Priboj

Almost seven years since negotiations started, Serbia and Montenegro have agreed to open six new border crossings and to sign an agreement on regional and international cross-border traffic.

According to the Interior Ministry documents, which BIRN has seen,  the two countries agreed to signed additional protocols on joint border checkings, to meet EU standards.

BELGRADE - Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic and officials of the China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC), which is in charge of the overhaul of Kostolac thermal power plant, said Thursday that the works in the first phase are going as planned, and voiced expectation that the project will be successfully completed and the production resumed in a very short time.

SMEDEREVO - Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic handed on Thursday the keys to the new production hall in Smederevo to its lessee PKC Group, a Finland-based manufacturer of wiring systems and electronics for commercial vehicles.

Arrests for 1993 Strpci station train kidnappings

BELGRADE, SARAJEVO -- Five persons have been arrested in Serbia and ten in Bosnia-Herzegovina on suspicion that they took part in the 1993 kidnapping of train passengers.

The train was traveling on the Belgrade-Bar line when 20 passengers were taken out and later killed.

BELGRADE - Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has said that the talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) delegation will finish on Thursday, and that Serbia is only a step away from reaching a three-year precautionary arrangement with that international financial institution.

New copper smelter "to boost GDP"

BOR -- Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić visited on Wednesday the copper mining and smelting complex RTB in Bor, eastern Serbia.

The construction of a new copper smelter is underway there, with dry runs scheduled to begin by the end of the year.

BOR - Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic visited on Wednesday the copper mining and smelting complex RTB in Bor, eastern Serbia, where the construction of a new copper smelter is underway, with dry runs scheduled to begin by the end of the year.

BELGRADE - Serbia's new economy minister Zeljko Sertic said that many of the 502 companies included in the recent public call for privatization are not likely to be profitable even if all their overdue debts are erased, so they will probably not attract any prospective buyers.

PRIBOJ - More than 600 employees of the Priboj-based FAP are officially in a paid leave status by the end of June but the company's management engaged around one hundred of them in the manufacture of ten FAP 1118 trucks for the needs of Serbian Armed Forces and the preparation of the factory's takeover by the Finnish SISU Auto.

PM: "Criminal failures" will be investigated

PRIBOJ -- PM Aleksandar Vučić says the prosecution would initiate proceedings in cases where there were criminal offenses related to failures in the flood defense effort.