Kosovo: top UN envoy in Washington for talks with senior US officials

The top United Nations envoy for Kosovo, Michael Steiner, is in Washington, D.C., today, for talks with United States Secretary of State Colin Powell about the general situation in the province and the region.

Mr. Steiner, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Kosovo, is slated to be in New York tomorrow for internal meetings with senior UN officials before returning to Kosovo on Wednesday.

Meanwhile in other news, two children who died in a grenade explosion last week in Kamenica were laid to rest in the village graveyard on Saturday, according to the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

The funeral ceremony was attended by the UN mission's Regional Administrator, Pasqualino Verdecchia, municipal leaders, officials of the UN police and peacekeeping contingents, as well as a large number of villagers, including relatives of the victims.

The children died instantly when the grenade they found in an abandoned house exploded after they started to play with it. Two other boys were seriously injured while two girls sustained minor injuries. The boys were rushed to a US medical facility, where one still remains while the other was transferred to Pristina.