In Croatia

The legal amendments address the problems of around 5,000 people whose parents were Croatian Serbs but were living in Serbia when they were born, when both Serbia and Croatia were part of Yugoslavia.

The Croatian Defence Ministry held a press conference on Tuesday to address public concerns after the fifth death of a Croatian soldier in recent weeks was reported on Monday.

Officials said that each case was unique and that the deaths, of which four were suicides, did not happen in military barracks or while they were on active service.

A law that will grant benefits to civilian victims of the 1991-95 war was adopted by Croatian MPs on Thursday with 107 votes in favour, 16 against and five abstentions.

It was passed after heated discussions in parliament about whether the law would also give benefits to people who were part of 'enemy' Serb forces during the war.

Ljubljana – Thirty years to the day, the Brijuni Declaration was adopted, ending hostilities between Yugoslav and Slovenian forces in the ten-day independence war and suspending Slovenia’s independence activities for three months. It was the first international agreement between Slovenia and the EU’s predecessor, the European Economic Community (EEC).

Fighting units under the ultimate command of Serbian state security officials Jovica Stanisic and Franko Simatovic "controlled the situation on the ground" in Serb-controlled parts of Croatia and, to a lesser extent, Bosnia during the wars of the 1990s, veteran Serbian journalist Filip Svarm told BIRN ahead of the verdict in the pair's war crimes trial in The Hague.

On June 27, 1991, the first day of the armed conflict in Slovenia, what were initially described as two 'enemy' helicopters were shot down by Slovenian troops.

The State Attorney's Office in the city of Osijek announced on Tuesday that it has indicted an unnamed 50-year-old former Serbian paramilitary fighter for committing a war crime in a settlement near Vukovar in eastern Croatia, two months before the fall of the besieged town.

Croatian police on Friday said they have charged an unnamed 49-year-old Croatian citizen, a former fighter in the rebel Serb-run Army of the Republic of Serbian Krajina, RSK, with committing war crimes in today's Split-Dalmatia County in February 1993.

Ljubljana – The first countries recognised newly-independent Slovenia soon after it left Yugoslavia in June 1991, but most of them were brand new independent states themselves. A major wave followed in December and in January 1992, when Slovenia was also recognised by Germany, the Vatican and the EU’s predecessor – the European Community.

Police announced on Monday that they have charged a 55-year-old Croatian citizen, who they did not name, with committing a war crime against a civilian.

According to the police, "a criminal investigation established a well-founded suspicion" that the suspect, who was "an armed member of paramilitary units", raped a female Croatian citizen.