In Croatia

BELGRADE - Serbian FM Marko Djuric said Saturday's commemorations for Serbs killed or expelled in Croatia's 1995 "Operation Storm" had reflected the sadness over the loss of innocent lives and that Serbia had demonstrated it remembered the unfortunate event in worthy and dignified manner.

An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.7 on the Richter scale was registered last night in the area of the city of Targu Jiu, Romania, reports the National Seismological Center at the Bulgarian Academy of Science.

The tremor at 00:39 a.m. Bulgarian time had an epicenter 260 kilometers from Sofia.

Croatia's Minister of Veterans' Affairs, Tomo Medved, said the authorities remain committed to finding all the remaining missing persons from the 1991-95 war, as five more war victims were formally identified on Friday at the Dr Juraj Njavro National Memorial Hospital in the eastern town of Vukovar.

Follow the latest updates from our reporters in The Hague and Bosnia as the UN's war crimes tribunal delivers its appeal verdict in the retrial of former Serbian State Security officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic.

Dusan Loncar entered a not guilty plea at Belgrade Higher Court on Tuesday, insisting that he did not issue an order to attack the Croatian village of Lovas in October 1991, causing civilian casualties.

"After 32 years [since the attack], I saw that order for the first time when my lawyer got the documents [from the court] after the preparatory hearing," Loncar told the court.

Andrija Matin wept as he said goodbye to Kristic and to his grandchildren, although neither he nor she knew that they would never see each other again.

Erdut, the small town where they lived in eastern Croatia, was no longer a safe place for anyone, let alone children.

Montenegrin and Croatian officials on Monday unveiled a memorial on the Croatian island of Vis to a Yugoslav naval officer who refused to bomb towns on Croatia's coast in the war in 1991.

Montenegro's Special State Prosecutor's Office has opened a case against retired admiral Dragan Samardzic, the former Chief of the Army General Staff, over allegations that he was involved in war crimes committed against civilians in November 1991 in the area around the Croatian coastal city of Split.

Ivica Husnik, who was convicted in Serbia of involvement in the killings of some 200 people at Ovcara Farm near Vukovar in November 1991, was extradited to Croatia on July 7 to serve his sentence for a different crime, Osijek County Court confirmed on Monday.

On that occasion, Milanovic also commented on relations with Serbia.
"It will cost you. Get away from it, people," he warned.
He says that it would have been better for the Serbs in Krajina if they had not listened to the instigators of the war for which they left.