ANKARA (AFP) – Two women were burnt to death in their homes when a forest fire spread to a village in southern Turkey yesterday, officials and media reports said. “There are two people dead,” the deputy governor of Mersin province, Ahmet Buyukcevik, told NTV television. The blaze, which erupted in a pine forest in the Gulnar district of the province, was fanned by a strong wind and damaged several houses in two villages in the area, the Anatolia news agency reported. The two victims were women who perished in their house, the agency said. Firefighters, aided by helicopters, were battling the blaze, which was moving from the mountainous Gulnar area toward the Mediterranean coast, it said.

NICOSIA (Reuters) – A ship carrying 40,000 cubic meters of Greek water to drought-parched Cyprus has been unable to offload its cargo because of a short pipe, officials said on yesterday. The 1,400-meter pipeline connecting the tanker to shore proved to be 3.5 meters (11 feet) too short, causing a delay in the water being pumped into the island’s water network. The water was to have been offloaded on Sunday. The vessel carrying the 40,000 cubic meters of water, more than double the quantity held in Cyprus’s 17 main reservoirs, has been anchored off Cyprus for the past week.

BUCHAREST (AFP) – A heat wave is expected to hit southern Romania this week, with temperatures expected to soar to 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit), the National Meteorological Administration (ANM) warned yesterday. But while the south of the country is set to groan under soaring temperatures, rain and hail storms are expected in the west and north, ANM said in a statement. The Health Ministry urged elderly people not to go out unless absolutely necessary and to drink plenty of water.

The trial of two Serb cousins accused of murdering about 150 Muslim civilians in Bosnia’s 1992-95 war is due to start before the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague tomorrow. Milan and Sredoje Lukic face 21 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes for their actions as members of a paramilitary group in the small southeastern Bosnian town of Visegrad. Milan Lukic was allegedly a founding member of the group, known as the “White Eagles” or “Avengers,” which worked with police and military units between 1992 and 1994 to terrorize Muslim communities. His cousin joined later. Charges against the pair before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) include murder, torture and extermination. (AFP)

Bulgaria put up for auction yesterday more than 60 luxury limousines used to chauffeur around the political elite during the communist era and visiting foreign dignitaries like Fidel Castro and Francois Mitterand. A total of 66 cars were going to come under the hammer, including 20 Soviet-built Chaika sedans, which have aroused the interest of German, Austrian and Russian collectors. The starting price for the vintage Chaikas, built between 1959 and 1988, ranges from 5,000-23,000 levas (2,500-11,500 euros, 3,900-18,000 dollars). (AFP)

A Croatian court sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison a man who killed a local police chief at the start of Croatia’s independence war in 1991. Antun Gudelj, a 60-year-old Croat, had originally been sentenced more than a decade ago but freed under an amnesty and his retrial followed a campaign by human rights activists. State radio said the county court in the eastern city of Osijek found Gudelj guilty of killing Osijek police chief Josip Reihl Kir, an ethnic Croat, and two Serb officials in an ambush at a checkpoint near a rebel-held area. Reihl Kir had favored dialogue over confrontation with Serb rebels who opposed Zagreb’s independence from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. (Reuters)