ANKARA (AFP) - A man suspected of plotting to kill Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was described in the press yesterday as a mentally unstable nationalist dissatisfied with Ankara’s response to a rekindled Kurdish rebellion in the country’s southeast. The suspect, who hid his gun in a loaf of bread, was detained Monday in the western city of Kutahya as he tried to approach the bus Erdogan was boarding after a ceremony there. “The government is doing nothing while our soldiers are being martyred every day. I am very much disturbed by this,” Mustafa Bagdat was quoted as saying in a statement to the police.

ISTANBUL (AP) - Turkey will provide $2.5 million (2 million euros) in cash and humanitarian aid to the United States to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday. The ministry said in a statement that $1.5 million (1.2 million euros) would be given directly to the American Red Cross, while the remaining $1 million (800,000 euros) would be sent as goods needed for relief efforts.

Three Turkish engineers held captive for nearly two months in Iraq have been freed and returned to Turkey yesterday. The three — Pasa Saglam, Metin Ceylan and Fatih Yigit — were released near Beiji, north of Baghdad, Yigit told the Anatolia news agency. The three had been working for a Turkish company in Iraq and were kidnapped on July 16 from their workplace. (AP)

Some two tons of dead fish washed up yesterday on a popular Romanian tourist beach, local authorities said. Authorities were clearing away the fish, which included plaice and chub. Simion Nicolaev, director of the Grigore Antipa National Institute for Marine Research, said that seaweed had proliferated in the Black Sea, sucking oxygen out of the water and killing the fish. (AP)

Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader dismissed media speculation yesterday about early elections, saying his conservative government was stable and would serve its term until late 2007. Sanader, whose country hopes to start EU membership talks this year, was speaking on state radio amid mounting opposition criticism of the government’s economic record. “Forget about early elections. This is a stable government. Next elections will be, as is due, in November 2007,” Sanader said when asked about the possibility of an early poll. (Reuters)