Washington/Brussels - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on Wednesday formally welcomed Albania and Croatia as fully fledged allies, raising the total number of member states to 28.

"Today, Albania and Croatia have completed the accession process, and have joined the Alliance as members," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in a statement.

"I warmly congratulate them on this historic achievement. In becoming NATO members, Albania and Croatia share the benefits and responsibilities of collective security," the alliance's chief said.

Washington/Brussels - Albania and Croatia formally joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on Wednesday, raising its member states to 28.

The announcement came shortly after the ambassadors of the two Central European countries handed over the "instruments of accession" during a ceremony at the US State Department in Washington.

The bureaucratic act completed a year-long process involving the ratification of their accession by existing NATO allies.

Zagreb - Croatia's national team coac

Zagreb - The Croatian parliament Wednesday ratified with an overwhelming majority Croatia's membership agreement with NATO, paving the way for the country's full membership in the alliance next month.

Only one representative was against ratification, while 119 were in favour.

Speaking before the vote, Croatian prime minister Ivo Sanader said that NATO is not only a military alliance but an "alliance of values" which has given Europe six decades of peace and prosperity and that with it "Croatia will become an exporter of security."

Zagreb - A Croatian court on Monday sentenced retired general Vladimir Zagorec to seven years in prison for the theft of 5 million dollars' worth of diamonds from a government safe and ordered him to return the money.

In 2000, Zagorec, then an active officer and assistant defence minister, embezzled the diamonds deposited in the defence ministry treasury.

The gems were deposited in the ministry's treasury seven years earlier after a murky weapons deal, at a time when Croatia was fighting a Belgrade-backed Serb insurgency on a third of its soil.

Zagreb - A Croatian war veteran killed four people with an automatic rifle in a rage caused by a family feud, local media said Monday.

The man, a soldier who took part in Croatian independence war in the 1990s, killed a nephew, the nephew's mother, daughter and a family friend amid an argument over the split of a vineyard in Krizevci, 100 kilometres northeast of the capital Zagreb.