac, director of the State Investigative and Protection Agency, SIPA, at Wednesday's session of the Council of Ministers.