Ankara

A bomb exploded on Tuesday in one of the Turkish capital’s busiest commercial centres, killing five people and wounding dozens, the prime minister said. More than 60 people were injured in the blast, which ripped through the business centre of the capital, authorities said.

Turkey’s Constitutional Court on Tuesday annulled the first round of a parliamentary vote for a new president in a move likely to pave the way for early general elections. The court ruled that the 550-seat Parliament should have convened with at least 367 deputies for the voting to have begun.

A Turkish man hijacked a commercial passenger plane on Tuesday flying from the mainly Kurdish south-eastern city of Diyarbakir, but then gave himself up to the authorities, an Ankara airport official said, adding that police believed he acted from personal, not political motives, and may be mentally ill.

Thirty-one people were killed on Tuesday when their chartered plane crashed while trying to land in foggy conditions in Iraq, Turkish officials said. The Moldovan Antonov-26, which took off from the Turkish city of Adana early on Tuesday, was carrying about 35 people, including 30 construction workers, the officials said.

Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday begins his first visit to a Muslim country, a four-day trip to Turkey where his controversial remarks in September linking Islam and violence remain fresh in memories. With tensions running high, security measures are even tighter than those taken for United States President George Bush in 2004.

Turkey’s Parliament backed on Tuesday a declaration condemning the French National Assembly’s approval of a draft Bill that would make it a crime to deny Armenians suffered genocide by Ottoman Turks in 1915. But the government stopped short of taking measures against French interests and companies, aware this could harm Turkey’s economy more than France’s.

France’s lower house of Parliament on Thursday backed a Bill that makes it a crime to deny claims that Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War I. Though the Senate or President Jacques Chirac can still block the Bill, Turkey has made clear the move will badly damage relations with France.

A Turkish student said on Sunday he was poised to set a record at a nationwide university entrance exam … by giving the wrong answer to all 180 questions. Speaking to reporters after Sunday’s exam, which 1,5-million youths sat, Sefa Boyar said he was hopeful he would achieve the record.

South Africa has offered to transfer military technology to Turkey in a bid to get ahead of competitors in a ,5-billion tender for 91 attack helicopters for the army. ”There would be a high level of sharing in transfer of technology and intellectual property rights”, said South African Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin.

The Turkish military released details on Wednesday of a collision between Turkish and Greek fighter jets in disputed airspace between the two Nato allies, saying that the Greek F-16 "harassed" the Turkish plane and crashed into it. A statement said two Turkish F-16s and an F-4, "on a routine training flight", were confronted by two Greek F-16s.

The Turkish army confirmed on Tuesday that a Turkish F-16 fighter jet and a Greek F-16 fighter jet had collided over the eastern Aegean Sea after what it said was an attempt by Greek warplanes to intercept Turkish jets. The Turkish pilot ejected and survived the crash, a statement by the general staff said.

Turkey’s press blasted Fifa on Wednesday over the sanctions meted out by football’s governing body for the country’s part in the brawl that marred their November World Cup qualifier against Switzerland. Fifa ordered Turkey to play their next six home games behind closed doors at a neutral venue and pay all organisational costs.

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu could be passing from person to person in Turkey even though health experts have no evidence that the virus is spreading that way, a senior World Health Organisation (WHO) expert said on Thursday. But he said such contact would not necessarily trigger a pandemic.

A passenger train rammed into a truck carrying farm workers in southern Turkey on Wednesday, killing nine people and injuring 30 others, officials said. It was the nation’s fourth major rail accident in less than two years. Many of the injured were in critical condition, according to the Anatolia news agency.

Three violent earthquakes shook western Turkey on Monday, cracking walls, collapsing chimneys and sending 30 people to hospital, including a man who reportedly threw himself from the fifth floor of a building in panic. Turkey’s top seismologist warned of the threat of more earthquakes.

Increasing numbers of Turks are rushing to pharmacies to buy the anti-viral drug Tamiflu following an outbreak of bird flu in northwestern Turkey, but there is a shortage on the market, Turkish pharmacists said on Thursday. Tamiflu, produced by Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche, is considered to be the most effective drug against bird flu.

Four people were killed when heavy rains triggered flooding and landslides on Tuesday in the north-eastern provinces of Trabzon and Rize on Turkey’s Black Sea coast, the Anatolia news agency reported. Turkey’s lush Black Sea Coast region is prone to seasonal floods and landslides.

An earthquake measuring 5,5 on the Richter scale rattled an eastern Turkish town overnight, leaving six people injured, officials said on Thursday. The quake, the third powerful tremor to hit the town of Karliova in Bingol province this month, was followed by an aftershock that registered 4,7 on the Richter scale.

A Turkish man managed to get the pension of his mother for two years after her death, posing as an elderly woman to the local bank and neighbours, the mass-circulation <i>Sabah</i> newspaper reported on Saturday. He was caught only after he forgot to change his voice in response to a question by a bank clerk.

Doctors have removed parasites weighing a total of 3kg from the stomach of a young woman in central Turkey in what they have described as a rare case in medicine, Anatolia news agency reported on Wednesday. Surgeon Kemal Arslan said the size of the parasites varied between 5cm and 20cm.

Police in Istanbul have arrested a married couple after a sting operation in which officers posed as customers who wanted their horoscope read, Hurriyet newspaper reported on Wednesday. Undercover officers deposited 200 lira (about R870) into a bank account and used the receipt as proof of payment for a session with the mediums.

Turkey will not accept entry to the European Union on any conditions, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said in a newspaper interview published on the eve of a key EU decision on the issue. ”We will not say yes at any price. We have told the EU that,” Gul told the Milliyet daily, in comments published on Wednesday.

It took 10 people about 45 minutes to carry an overweight man from his home in the western Turkey town of Bolu to a waiting ambulance, from where he was transported to a hospital in Istanbul. Mustafa Ozacar, a father of two, decided to be hospitalised after ballooning out to 320kg for no diagnosed reason.