BELGRADE (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic could get a wage from the Serbian taxpayer for as long as he is on trial at the Hague war crimes tribunal under controversial legislation adopted by Parliament yesterday. The law aims to provide all Serbian war crimes indictees at the UN tribunal with salary compensation, plus help spouses, siblings, parents and children with flight and hotel costs, telephone and mail bills, visa and legal fees. The bill was launched amid nationalist rhetoric on the eve of an annual US ruling on whether Serbia is cooperating with the United Nations tribunal. Proposed by the opposition Radicals and embraced by Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, the compensation bill marks a first step in “two-way” cooperation with The Hague, as Kostunica’s policy is to redress what he views as abject obedience in the past. “This is a sign that Serbia is changing its attitude to the Hague tribunal,” said acting Radical leader Tomislav Nikolic.

LONDON (AFP) - Britain put all applications from would-be business immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania on hold yesterday as it urgently investigated allegations that many of them might in fact be bogus. “We have suspended the applications” pending the outcome of an internal probe, a Home Office spokesman told AFP, as the main opposition Conservatives lashed out at what they called a “massive, well-organized scam.”

The UN war crimes tribunal has indicted six Bosnian Croats, most of them former top political and army figures, for crimes committed against Muslims during Bosnia’s 1992-95 war, Croatian television reported yesterday. The indictments against the six men are expected to be made public by the UN war crimes court prosecution today, television said. Among the six suspects figure former Bosnian foreign minister Jadranko Prlic and two generals — Slobodan Praljak and Milivoj Petkovic — who commanded Bosnian-Croat forces (HVO) during the 1992-95 war. (AFP)

A former Bosnian-Serb politician who was a star witness against Slobodan Milosevic and other top suspects at the UN war crimes tribunal was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his own war crimes yesterday. As part of a deal with prosecutors, Miroslav Deronjic, 49, confessed to a single charge of persecution for ordering the destruction of the Muslim village of Glogova in Bosnia on May 9, 1992, killing 65 civilians. (AP)

Croatian President Stipe Mesic is to visit Portugal and France next week for talks expected to focus on Zagreb’s bid to join the European Union, the presidency said yesterday. (AFP)