WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush yesterday demanded that Libya spare the lives of five Bulgarian nurses facing a firing squad and release them from prison. “The nurses ought to be freed,” Bush said as he met at the White House with Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov. “There should be no confusion in the Libyan government’s mind that those nurses ought to be, not only spared their life, but out of prison. We will continue to make that message perfectly clear.” The five nurses and a Palestinian doctor are under death sentence in a Libyan jail.

NICOSIA (Reuters) - Turkish-Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat has received an invitation to talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington, his office said yesterday, in a move sure to annoy rival Greek Cypriots. Only Turkey recognizes Talat’s breakaway, self-proclaimed Turkish-Cypriot state in northern Cyprus. “Turkish Cypriots expect an end to their isolation after they displayed a strong will for a settlement in the 2004 referendum,” TAK quoted Talat as saying yesterday.

A radical Kurdish group said yesterday it had planted a bomb that exploded at a filling station in Istanbul, injuring five people, one of them seriously. “The action aimed at the service station (Sunday) was carried out by a revenge commando of the TAK (Kurdistan Freedom Falcons),” the organization said on its website. It threatened to undertake “even greater operations” and make Turkey, fighting armed separatist Kurdish groups in its southeast, “a country that cannot be lived in.” (AFP)

Serbia’s royal family issued a statement in the style of a personal ad yesterday seeking local wives for its three unmarried princes. “Princess Wanted!” and “How to become a princess in Serbia?” read the headlines to the emailed statement, in which Prince Peter, 25, and his twin brothers Philip and Alexander, 23, said they were ready to meet the loves of their lives. Peter, Philip and Alexander are the sons of Serbia’s Crown Prince Alexander Karadjordjevic, who serves a largely ceremonial role. (AFP)

Turkish troops killed three Maoist militants in eastern Turkey yesterday during operations that are also aimed at Kurdish rebels before the onset of the harsh winter in the mountainous region. Security officials said soldiers killed the three Maoist Communist Party-People’s Liberation Army (MKP-HKO) rebels in a clash near the village of Gozeler in the province of Tunceli. (Reuters)

Two Bulgarian border policemen have been charged with stealing US Ambassador John Beyrle’s cellular phone while he was passing through security at an airport, officials said yesterday. The guards allegedly took the phone after Beyrle passed his belongings through an X-ray machine at Varna Airport Friday, court officials said. Beyrle forgot the phone in a hand-luggage basket. (AP)