Belgrade - Pro-European Serbian President Boris Tadic's Democratic Party (DS) and the Serbian Socialist party (SPS) (of the late former president Slobodan Milosevic), formally reconciled on Saturday, four months after agreeing to build a coalition government.

The DS and SPS jointly declared Serbian membership of the European Union as their goal, while - in a reference to the declaration of the former-Serbian province of Kosovo in February - pledging to preserve "the full integrity of Serbia."

Belgrade/Frankfurt  - The German air carrier XL Airways confirmed that one of its aircraft had to make an emergency landing Saturday in Belgrade.

The Frankfurt-based firm said its Boeing 737-800 with 188 passengers and crew landed following a warning of an unspecified "engine problem" in the cockpit, spokesman Asger Schubert told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Schubert denied Serbian media reports claiming that one of the plane's engines caught fire.

Belgrade  - Serbia's latest slap came from the Nobel peace prize committee Friday, ending a week in which Belgrade declared a rare diplomatic triumph in its quest to keep Kosovo.

Only on Wednesday, Serbia hailed the UN General Assembly decision to back its campaign for an International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion on Kosovo's declaration of independence.

Belgrade- The ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), which won most votes in past three parliamentary polls but never returned to power since falling with Slobodan Milosevic, finally fell apart on Friday.

Acting chief of SRS over the past five years, Tomislav Nikolic, and its secretary general, Aleksandar Vucic, completed their defection by registering the new Serbian Progressive Party (SNS).

Belgrade - Belgrade has expelled the Montenegrin ambassador and is set to take the same step in relations with Macedonia in reaction to the two countries' recognition of Kosovo, reports said Friday.

Podgorica and Skopje recognized Kosovo, a territory Serbia still claims as its province, Thursday night, some eight months after it unilaterally declared independence.

Though it was certain to strain ties with Serbia, a major trade and economic partner, Montenegro and Macedonia jointly said they "remain committed to further promotion of ... relations with Serbia."

Montenegrin ambassador, Anka Vojvodic, was immediately told she had 48 hours to leave. "It is not a clever and political move," Vojvodic was quoted as saying.

Belgrade - Serbian archaeologists say a 7,500-year-old copper axe found at a Balkan site shows the metal was used in the Balkans hundreds of years earlier than previously thought.

The find near the Serbian town of Prokuplje shifts the timeline of the Copper Age and the Stone Age's neolithic period, archaeologist Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic told the independent Beta news agency.