Belgrade - Serbian officials urged the country's citizens on Tuesday to help capture former Serbia military chief Ratko Mladic, who is wanted on charges of war crimes.

Rasim Ljajic, head of the National Council for Cooperation with the UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, said citizens would be doing a "good thing for the state" if they reported any information on the whereabouts of Mladic and 1990s Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic.

Belgrade - Serbian Minister of Justice Snezana Malovic gave birth to a baby girl on Friday

Belgrade - Serbian President Boris Tadic on Tuesday sacked the army's top general, Zdravko Ponos, ending a rift that shook the defence system last week.

Tadic, who as president also serves as supreme commander of the military, appointed General Miloje Miletic as new head of the general staff, the president's cabinet said.

Ponos, 46, last week publicly criticized Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac, accusing his ministry in newspaper interviews of incompetence and corruption.

Tadic announced his decision a day after the supreme defence council met in a marathon six-hour session to discuss the Ponos- Sutanovac row.

Belgrade  - Serbian president Boris Tadic has called for the National Security Council to meet Monday to discuss the public rift between Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac and Chief of General Staff Zdravko Ponos.

"Because of their disagreement in public, each of them has a responsibility and I will analyse and propose measures all in line with my powers," Tadic told Vecernje Novosti daily on Saturday.

The conflict began when Ponos ordered generals not to attend Sutanovac's New Year reception and later when he accused the Defence Ministry of incompetence.

Belgrade  - Where until recently people quietly leafed through books in the heart of Belgrade or met to discuss literary works, today they read newspapers while drinking franchise coffee or eyeing designer clothes.

The government plan to privatize one of the older Serbian publishing houses, the Prosveta, stirred book lovers into a state of alarm amid concern that the city's oldest bookstore, which it owns, may be converted into another brand-name store.

Moscow - Serbian President Boris Tadic flew to Moscow on Wednesday to ink a multimillion-dollar energy deal with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev.

Under the deal, Serbia will sell a controlling stake in its oil monopoly NIS to Russian state giant Gazprom in exchange for a share in a strategic Russian pipeline through Serbia.

Serbian media reported the 51-per-cent stake was sold for 400 million euros (560 million dollars).