Belgrade/Pristina  - Serbian President Boris Tadic hinted at a possible initiative by Belgrade to partition the breakaway Kosovo, drawing an angry dismissal from Pristina on Tuesday.

"If we spend all other options, and there are many, I'm ready to consider that option," Tadic said in an interview, pointing out that partition is "not on the agenda at this moment.

Formally, Tadic has little real power as the head of state, but as the leader of the pro-European coalition which won in May elections, he is the actual spokesman for Serbia.

Belgrade - Serbia and the Italian carmaker Fiat on Monday signed a joint-venture deal expected to bring almost 1 billion euros (1.3 billion dollars) in investment and revive the moribund Serbian car industry. 

Fiat would pour 700 million euros and Serbia another 200 million euros into the Zastava factory in Kragujevac, which once made the infamous Yugo car. 

Belgrade - Serbia's war-crimes court said Friday it had launched an investigation into a US citizen suspected of committing war crimes while serving as a Nazi officer in Belgrade during World War II.

The court said in a statement that 86-year-old Peter Egner was suspected of committing genocide and war crimes against civilians in Belgrade from 1941 until 1944.

In July, US authorities took legal steps to revoke Egner's citizenship saying he concealed his service in a Nazi unit that killed thousands of civilians in a Belgrade death camp after moving to the US in 1960.

Belgrade - Walking down a street or riding an elevator in Belgrade on any given day in September, you are bound sense an aromatic cloud which may be unpleasant for foreigners, but invariably stirs the appetites of the locals.

The scent penetrating from a closed door tells whether a neighbour is frying peppers to store theme in a mixture of cooking oil, water and herbs or to combine them with mashed tomato and perhaps aubergine.

A balcony door may release the rich, sweet smell of plums cooked with sugar and a little water, while the pungent, sour aroma from a white plastic barrel locked away in a basement betrays the presence of sour cabbage. And the recipe books are brimming with other ideas.

Belgrade  - Serbia needs to curb spending and continue economic reforms in order to keep inflation under control through next year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned Wednesday.

Serbia is lagging with privatization and structural reforms, and its government faces pressure to meet election promises of increased spending, the head of an IMF delegation, Albert Jaeger, told reporters.

Overspending is expected to push Serbia's current account deficit to 18 per cent of gross domestic product by the end of the year, which it must cover by borrowing abroad.

The IMF said Serbia should seek to cut the deficit to 10 per cent of GDP in the mid-term.

Belgrade - There has been very little of turn thy cheek or love thy neighbour in the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) over the turbulent past year, but instead, plenty of fighting, backstabbing and hostility.

In Belgrade, the capricious hardline Kosovo Bishop Artemije openly went against the Holy Synod, the church government, when it tried to restrain his heavy-handed tactics which led to fistfights among monks in the holy Visoki Decani monastery.

To the west, two years after the tiny republic Montenegro claimed independence from Serbia, its clergy also wants to break away from Belgrade's rule.