UNHCR opens office in Albania

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has opened an office in northern Albania to deal with a possible influx of refugees from the neighbouring Serbian province of Kosovo.

A UNHCR spokesman said that so far there had only been about forty such cases, but contingency plans had been made to deal with larger numbers.

The latest reports from Kosovo say heavy fighting has continued between ethnic-Albanian separatists and Serbian forces.

Meanwhile, the American State Department has confirmed that Kosovo's main ethnic-Albanian leader, Ibrahim Rugova, is due to meet senior members of the Clinton administration in Washington later this week.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service