BANJA LUKA (AFP) - Bosnian-Serb President Dragan Cavic on Saturday named Pero Bukejlovic of the ruling nationalists as the entity’s next prime minister and asked him to form a government. The move follows last month’s resignation of moderate Prime Minister Dragan Mikerevic in protest at international sanctions imposed over the failure of Bosnia’s Serb-run half to arrest war crimes fugitives. Bukejlovic, a 58-year-old mechanical engineer, is a member of the powerful Serb Democratic Party (SDS).

ISTANBUL (AFP) - A teenage girl died of her wounds yesterday after she was shot by her brother in southeastern Turkey because she donned pants to attend a wedding ceremony, the Anatolia news agency reported. Anatolia, which gave no sources, said police arrested the 27-year-old suspect in the southeastern town of Batman. After a violent argument, the man shot and wounded his 17-year-old sister with a rifle and later dumped her from the roof of his family home to make it appear that she had committed suicide. She was rushed in critical condition to a nearby hospital, where she later died of her wounds.

The president of Bulgaria’s opposition Socialist party (BSP), Sergei Stanichev, vowed yesterday to withdraw the country’s troops from Iraq if his party wins general elections at the end of June. “We are convinced that the Bulgarian people will support our decision to end this unpopular adventure which has cost us dearly,” Stanichev said during a conference of the formerly communist party, which is leading in opinion polls. Bulgaria has 450 soldiers stationed in Iraq as part of the multinational force in the country under Polish command, and has so far lost seven men. (AFP)

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is to begin a three-day visit to Russia today instead of tomorrow because of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s busy schedule, his press office announced. (AFP)