JERUSALEM (AFP) – Navy and air forces from Israel, Turkey and the United States will stage joint search-and-rescue exercises in late August off the Turkish coast, the Israeli army announced yesterday. Ten ships, four helicopters and four search-and-rescue aircraft from the three countries will partake in the exercise, named “Reliant Mermaid VIII,” in international waters in the Mediterranean south of the Turkish coast, it said. “The objective of this exercise is to practice coordinated emergency search-and-rescue procedures and measures for safety of life at sea,” a spokesman said in a statement. “By enhancing their inter-operability, cooperation and coordination levels during the exercise, elements of the three naval and air forces will be able to respond more efficiently and rapidly to potential maritime emergencies as well as to humanitarian assists in the future,” it said.

SOFIA (AFP) – Four people were injured and four arrested after a large group of Roma attacked customers at a cafe in a district of Sofia, the Bulgarian Interior Ministry said yesterday. Some 200 Roma descended on the cafe on Monday evening in a predominantly Gypsy-populated neighborhood of the capital, beating four clients and breaking tables and chairs, the ministry said. “The Roma were seeking revenge for an incident on Sunday,” a city official, Vassil Karaivanov, told national radio. The leader of the Gypsy party Euroroma, Tsvetelin Kanchev, told Focus news agency that 30 skinheads had on Sunday attacked three Roma, one of whom had to be hospitalized with a broken jaw. There have been three attacks by skinheads on Roma in Bulgaria this year, Focus said. The daily 24 Tchassa also reported yesterday tension in a village near the southern city of Plovdiv, where two families came to blows on Sunday.

An explosion seriously injured eight people at a chemical company in southern Romania yesterday, local authorities said. The explosion, from a still undetermined source, occurred at the Oltchim chemical plant in Ramnicu Valcea during a lunch break. “We do not know how many employees were in the area,” town official Anuta Andolescu said. Firefighters were still checking for other possible victims. The three people most seriously injured were transferred to Bucharest. “The situation is under control, the area is secure and there is no risk of chemical pollution,” Andolescu said. Oltchim, one of the first chemical companies in Romania, was founded in 1966 . (AFP)