Croatians cast ballots Sunday to elect a president in a tight run-off between incumbent centre-left Ivo Josipovic and conservative Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, both pledging to help kickstart the newest EU member's ailing economy.

The two emerged practically neck and neck from the first round of polling two weeks ago, with Josipovic, a 57-year-old former law professor and classical music composer, just one percentage point ahead of Grabar-Kitarovic with 38.5 percent of the vote.

The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center slammed Monday a Mass in Zagreb to commemorate Croatia's World War II pro-Nazi leader, claiming it was a "badge of shame" for the Catholic Church.

Croatia's President Ivo Josipovic and his conservative rival on Sunday headed for a January run-off following a tight first round vote in a country battling a severe economic crisis.

Croatian Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic on Friday canceled a planned trip to Serbia next month amid growing tensions between the former foes sparked by the release of Serb war crimes suspect Vojislav Seselj on health grounds.

Milanovic decided not to attend a December 16 meeting in Belgrade of his central and eastern European counterparts along with Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, citing the Serbian authorities' lack of action in response to inflammatory statements from Seselj, a government spokesman told AFP.

Croatian lawmakers called Wednesday for a U.N. court to take Serb war crimes suspect Vojislav Seselj back into custody because he has spread "hatred and intolerance" since his release for cancer treatment.

MPs present in parliament unanimously passed a resolution voicing their deep dismay over the decision by the court in The Hague to free the firebrand ultranationalist, who went home to Serbia on November 12.

Serbian nationalist firebrand Vojislav Seselj is spearheading an anti-government rally on Saturday but as he fights cancer and awaits judgment on war crimes charges he is as beleaguered as his once formidable party.

His fit appearance and jovial manner during a rapturous homecoming welcome on Wednesday belied the fact that he was back in Serbia because a U.N. tribunal in The Hague decided he is so sick that it ordered him to return home for cancer treatment immediately.

A Croatian war veteran was rushed to hospital after setting himself on fire during a protest by former soldiers outside a government ministry, hospital and police said Tuesday.

"Damir Cakinic was hospitalized overnight with serious injuries... and has burns to 40 percent of his body," a doctor at a Zagreb hospital where the man was admitted said.

Ten ethnic Serb former paramilitaries went on trial in Croatia Tuesday, charged with killing 24 civilians and prisoners during the country's 1991-95 war.

The defendants all pleaded not guilty to killing 17 civilians and seven detained Croatian soldiers in the Vukovar region, the state-run HINA news agency reported.

Croatia's top court on Tuesday rejected a demand for a referendum aimed at curbing the rights of ethnic Serbs, including by limiting the use of signs in the Cyrillic alphabet.

The Constitutional Court ruled that the referendum amending the country of 4.2 million's law on minorities would have been unconstitutional.

Croatian lawmakers adopted Tuesday a long-awaited law allowing gay couples to register as life partners, enjoying the same rights as their heterosexual peers except on adopting children.

Gay rights activists hailed the legislation in the largely conservative EU member state, which is strongly influenced by the powerful Roman Catholic Church.