The FINANCIAL -- According to RIA Novosti, Kosovo will declare independence in February, the breakaway Serb province's president, prime minister and parliament speaker said on February 4 after a meeting in Pristina with Albania's foreign minister.

The FINANCIAL -- According to RIA Novosti, a crew of NASA astronauts have arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the repeatedly-delayed Atlantis space shuttle launch now set for February 7, a space agency spokesperson said on February 5.

The FINANCIAL -- According to RIA Novosti, Serbia's Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic said on Monday that his country is not making a choice between its long-standing ally Russia and the European Union.

The FINANCIAL -- According to RIA Novosti, Russia's president visited on February 4 a military unit in the southern republic of Daghestan, several of whose provinces suffered militant incursions from neighboring Chechnya in 1999.

The FINANCIAL -- According to RIA Novosti, Turkish warplanes bombed 70 Kurdish guerrilla targets in northern Iraq in a 12-hour operation on February 4, the Turkish General Staff said.