Serbia swore in a new parliament on Wednesday following early elections in March designed to boost the Balkan country's bid to win EU membership.

A former nationalist fire-brand turned devoted pro-European, Aleksandar Vucic, is expected to be named prime minister when a cabinet is chosen later this month.

A U.N. war crimes court upheld all charges against Bosnian Serb ex-army chief Ratko Mladic on Tuesday, saying he "has a case to answer", including for his role in Europe's worst massacre since World War II.

Mladic, 72, appeared before judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) half-way through his trial to hear whether they deem that enough evidence exists to continue trying him for his role in Bosnia's bloody 1992-95 war.

French police arrested a Bosnian Serb former soldier suspected of detaining civilians inside a house and then setting it on fire, killing 59 people during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, officials said Friday.

Bosnian officials have requested Radomir Susnjar's extradition following his arrest, the war crimes prosecutor's office said in a statement.

A Belgrade court on Wednesday jailed two men for the mafia-style murder of high-profile Croatian journalist Ivo Pukanic.

Pukanic, the editor-in-chief of Croatian political weekly Nacional, and his marketing director Niko Franjic were killed by a car bomb in Zagreb in 2008.

Three ethnic Serb border officers were wounded, one seriously, when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle in northern Kosovo, police said Tuesday.

"Their vehicle was ambushed and came under fire while it was on a road heading towards the border" with Serbia late Monday, police spokesman Besim Hoti told Agence France Presse.

Polling stations opened in Serbia's snap elections Sunday, with the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) tipped to capitalize on a wave of public support after successfully opening EU membership talks.

Some 6.7 million voters are eligible to cast their ballots to elect a new 250-seat parliament with a four-year mandate in the early vote called after Belgrade launched talks in January to join the European Union.

Kosovo's government proposed on Thursday creating a 5,000-strong army to "protect sovereignty" of the ethnic Albanian territory, six years after it seceded from Serbia.

The army would double the size of the current civil emergency Kosovo security force (KPS), said a statement issued after a cabinet session.

Croatia on Monday said Serbia was "in denial" over genocide allegedly committed in the early 1990s, at the start of a court case that threatens to further sour relations between the Balkan neighbours.

"Many political leaders in Serbia have maintained an attitude of denial" about the alleged genocide, Croatia's representative Vesna Crnic-Grotic told the Hague-based International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Kosovo on Monday celebrated six years of independence marked by a historic improvement of ties with former foe Serbia, which was coaxed along by an EU-brokered deal last year.

Prime Minister Hashim Thaci told a special parliamentary session that "our vision of an independent Kosovo is one of a democratic country... ready to find its place within the family of free nations."

The U.N.'s highest International Court of Justice is to hear arguments next month in a long-running genocide case that threatens to sour relations between Croatia and Serbia.

The Hague-based ICJ "will hold public hearings in the case concerning Croatia vs Serbia from Monday March 3 to Tuesday, April 1," it said in a statement Friday.