Maribor, Slovenia  - The father

Maribor, Slovenia - Tina Maze delighted a Slovenian home crowd on Saturday with victory in a World Cup giant slalom ski race.

Maze, 25, posted the fastest time in the second run for a winning total of 2 minutes 45.15 seconds.

It was her first win of the season, the first in her speciality discipline since October 2005 and a seventh overall in the World Cup. Her last success before Saturday came in a downhill 11 months ago.

First-run leader Denise Karbon of Italy had to settle for second place in 2:45.54 minutes and German Kathrin Hoelzl came third on the podium in 2:46.07 minutes.

Ljubljana  - Croatia is due to pass a major milestone on its way to European Union membership Friday - but, as foreign diplomats watch in disbelief, a long-running border dispute with its neighbour Slovenia may scupper its ambition.

Croatia and the EU are to declare five chapters of pre-accession negotiations closed and open 10 new chapters on Friday. Zagreb hopes this will put Croatia on track for EU membership in 2010. Slovenia joined the EU in 2004.

Ljubljana  - The Slovenian parliament Friday voted 50 to 36 for the country's new cabinet, led by the Social Democrat Borut Pahor.

The new premier pledged to focus his government on finding "the way out of the financial and economic crisis," the Slovenian news agency STA reported.

"We must take it (the crisis) as a challenge and work as a team," Pahor said as he presented his cabinet to the parliament.

Pahor, 45, has built a youthful cabinet with five women, two of whom control the defence and interior ministries. Of the 18 ministers, seven are non-partisan experts.

Ljubljana,  - Slovenia's premier-designate Borit Pahor presented a youthful, 18-minister cabinet to the nation's parliament on Friday.

The 45-year-old Pahor in addition proposed to introduce five women to the government and handing two of them the important ministries of interior and defence.

He has nominated the 35-year-old lawyer and Liberal Party chief Katarina Kresal as interior minister and defence expert Ljubica Jelisic, 45, as defence minister.

The four-way coalition led by Pahor's Social Democrats, won 59 of the 90 seats in the Slovenian parliament in September elections and is expected to easily pass the new cabinet in the confidence vote next Friday.

Ljubljana,- Slovenia's parliament on Friday endorsed youthful centre-left leader Borut Pahor as the nation's new prime minister.

Pahor, 45, has pledged to focus on the small European Union nation's economy.

He won 59 votes in the 90-seat parliament, becoming the sixth prime minister since Slovenia won independence from Yugoslavia after a brief 1991 war.

Pahor's Social Democrats won the most seats in September parliamentary elections and will lead a four-party coalition government.