Belgrade  - A day before the International Roma day, some 40 Roma aimed to spend another night outside Belgrade's city hall in an ongoing drama after their "unhygienic neighborhood" was torn down.

Roma families living in cardboard slums in the posh New Belgrade district were evicted from their houses last weekend and their homes - located in front of the new buildings built for the participants of the upcoming International Student Games - were torn down.

Belgrade  - The Serbian government on Thursday said it has paid 900,000 dollars in compensation to the family of a US student who was beaten by a Serb basketball player in the United States last year.

Serbian state secretary Slobodan Homen confirmed the payment to the family of Bryan Steinhauer. Up until now, the government had labeled the case against Miladin Kovacevic, the alleged assailant, as a "state secret," keeping all information tightly sealed.

Belgrade - Serbian parliament on Thursday approved a law against discrimination, despite objections from the Serbian Orthodox Church, conservatives and nationalists.

The 250 member parliament passed the law with 127 votes in favor and 59 against. The remaining deputies did not attend the session.

The law bans discrimination based on race, gender, national, social, ethnic, religious or sexual orientation.

Belgrade - Serbia's economy would decline by 2 per cent in 2009, instead of growing by 3.5 as was originally projected, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Thursday, unveiling details of a new standby loan for Belgrade.

The Serbian economy would stagnate in 2010, IMF said, in contrast to recent optimistic statements by Belgrade officials, who until recently insisted that the global financial crisis would largely bypass Serbia.

Belgrade  - Serbia reached a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on a three-billion-euro (4.06 billion dollars) loan over two years, Serbian Minister of economy Mladjan Dinkic said Wednesday.

"The agreement was reached and I expect it to be made public tomorrow by both Serbian government and the IMF," Dinkic told journalists and added that 2.2 billion euros of the loan will be used in 2009.

Belgrade - Serbia on Tuesday marked a decade since NATO started bombing it over the war in Kosovo, revisiting the horrors and many of the same questions raised during the attacks.

NATO bombed the then Yugoslavia for 78 days, until it ousted Serbian security forces from Kosovo, paving the way for the return of the ethnic Albanian population to the homes they had fled in the face of fighting with ethnic Serbian forces.