ZAGREB (AFP) – Croatia yesterday mourned seven firefighters killed last week while battling wildfires on an Adriatic island, as authorities announced another of their colleagues had died. Tomo Crvelin, 23, suffered serious burns while trying to put out a blaze on the central island of Kornat before dying in a Zagreb hospital, the Health Ministry said in a statement. “Today is the saddest day in Croatia in the past few years. This horrible tragedy has hurt everyone,” Prime Minister Ivo Sanader said at a commemoration ceremony marking the incident.

ISTANBUL (AP) – A pro-Kurdish leader whose party is often accused of having ties with separatist rebels said yesterday his party was committed to solving Turkey’s Kurdish question without challenging the country’s unity. Ahmet Turk, of the Democratic Society Party, or DTP, delivered one of the first speeches by a pro-Kurdish lawmaker in parliament in more than a decade. “We are looking for a solution along the lines of unity and brotherhood, without questioning Turkey’s indivisibility or its unity,” Turk said. Turk criticized the government, however, for failing to remove restrictions on the freedom of expression, specifically Article 301 of the Turkish penal code.

Serbia’s ultranationalist Radical Party has asked state television to broadcast live the trial of its leader at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, calling it a matter of national interest. Vojislav Seselj is charged with murder and persecution of non-Serbs during wars with Croats and Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s. The trial is due to start in November. “We’ve organized a petition and expect the support of over a million citizens,” Aleksandar Vucic, the Radicals’ secretary general told reporters on Sunday. Broadcasting Seselj’s trial “is in the national interest,” Vucic said. (Reuters)

Turkey’s ruling party said yesterday it plans to present by the end of 2007 the text of a new constitution aimed at expanding human rights in the secular, Muslim-majority nation. “This new fundamental law which is democratic and respects liberties will be civilian and prepared by the people,” AKP Vice-President Dengir Mir Mehmet Firat said. “These liberties will be clearly and distinctly defined in the new text,” he added. (AFP)

Britain’s new foreign secretary will visit Romania this week to discuss Romania’s entry into the European Union, reforms in the justice system and climate change, the British Embassy in Bucharest said yesterday. His French and Serbian counterparts also are to visit. (AP)