BELGRADE (AP) - At a landmark war crimes trial, three former Serb paramilitaries pleaded innocent yesterday in the 1991 execution of 192 Croats during the brutal Balkan war. Their not-guilty pleas came on the second day of the trial in Belgrade, a watershed case meant to test Serbia's ability to handle war crimes cases at home. Ivan Anastasijevic, Ivica Peric and Stanko Vujanovic, who entered their pleas Wednesday, acknowledged they were at the Ovcara pig farm, where the Croat victims were gunned down, but denied any role in the killings. Prosecution spokesman, Bruno Vekaric, said that despite the not-guilty pleas, the prosecutors «possess enough evidence» against the suspects.

COPENHAGEN (AFP) - The far-right Danish People's Party (DPP) intends to launch a campaign to keep Turkey out of the EU, party vice president Peter Skaarup said yesterday. The DPP, the Liberal-Conservative government's only parliamentary ally, expects to cater to many Danes' resistance to Turkey's EU bid, making it priority issue in the runup to the European Parliament elections in June, Skaarup told AFP. «Turkey doesn't belong inside the EU. Geographically, it is barely a part of Europe. It is a Muslim country with other values and a different religion to the Christian EU. (It has) a fragile democracy, very high unemployment and very low per-capita income,» he said.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder pledged German support for Croatia's efforts to join the EU as he met yesterday with the country's new prime minister, Ivo Sanader. Schroeder said he hoped a politically and economically stable Croatia would serve as a model for other Balkan nations, and that «it will be decided as quickly as possible that Croatia obtains the standing of a candidate» for EU entry. Croatia hopes to join by 2007, but Schroeder mentioned no date after meeting with Sanader, whose center-right party was elected in December. (AP)

The son of Albania's President Alfred Moisiu was missing after a car accident yesterday, police and the president's office said. Admir Moisiu, 32, was in a four-wheel-drive car of the Prosecutor General's office when it skidded from a cliff into the Drino River at Uji i Ftohte, Tepelene district, 200 kilometers (125 miles) south of Tirana, the president's spokeswoman, Aferdita Sokoli, said. The car and one injured person were discovered, while the two other passengers - including Moisiu - were not found, police spokesman Florian Serjani said. (AP)

The World Food Program said yesterday it will give $4.7 million worth of food aid to poor Albanians. The WFP will provide 10,470 tons of flour, vegetable oil and salt to Albania's poorest residents, especially those in the north, based on a poverty map provided by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, spokeswoman Lindita Bare said. The operation, which will start in April, aims to assist some 133,000 people over the next 18 months. (AP)