ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish police have detained 30 people, including former military personnel and lawyers, in connection with an investigation into a cache of explosives seized last year, Istanbul’s governor said yesterday. Eight months ago, police discovered 27 hand grenades, TNT blocks and fuses during an operation in an Istanbul shantytown. “Within Istanbul and beyond, a total of 30 people are in custody,” the state-run Anatolia news agency quoted Governor Muammer Guler as saying. Turkish media have linked the find to the country’s shadowy “deep state,” code for hardline nationalists in the security forces prepared to subvert the law for political ends. CNN Turk said on its website a retired brigadier-general and colonel were among those detained on the instructions of a public prosecutor in Istanbul. It said those detained included well-known nationalist lawyer Kemal Kerincsiz, who came to prominence over his support for free speech-related prosecutions, such as that against Nobel Prize-winning novelist Orhan Pamuk.

BUCHAREST (AP) – Romania’s justice minister ended a standoff with the country’s president yesterday by agreeing to forward several corruption cases to prosecutors. The justice chief, Teodor Melescanu, had refused to transfer the case files on several politicians, arguing that the documents were incomplete. President Traian Basescu, who had authorized the investigations, accused Melescanu of trying to block them for political gain and threatened to take action. Yesterday, the justice minister forwarded to prosecutors case files on four Liberal Party politicians and four others, including former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase. The cases involve separate allegations of bribery and leaking secret information. Some of the accusations date back to the 1990s.

Bulgaria’s unemployment rate was at 6.9 percent in December, up from 6.6 percent the previous month, officials said yesterday. The total number of registered unemployed in December 2007 was 255,910, the National Employment Agency said. This was 10,635 more than in November, but 81,886 fewer than in December 2006. In 2006, the unemployment rate averaged 9.6 percent, down from 11.5 percent in 2005. (AP)