ANKARA (AFP) - The bird flu crisis that has gripped Turkey appears to be fading, with no new cases reported in nearly a week and several infected people staging recoveries, authorities said yesterday. “We’re relieved. No case has been reported in days,” the spokesman for the Agriculture Ministry, Faruk Demirel, told AFP. “All the suspected cases in the past few days have turned out to be negative. That means the disease is dropping away; we are optimistic,” he said. The last person confirmed to have been infected with the H5N1 avian influenza virus in Turkey was on January 17.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - State prosecutors have calculated Jan. 18, 2010, as the date for the release from jail of Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981, Anatolia reported yesterday. Agca, 48, was briefly freed from jail earlier this month, triggering a storm of protest in Turkey where he had been serving a sentence for the killing of a newspaper editor in the 1970s and for robbery. Last Friday, Turkey’s Supreme Court ordered that Agca return to jail, saying it was too early for him be freed.

Belgrade agreed yesterday to allow European troops serving as peacekeepers in Bosnia to travel through Serbia-Montenegro to UN-administered Kosovo, the Balkan country’s foreign minister said. “The agreement is similar to the one signed with NATO in July and represents an additional guarantee for Kosovo’s Serb population, who could be the victims of terrorist attacks,” Vuk Draskovic said, as quoted by Tanjug news agency. (AFP)

The trial of former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, which will soon enter its fifth year, started again yesterday at the UN war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands after a six-week break and amidst the worsening health of the accused former dictator. Milosevic, who is defending himself, suffers from high blood pressure and related cardiovascular problems. His poor health has caused his trial, which began in February 2002, to be suspended on numerous occasions. (AFP)

An Albanian farmer found a large depot of World War II mines and artillery shells, police said yesterday. The farmer found the munitions Friday while checking his land in Berzhite, 20 kms (12 miles) west of the capital Tirana, said a police statement. Army demining units were clearing the area. (AP)