ISTANBUL (AP) – A blast in southeastern Turkey has killed one government-paid village guard and injured three others, according to Turkey’s military. An explosive device believed to have been planted by Kurdish rebels caused the blast Saturday in Sirnak province near the Iraqi border, the military said. The military said earlier that 16 Kurdish rebels and three soldiers had been killed in clashes in Sirnak over the past week.

Gracanica (AFP) – Several thousand Kosovo Serbs gathered on Saturday in this Serb-populated village in breakaway Kosovo for the first electoral rally of the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party for May 11 polls in Serbia. “These elections are a good opportunity to vote for those who say: ‘We will not give away Kosovo,’” party leader Tomislav Nikolic told the crowd in this big Serb-populated enclave near the Kosovo capital Pristina. Nikolic warned the majority ethnic Albanian Kosovo leadership, which proclaimed the independence of the Balkan territory on February 17, that they “can build up their institutions, but we will never give them Kosovo.” “Kosovo is a part of Serbia, if you want to accept it, fine, if not, even the USA will not be able to help you, everything will be in vain,” Nikolic warned.

Turkish security forces seized 400 kilos (880 pounds) of heroin hidden in vats of olives on a truck headed for Europe, the Anatolia news agency reported yesterday. The truck was detained at the Kapikule border post with Bulgaria after investigators became aware of the imminent transfer of the shipment on Wednesday, the report said. (AFP)

A government spokesman says Albanian army engineers have found another body at the site of a massive explosion last month at an ammunition dump. The discovery brings to 27 the number of people killed by the March 15 explosion, which also injured about 300 people and destroyed 412 homes. (AP)

Bosnia’s Oscar-winning film director Danis Tanovic launched a new political party on Saturday in a bid to rise above the ethnic divisions that beset the nation. The 38-year-old filmmaker, whose “No Man’s Land” movie about the absurdity of war won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 2001, said he hoped the new Our Party would appeal to those disillusioned people who have not bothered to vote in recent elections. “This is an attempt to move the things forward from the present deadlock,” Tanovic said at the party convention. (Reuters)