Fighting spreads along Kosovo border

There has been heavy fighting on Kosovo's southern border with Macedonia, between the Macedonian Army and ethnic Albanian rebels.

The two sides exchanged fire for more than two hours.

The Macedonian president, Boris Trajkovski, later addressed the nation on television, saying he was committed to maintaining national stability and would seek support from NATO against separatist violence.

His security adviser Nikolai Dimitrov told the BBC that Macedonia was worried that extremists could damage inter-ethnic relations and undo ten years of work to promote tolerance and integrate the large ethnic Albanian minority. Last week a Balkan summit in Macedonia called for urgent action to stop months of violence involving ethnic Albanian separatists in southern Serbia.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service