European Union leaders have agreed to open membership talks with Serbia by January in recognition of its efforts to improve relations with its former province of Kosovo. The president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, described the decision as historic. Chris Morris reports.
For much of the 1990s many countries in Europe regarded Serbia as a prior state, the driving force behind the wars that tore the Balkans apart. But now Serbia is taking a decisive step towards eventual membership of the European Union. The decision to begin accession talks by January is a reward for Serbia's efforts to improve relations with Kosovo, its former province which broke away and then declared independence in 2008. The EU has also decided to start work on what's called an association agreement with Kosovo itself covering a variety of economic and political ties.
A Brazilian congressman sentenced to 13 years in jail for corruption has given himself up after several days on the run. Natan Donadon is the first serving congressman to be jailed in Brazil since the end of the military government in the late 1980s. Mr Donadon was convicted three years ago for siphoning off nearly $4m from the state assembly in Rondonia in Brazil's Amazon region.
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The father of a fugitive CIA analyst Edward Snowden says he's reasonably confident his son will return to the United States to face trial for espionage. Lon Snowden was speaking to the American TV channel NBC. Jonny Dymond reports from Washington.