ANKARA (Reuters) - A Turkish human rights group said yesterday that 2005 was a disappointing year for human rights despite positive expectations generated by the start of EU membership talks. It said 721 people died due to clashes and extrajudicial killings in 2005, while 781 people were wounded. These were mostly in the conflict between the Turkish armed forces and the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party militant group.

THE HAGUE (AFP) - Lawyers for the Bosnian government announced yesterday they would show shocking video footage of killings of Bosnian Muslims as they outlined their genocide case against Serbia-Montenegro at the International Court of Justice. Lawyer Thomas Franck told the 16-judge panel that the Bosnian legal team would show the killing of six Muslim males during the Srebrenica massacre 10 years ago by a Serb paramilitary unit called the “Scorpions.”

Scores of districts in Turkey remain under quarantine after an outbreak of avian flu in which four children died but the culling of poultry has stopped for now, officials said yesterday. “Of a total 106 locations around the country where bird flu has been confirmed since late December, 66 are still under quarantine and the rest have been declared clear,” an Agriculture Ministry official said. (Reuters)

Members of Turkey’s ruling party joined the opposition yesterday in calling on Finance Minister Kemal Unakitan to resign over corruption allegations, a source of increasing embarrassment for the government. Unakitan, 60, one of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s closest aides, has been accused of abusing his office to secure favors for his son, a businessman, and ensure that public tenders are won by favored companies. (AFP)

A Turkish policeman who stopped a car speeding late at night in the streets of Konya, central Turkey, was bewildered to discover an 11-year-old boy in the driver’s seat, with his 5-year-old brother at his side. The boy said he had taken the opportunity while his father was sleeping to treat his brother to a ride, that he had been driving for three months and that it was his father who had taught him. (AFP)