Kosovo to repeat vote in Serb north, defying hardliners

PRISTINA/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Kosovo's government said on Wednesday it would re-run a watershed election in the ethnic Serb-dominated north, setting up a showdown with Serb hardliners opposed to EU-backed efforts to end Kosovo's de facto partition.

Sunday's election for councils and mayors was the first to be held across the entire territory of the mostly ethnic Albanian country, but was disrupted in the north, where up to 50,000 ethnic Serbs oppose Kosovo's 2008 secession from Serbia.