BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia made final preparations yesterday to hand over the remains of 64 Kosovo Albanians murdered during the 1999 war - in the biggest single return of bodies found in mass graves near Belgrade four years ago. The corpses of more than 800 Kosovo Albanians were secretly transported 350km (220 miles) north to Serbia in freezer trucks during the conflict and buried in three sites, in an attempt by Serb forces to conceal atrocities in Kosovo. Todays's handover will bring to nearly 500 the number who have been returned to their families in Kosovo. But another 340 are still awaiting identification.

PRISTINA (AP) - A UN refugee official working in Kosovo was charged yesterday with alleged sexual abuse of minors in this UN-administered province, officials said. Rashidoon Khan, a Pakistani, was charged by an international prosecutor with two counts of sexual abuse of minors under the age of 16 and two counts of human trafficking, said Neeraj Singh, a UN spokesman. Khan, who was working for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Kosovo, was arrested earlier this year.

Three Romanian journalists who returned to Romania after nearly two months in captivity in Iraq were to be allowed home yesterday after the expiration of a three-day quarantine, the president's office said. Romanian authorities kept the three incommunicado for three days in a secret location. (AP)

The city of Bucharest says it will allow a gay pride parade, reversing an earlier decision not to authorize the march for security reasons. The parade, which is scheduled for tomorrow, will be the first of its kind in Romania, a country where homosexuality was a crime until 2001. (AP)

Romanian President Traian Basescu said in comments broadcast yesterday that he wants early autumn elections, but plans to consult with his prime minister before calling an early ballot. «The optimum would be in a relatively short time, by the fall,» Basescu said in comments on Realitatea TV. He added that he would consult with Premier Calin Popescu Tariceanu, who is known not to favor early elections. (AP)