Kadri Veseli

Eight out of 43 members of the Kosovo Assembly who supported an initiative to annul the law on the Specialist Chambers have withdrawn their signatures.

Daut Haradinaj - the brother of Kosovo PM Ramush Haradinaj - and Azem Syla will be among those indicted by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers ("special court").

RTS reported this on Monday, citing the Pristina-based website Insajderi.

RTS reported this on Monday, citing the Pristina-based website Insajderi.

The court has been set up to deal with the crimes committed by members of the ethnic Albanian KLA ("Kosovo Liberation Army") in KOsovo and Metohija.

The decision by Kosovo Serb party Srpska Lista(Serbian List) to back the election of Kadri Veseli, from the Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, as the new parliamentary speaker on Thursday has drawn fiercely divided reactions in Serbia, where rightists accused it - and Belgrade - of surrendering to a war criminal.

Kosovo's president has named Ramush Haradinaj as prime minister-designate and given him the mandate to form a new government, apparently ending a months long political crisis in the Balkan country.

The candidate of the so-called war coalition PAN, Kadri Veseli, has been elected as the president of the Kosovo Assembly.

This happened on Thursday, after five failed attempts over these past months.

Tanjug is quoting RTK2 to report that 62 members of the assembly voted in favor, with no abstentions, and 52 votes against.

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Kosovo's parliament finally elected Kadri Veseli as its new speaker on Thursday, one day after leaders of the new PAN government coalition - Veseli of the PDK, Ramush Haradinaj of the AAK, Fatmir Limaj of NISMA and Behgjet Pacolli of the AKR - reached an agreement with the main Kosovo Serb party, Lista Srpska.

The candidate of the so-called war coalition PAN, Kadri Veseli, has been elected as the president of the Kosovo Assembly.

This happened on Thursday, after five failed attempts over these past months.

The so-called war coalition ("PAN") in Kosovo, led by the PDK party, has failed to garner a majority to elect its candidate for speaker of the Kosovo Assembly.

This pre-election coalition is now seeking a new postponement - "not more than 14 days" - in order to secure a majority.

Bajram Rexhepi, the first elected Prime Minister of Kosovo following the 1999 war of independence, died on Monday at the age of 63 in a hospital in Turkey, where he had been receiving treatment for months following a stroke in April this year.

News of the death of Rexhepi was confirmed by his Kosovo Democratic Party, PDK.