The Serbian Parliament has approved a new budget for next year, which includes a big increase in the salaries of top government officials.

The Serbian President, Milan Milutnovic, government ministers, judges and parliamentary deputies, will now receive salaries that are ten or twenty times above the national average - a move which the government says is a necessary safeguard against corruption.

The budget also awards the Serbian President a pension and a private residence for life and will be implemented retrospectively, to cover the period when Yugolslav President Slobodan Milosovic, was President of Serbia.

It also includes an increase in taxation on private cars and mobile phones..