(19 Dec 2007) SHOTLIST
1. Wide pan shot of Mitrovica skyline
2. Mid of Kosovo Serbs lighting candles outside Serb Orthodox Christian monastery
3. People arriving for ceremony to commemorate Saint Nicolas day
5. Mid of a Serb priest praying during the ceremony marking St. Nicolas day
6. Mid of family praying
7. Various of church ceremony with loaves of bread decorated with candles
8. SOUNDBITE: (Serbian) Aleksandar Kostic, Kosovo Serb:
"I'm expecting a better year to come, what I want is only to be able to remain where we are. This is my wish."
9. Wide of people inside the church
10. SOUNDBITE: (Serbian) Dejan Jovicic, Kosovo Serb:
"During these holidays I want peace, prosperity, a better year, my family to be happy and to have good health."
11. Wide of people next to table with spread with breads and candles
STORYLINE:
Kosovo's Serbs marked St Nicolas Day on Wednesday, a special day in the Serbian Orthodox Christian calendar, just hours before the United Nations' Security Council was due to meet to discuss the province's future status.
A service was held at the church of Saint Dimitrije in the Serb-dominated city of Mitrovica.
"I'm expecting a better year to come, what I want is only to be able to remain where we are. This is my wish," one churchgoer, Aleksandar Kostic said.
The ethnically divided city has seen frequent violence, with NATO peacekeepers caught in the middle.
Ethnic Albanians in the south of the city and Serbs in the north live largely separate lives - a division likely to be hardened with Kosovo's independence looming over Europe's diplomatic agenda.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians are demanding independence whilst Serbs in both Kosovo and Serbia are insisting the province should remain part of Serbia.
Both sides have supporters in the UN Security Council - the US and key European Union nations backing Kosovo's call for independence and Russia supporting its close ally Serbia and calling for further negotiations.
The UN council meeting will focus on a report by US, EU and Russian mediators on two-year talks between Belgrade and Kosovo on resolving the status of the Serbian province.
The talks ended in late November without an agreement.
Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin has introduced elements for a council statement that would back additional negotiations, but Britain, France, the US and others have said the talks have been exhausted and it is time to resolve Kosovo's status.
Russia, is a traditional ally of Serbia and supports Belgrade's contention that Kosovo, although overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian, is an integral part of Serbia and its culture.
Kosovo's prime minister-elect Hashim Thaci has said Kosovo will guarantee that Kosovo will respect the Serbs and other minorities and they will be part of his new government and the new parliament.
Kosovo would like to have the Security Council make a decision, but if the council is blocked, presumably by a Russian veto, Kosovo will go outside the council and would expect the European Union to recognise an independent Kosovo, Thaci has said.
Although Kosovo formally remains part of Serbia, the southern province has been run by the UN and NATO since 1999, when the Western military alliance ended former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanians represent 90 percent of the province's two (m) million population.

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