New York - Serbia on Wednesday asked the UN General Assembly to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legality of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence.

Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic told the 192-nation assembly that sending the request to the ICJ at The Hague would "prevent the Kosovo crisis from serving as a deeply problematic precedent in any part of the globe where secessionist ambitions are harboured."

Belgrade - Serbian archaeologists say a 7,500-year-old copper axe found at a Balkan site shows the metal was used in the Balkans hundreds of years earlier than previously thought.

The find near the Serbian town of Prokuplje shifts the timeline of the Copper Age and the Stone Age's neolithic period, archaeologist Julka Kuzmanovic-Cvetkovic told the independent Beta news agency.

The Hague  - A former Serb general accused of war crimes in the 1990s Balkan War did not act to stop attacks on civilians or seek punishment for perpetrators of those attacks, prosecutors said at the start of his trial on Thursday.

The trial of Serb General Momcilo Perisic before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) had been set to start Wednesday, but was delayed due to a procedural error.

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.