JASA TOMIC (AFP) - Two villages in eastern Serbia which have been flooded by the Tamic River for the past eight days were preparing for the worst yesterday as water levels were expected to rise. District council chief Lazar Andrijasevic said emergency services were on alert as more rain fell upstream in neighboring Romania. «The current situation is stable but we fear new floods due to heavy rain in Romania in recent days,» he said.

PRISTINA (Reuters) - The United Nations yesterday denied that a new regulation designed to control the movement of people into and out of Kosovo amounted to a visa regime for the UN-run province. «This is not a visa regime,» a visibly angry Larry Rossin, the UN deputy governor, repeated three times at a news conference called to correct «misunderstandings» in the media. «Nobody will need a visa... I challenge any of you to look at this regulation and find the word visa,» he said. Ethnic Albanians, who account for 90 percent of Kosovo's 2 million people, are concerned the move could restrict movement for their ethnic kin in neighboring countries.

Pollsters will tap Albanian voter opinion for the first time ahead of the country's summer elections in a move activists hope will prevent losing parties from crying foul and alleging fraud. The Gallup polling agency is scheduled to release a first poll of 1,400 eligible voters in mid-May and a second in June. (Reuters)

Turkey welcomed the approval of the new transitional Iraqi government yesterday, expressing hope that it would be a step toward the establishment of order in the country. A Foreign Ministry statement said the transitional government would present an opportunity for a new start. «It is vital that all sections of Iraqi society participate, that national interests are put to the forefront and that (all) act with the spirit of unity on issues that concern Iraq's future,» the statement read. (AP)

A court yesterday ordered the release of a high-ranking Serbian officer suspected of committing war crimes, citing his diplomatic immunity. Sofia City Court said Col. Cedomir Brankovic, who was visiting Bulgaria as a member of a Serbian military delegation, enjoyed diplomatic immunity and under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations could not be held. Brankovic was arrested Tuesday on an Interpol warrant issued at the demand of Croatia, where he was indicted for alleged war crimes committed in 1991. (AP)

Former Yugoslav army chief Nebojsa Pavkovic yesterday pleaded not guilty before the United Nations tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 1998-99 war in Kosovo. (AFP)