ANKARA (AP) - The owner of a satirical magazine sued for publishing drawings of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's head on the bodies of animals accused the premier of intolerance on the opening day of his trial yesterday. «For years... many politicians in the world and in Turkey have been portrayed in the forms of animals and they have laughed at them. However, Erdogan has not shown the same kind of tolerance,» a written statement said. The trial was adjourned until July 5 to allow Erdogan's team time to examine the statement and prepare a response.

ANKARA (AP) - A high court judge hearing a case against former Turkish prime minister Mesut Yilmaz said yesterday the tribunal had received an anonymous letter claiming a businessman had transferred millions of dollars to a bank account belonging to the ex-premier's brother. Three-time premier Yilmaz is accused of rigging the state tender for the privatization of a bank in favor of businessman and media boss Korkmaz Yigit. Judge Mustafa Bumin said the letter claimed Yigit had transferred US$14 million into the account of Yilmaz's brother, Turgut Yilmaz. «The claims are deliberate, untrue and cheap,» Yilmaz's lawyer, Ugur Alacakaptan said.

Patients are being refused treatment or forced to pay in advance after medical suppliers decided to stop providing Romanian hospitals with medicines until their bills are paid by the government, hospital officials said yesterday. «Most of the hospitals still have enough medicines to last until the end of the month but there are some that have already run out of stock and have decided to limit the number of admissions,» said the president of the hospital association, Florian Popa. (AFP)

Romania's central bank will return all religious objects confiscated by the former Communist regime from Orthodox churches and monasteries, the bank said yesterday. National Bank Governor Mugur Isarescu called the restitution «an historic reparation,» adding that it was impossible to place a monetary value on the objects. The National Bank of Romania will return some 8,000 objects. (AP)

Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica sent a formal invitation to Kosovo's leader to meet next week for the governments' first talks since the 1998-99 war, a government spokesman said yesterday. Kostunica proposed that Kosovo's ethnic Albanian Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi meet in the western Kosovo town of Prizren on May 25, said Srdjan Djuric. (AP)