ANKARA (AP) - An avalanche crashed down a mountain onto a road early Saturday, dragging a passenger bus down a ravine into a river and killing eight people, reports said. The bus was stuck in heavy snow when the avalanche occurred on a mountainous road linking the city of Diyarbakir, in southeast Turkey, to the city of Bitlis, some 200 kilometers (120 miles) to the northwest, CNN-Turk television said. Fifteen passengers were injured, the report said.

ANKARA (AFP) - An Istanbul court has dropped charges of “denigrating the Turkish national identity” filed against prominent author Orhan Pamuk over his writings about the mass killings of Armenians during World War I, CNN-Turk television reported yesterday. CNN-Turk said the ministry had said in a letter to the tribunal that it was legally not competent to judge whether the case should go on, and the court had thus decided to dismiss the case.

Libyan families on Saturday asked for 10 million euros in compensation for each child infected with HIV, part of ongoing efforts to resolve the international crisis over five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor held on charges of intentionally infecting the children. Idris Lagha, head of the Association for the Families of the HIV-Infected Children, told AP the compensation request would be considered by the international community. (AP)

The man who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 was back in an Istanbul prison Saturday, while his lawyer vowed to have him released again. Mehmet Ali Agca returned Friday to Kartal Prison, the same lockup he was released from eight days ago, after a court ruled he had more time to serve on his sentence for killing a prominent Turkish journalist in 1979 and other crimes. An appeals court on Friday overturned a lower court’s ruling that set Agca free on January 12. (AP)

Parts of a grenade launcher have been found in a building which belonged to the Iraqi Embassy in the Romanian capital Bucharest police said yesterday. The discovery was made Saturday evening by a worker who found a suspect package in the attic of the building and alerted the police, said Christian Ciocan, spokesman for the city’s police. (AP)