VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Benedict XVI, speaking after a landmark trip to Turkey, described the country yesterday as an example of a secular Muslim state able to shun “fundamentalist degeneration.” In remarks at his weekly general audience, he also expressed hope that Turkey could become a “bridge of friendship and brotherly cooperation between the West and East.” The pope said that since Turkey was predominantly Muslim but regulated by a secular constitution it was “emblematic” of the challenge facing states trying to balance religious expression and the needs of civil society.

BRCKO (AP) – Forensic experts exhumed the remains of about 180 people from a mass grave in northeastern Bosnia containing the victims of Serb forces’ ethnic cleansing campaign, a forensic expert said. The team worked on the grave for a month and collected 105 complete bodies and 146 body bags containing other human remains, Murat Hurtic, the head of the forensic team said. The total number of dead is around 180 people, he said.

UN chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte wants the international community to keep up the pressure on Serbia to arrest war crimes suspects even after NATO offered the country closer ties, her spokesman said yesterday. Del Ponte will tell the UN Security Council on December 15 that the UN tribunal – due to complete all trials and appeals by 2010 – cannot close without trying top fugitives former Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and his army commander Ratko Mladic. “Fugitives are key to the completion strategy of the tribunal,” her spokesman told the tribunal at The Hague. “To finish our work without Karadzic, Mladic and others we believe is completely unacceptable.” (Reuters)

Croatian civilians own almost 1 million small arms, most of them illegal, while the number of crimes committed with them rose by 50 percent in the past five years, a survey showed yesterday. Of the total, nearly 598,000 were illegal and around 370,000 were legally registered in the country of 4.4 million people, said the survey by local polling agency Puls and a German organization. (AFP)