ISTANBUL (AFP) - The death toll in Turkey from drinking counterfeit liquor has risen to 19 after three more people died in hospital, health authorities said yesterday. Police were also investigating two deaths which they suspect might have been induced by bootleg raki, Turkey’s aniseed-based national drink. Nineteen other people were still in hospital after having drunk the counterfeit booze made from deadly methyl alcohol.

SOFIA (AFP) - Bulgarian will decide later this month whether it will keep its troops in Iraq until the end of 2005, Defence Minister Nikolai Svinarov said yesterday, after the eighth Bulgarian soldier was killed there on Friday. “A decision will be taken before the end of March... the question is to know whether Bulgaria will form part of the multinational force until the end of 2005 and how it will modify its participation in 2006,” he told the private television channel bTV.

Posters of Ratko Mladic were plastered around downtown Belgrade yesterday, urging Serbs to preserve the legacy of the Bosnian-Serb military commander who is wanted on genocide charges. The posters, depicting Mladic in uniform giving a military salute, also included a mock campaign logo promoting the fugitive “for chief of staff” in the army of Serbia-Montenegro. (AP)

At least 18 people were injured Saturday when a bus overturned after skidding on a snow-covered road on its way to a mountain resort in central Serbia, the state television reported. The accident happened near the town of Ljig, about 70 kilometers (42 miles) southwest of Belgrade. The bus was reportedly en route from Belgrade to Mt Zlatibor, a winter holiday resort in central Serbia. (AP)

The new commander of US peacekeepers in Kosovo took charge yesterday in a ceremony at a sprawling military base. Brig. Gen. William H. Wade will lead some 1,800 US peacekeepers in the east of this UN-administered province. (AP)

The EU will not open membership talks with Croatia in mid-March unless fugitive general Ante Gotovina is delivered to the UN war crimes court, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said in an interview published Saturday. Rehn voiced hope that Croatian authorities would succeed in locating the retired general before March 17, the date set by EU for the opening of talks. (AFP)