ANKARA (AFP) – One man drowned after a fishing boat with at least 20 illegal immigrants on board sank off Turkey’s western coast while trying to reach neighboring Greece, a local official said yesterday. Local fishermen alerted authorities when they saw the boat capsize and sink off Seferihisar, a town in the Aegean province of Izmir, late Saturday, the town’s governor Orhan Karadibi told the Anatolia news agency. Security forces found the body of a man washed ashore, while the coast guard rescued 17 people from the sea and four illegal immigrants were caught on land, Karadibi said. “We are unable to determine the exact number of people on board the ship, as the survivors, Somalis and Palestinians, are giving conflicting testimony. Some say there were 20 or 21 people aboard, while others put the number at 24 or 25,” Karadibi said. A search was under way both at sea and on land for possible survivors or bodies, he added.

BUCHAREST (AP) – Romania’s foreign minister on Saturday suggested that the British government should issue a statement criticizing a “xenophobic” report published by a British tabloid newspaper. Foreign Minister Razvan Mihai Ungureanu made the comment after the Sun newspaper published an article last Thursday suggesting that a wave of Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants expected after the countries join the EU next year could lead to an “explosion” in the number of AIDS cases in Britain. The newspaper’s report cited a study by Britain’s Health Protection Agency. The British-based HIV and AIDS charity AVERT issued a statement calling the Sun’s conclusions “unfounded” and “unhelpful,” noting that the two EU newcomers have lower HIV/AIDS rates than Britain or other European Union countries.

An army officer was killed on Saturday while destroying a shell at a military base in southeastern Albania, police said. Sadik Basha was killed instantly after the midday explosion at an army base in Voskopoja, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) southeast of the capital, Tirana, police said. Police did not immediately provide more details, saying an investigation was under way. (AP)

Turkey on Saturday reopened the straits linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean after heavy fog forced authorities to shut down both waterways for several hours, officials said. The Bosporus, which links the Black Sea to the Marmara Sea, “was opened to transit traffic at 12 p.m. (1000 GMT),” a spokesman for the Istanbul maritime traffic control told AFP. The Dardanelles to the southwest reopened at 12.30 p.m. (1030 GMT), officials said. (AFP)