Istanbul (AFP) - The leader of the “Human Shields,” a group of anti-war protesters heading for Iraq to disrupt a planned US invasion of the country, has been barred from entering Turkey. The Turkish authorities yesterday turned away former US Marine and Gulf War veteran Ken O’Keefe, the founder of the Truth Justice Peace Human Shield action group, saying he did not have a valid travel document, the Anatolia news agency reported. O’Keefe produced a “World Service Authority Passport” rather than a standard official passport when he flew into Istanbul from Milan in Italy, the report said.

Belgrade (Reuters) - Serbia said yesterday that police seized narcotics with a street value of $10 million and arrested over 30 people with the help of US drug busters. In a joint effort, 400 Serb police had worked with the US Drug Enforcement Agency and the local Interpol office for a year. “This has been the biggest single seizure of synthetic drugs in Europe so far, during which 2 million tablets worth 4 million euros were found,” Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic told a news conference. Thirty-five locations in Belgrade and Serbia were searched. Police also found a narcotics-producing laboratory in northern Serbia.

The government of Serbia-Montenegro has canceled a planned auction of 13 luxurious limousines that once formed the motorcade of the late dictator Josip Broz Tito, the Defense Ministry said yesterday. The cancellation followed appeals by experts and historians who argued against the planned sale, saying that the limousines are unique and present an important cultural and historical treasure. (AP)

The newly created state of Serbia and Montenegro is on thin ice, and needs to win the trust of its citizens to pull through, Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic has warned. “The state’s survival will depend only on the trust of its citizens, which, in turn, will rest on whether living conditions improve,” Djukanovic said in an interview with AFP. Djukanovic pledged to work hard to implement “a vast program of democratic reform.” (AFP)

A Bahamian-flagged cargo ship sank off Turkey’s Mediterranean coast yesterday, leaving one crew member dead and two missing, an official said. Rescuers saved the five other crew members of the Iberian Coast, which sank in rough seas off the Mediterranean resort city of Antalya. All crew members were Turks. (AP)

The Bulgarian Parliament yesterday granted the US permission to use the country’s air space in the event of an Iraq war and approved the deployment, if needed, of a nuclear, chemical and biological defense unit. (AFP)