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PRISTINA, Kosovo -- Kosovo's parliament declared the territory a nation on Sunday, mounting a historic bid to become an "independent and democratic state" backed by the U.S. and European allies but bitterly contested by Serbia and Russia.....

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) - Serbia will offer near complete autonomy to Kosovo during the first face-to-face negotiations with rival ethnic Albanians in New York later this week, a Serbian official said Monday. The minister for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic, said that Belgrade's new proposal includes giving the independence-seeking Kosovo Albanians ``95 percent competence'' in running the province. ``The Serbian proposal is new and specific and offers a form of maximum autonomy not seen in the world today,'' Samardzic said, adding that Kosovo would maintain ``weak and minimal'' links with Serbia.

BELGRADE: Kosovo Serbs and the influential Serbian Orthodox Church on Tuesday urged the government in Belgrade to reject a UN plan for Kosovo, saying it opens the way for secession of the southern province. The government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica immediately convened to adopt a “resolution” that would serve as Serbia’s official response to the recently presented UN plan on Kosovo’s future. The plan by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari envisages internationally supervised statehood for the disputed territory. The Serbian National Council, which represents some 100,000 Serbs still living in the province amid an overwhelming majority of independence-seeking ethnic Albanians,...