ISTANBUL (AP) - Turkish police detained the husband of Kurdish activist Leyla Zana as he arrived in the country yesterday for the first time in 10 years since leaving after serving a prison term on charges of advocating Kurdish separatism. Mehdi Zana, a former mayor of Diyarbakir in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast, was returning home with his wife from Belgium, where she made an acceptance speech for a prestigious human rights award presented by the European Parliament. Mehdi Zana, a political refugee in Sweden, was imprisoned for a total of 16 years on charges of advocating Kurdish separatism. He could still face similar charges and potentially more time in prison, according to news reports.

IASI (AFP) - An elderly woman died and more than 50 people were taken to hospital during a pilgrimage in northern Romania made in bitterly cold weather, medical staff said yesterday. More than a million people took part in the three-day event at Iasi, near the border with Moldova, to venerate the relics of a female saint who died in the 11th century. The woman, aged 70, died of a heart attack brought on by the cold snap that has hit the town, where night-time temperatures have fallen to minus 5 degrees Celsius (23 Fahrenheit). More than 50 other people, victims of the cold and hunger, were taken to hospital during a 24-hour period but about 10 were able to leave after a few hours.

The Finnish government said yesterday that it would support the start of EU membership negotiations with Turkey. (AFP)

An Italian Renaissance painting stolen a year ago in Cyprus, possibly a Titian, has been recovered in Bulgaria in a police raid, media reported yesterday. “Abraham’s Sacrifice of Isaac,” thought to be by the Renaissance master or his Venetian school, was taken from a Cypriot art collector’s home in Nicosia in May 2003, the national daily Trud said. It is badly damaged mainly due to poor preservation and being kept folded and has been torn. (Reuters)