Belgrade - The 2009 Universiade in Belgrade will have to run on half the original budget and with 15 instead of the planned 21 sports competitions, officials said Wednesday in Belgrade.

"It will be the largest sports event ever held in Serbia," Serbian Deputy Premier Bozidar Djelic told a press conference, announcing a "realistic budget" of 3.5 billion dinars 
(51 million dollars).

Belgrade - The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), Patriarch Pavle, has resigned owing to poor health, the SPC said on its website Friday.

The Holy Synod, the SPC government, said Pavle requested to be relieved when the church assembly takes place on November 11.

Pavle, 94, has not left his room in the Belgrade military hospital since November.

However, despite his frail, if stable condition, he earlier refused pressure to step down.

Belgrade - The new Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), a splinter of the extremist Serbian Radical Party (SRS), formally opened shop Wednesday on a promise of moderation, European Union membership, and military neutrality, wrapped in national pride.

The former acting chief of the Radicals, Tomislav Nikolic, was elected president of the new party at the founding congress Tuesday night.

His first move was to wash his hands of the belligerent extremist image - which he could not do while in a party that spearheaded extremist policies for Slobodan Milosevic's regime.

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."

Podgorica - Montenegrin police used teargas in the capital Podgorica Monday evening to disperse pro-Belgrade demonstrators demanding their government revoke its recognition of Serbia's breakaway province Kosovo.

Several thousand people showed up for the rally called by four pro- Serbian opposition parties. The protest turned violent when demonstrators began hurling rocks at police guarding the assembly in downtown Podgorica. Several people were reported injured.

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.