ANKARA (AFP) - A police helicopter crashed into the center of the resort city of Antalya on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast yesterday, killing all five officers on board but causing no casualties on the ground, officials said. Before the eyes of terrified residents, the helicopter, on a traffic-monitoring mission, came down with a huge bang on one of the city’s main streets, close to a major hotel, media reports said. Television footage showed a blackened tangle of metal burning in a street lined with palm trees as firefighters battled the blaze. A technical failure is thought to have caused the crash, Antalya’s Deputy Governor Erkan Isilgan told the CNN-Turk news channel. The pilot is believed to have made an unsuccessful attempt at an emergency landing in a nearby soccer stadium.

STRASBOURG (AFP) - NATO has agreed to open its detention facilities in Kosovo for inspection by experts from the Council of Europe’s anti-torture committee, the rights watchdog said yesterday. The visits will verify whether the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is complying with the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The inspections will also include UN detention facilities in Kosovo under an accord with the UN mission there which was reached in 2004 but has not been implemented pending the outcome of negotiations with NATO.

War crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic hid in modest flats in the Serbian capital until January this year, according to an indictment against 10 people accused of helping him, the daily Politika reported yesterday. Quoting a source who saw the indictment, Politika said it lists the addresses of flats where the former Bosnian-Serb army commander hid from mid-2002 to January 2006. “It is a matter of five or more flats in (the neighborhood of) New Belgrade, and the persons who helped Mladic paid the rent and supplied him with food,” the daily quoted its source as saying. (Reuters)

Hundreds of additional troops will be deployed in Kosovo over the next few weeks to reinforce the NATO-led peacekeeping force in the province, an alliance official said yesterday. The troops, part of NATO’s quick reaction force, will be deployed throughout Kosovo and conduct province-wide operations, said Colonel Pio Sabetta, a spokesman for the alliance’s peacekeeping force, known as KFOR. The deployment “is not linked to any specific situation but is aimed to show NATO’s willingness in keeping the commitment to Kosovo,” he said. (AP)

Citizens of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) were voting again at several polling stations yesterday due to irregularities in the July 5 parliamentary election. Following complaints by political parties about irregularities, the electoral commission ordered reruns at 1 percent of polling stations, which is not expected to affect the overall result. (AP)