ANKARA (AFP) – A light private aircraft that went missing after taking off from northeastern Turkey en route to neighboring Iran crashed on Sunday. The two people on board, a Briton and a Pakistani, were found dead on Tuesday, officials said. A search-and-rescue helicopter located the wreck of the British-registered Sky Arrow 650T plane in a mountainous area about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southeast of the Black Sea port of Trabzon, from where the plane took off on Sunday, Trabzon Governor Nuri Okutan told the Anatolia news agency. “Unfortunately, the British and Pakistani nationals on board were found dead,” he said. There was no immediate word on what caused the crash. The British national was the pilot. There were conflicting reports as to whether the Pakistani was also a pilot or a passenger.

BELGRADE (AFP) – Serbian security forces raided a hotel in downtown Belgrade yesterday in a bid to track down Bosnian genocide suspect Ratko Mladic, an official said. “Based on information we have obtained, we have searched a hotel and some neighboring buildings,” said Rasim Ljajic, Serbia’s top official in charge of cooperation with the UN war crimes court that has indicted Mladic. “These are regular activities as a part of our search for war crimes suspects,” he told reporters. Asked whether the action was aimed at finding wartime Bosnian-Serb military commander Mladic or five other suspects still at large, Ljajic confirmed it was for “Mladic” but refused to elaborate. Tuesday’s operation to track him down came as Serbia’s parliament was meeting to approve a new, relatively pro-European government, a day before a visit to Belgrade by European Union enlargement chief Olli Rehn.

The environmental pressure group Greenpeace said yesterday that its volunteers were constructing a model of the Biblical Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey to raise public awareness of global warming. “Greenpeace started to build a Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat to point to the threat of the new climate catastrophe,” Andree Bohling, the group’s energy campaigner, told a press conference here. “We are about to face a new flood.” Some 20 Greenpeace volunteers from Germany and Turkey have already begun construction of the ark’s model – which is 10 meters (33 feet) long and 4 meters (13 feet) wide – on the side of the mountain, Greenpeace said. The ship will be unveiled in a public ceremony on May 31. (AFP)

Forensic experts said yesterday they have found a new mass grave in a mine-infested area in the eastern Bosnian town of Rogatica. Zafer Rascic, head of the forensic team working on the grave, said excavations began on Tuesday and “four bodies were immediately visible.” He added that the location is heavily mined and his team managed to reach and exhume only one of the bodies. “The documents found on the body indicate the man was from Rogatica,” Rascic said. DNA analysis will provide more information, the expert said. (AP)