ISTANBUL (AFP) - Tens of thousands of scientists and astronomy fans are expected in Turkey on March 29 to see the total solar eclipse, Turkish astronomers and hoteliers said yesterday. “In (the southern town of) Antalya alone we are expecting tens of thousands of amateur and professional astronomers from around the world,” Attila Ozguc, the head of the astronomy department at the Kandilli research center in Istanbul, told AFP. According to NASA, the total eclipse will be visible as it crosses half the Earth, traveling from Brazil through northern Africa and ending up in Mongolia.

TIRANA (Reuters) - Albania found its second case of H5N1 bird flu in poultry near the capital, but there was no evidence the virus had made people ill despite some farmers having eaten infected birds, officials said yesterday. The Agriculture Ministry said tests at a British laboratory at Weybridge confirmed H5N1 in four dead chickens in the Peze Helmes area, some 10 kilometers (6 miles) west of the capital Tirana. Ministry spokesman Rexhep Shahu said teams were working to cull some 600 chickens and disinfect the coops in the area. “Tests have found no sign of the virus in people,” he said.

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) denied accusations yesterday that Interior Minister Ljubomir Mihailovski had refused to cooperate with an EU Parliament investigation into allegations of a CIA abduction in his country. Mihailovski was ready to meet an EU delegation planning to visit FYROM on April 27-29 to discuss the allegations but not to be questioned by them, authorities said. “He’s not a suspect who needs to be questioned. But he will certainly meet with them and discuss the case,” a senior government official told Reuters. (Reuters)

Bulgaria has shown no progress in fighting rampant graft and gangsterism and the EU should consider keeping its judiciary at arms reach if it joins in 2007 as planned, EU advisers were quoted as saying yesterday. The poor Black Sea country has repeatedly promised to corral underworld barons who control large parts of the economy and root out corrupt officials in the government. “There has been no concrete improvement since the previous partner checks in September 2005,” EU-appointed expert Suzette Schuster said in a report published in the daily Monitor. (Reuters)

A Serb court asked police yesterday to reissue an arrest warrant for the widow of the late Slobodan Milosevic which had been withdrawn to allow her to attend his funeral last weekend. Mira Markovic, who has lived in self-imposed exile in Russia for the past three years, did not show up for his burial and failed to appear at a court hearing yesterday. She was charged in 2003 with abusing her power to get a flat for the family nanny. (Reuters)

A fresh wave of heavy rains has created more landslides in central Serbia, where hundreds of people already had been left homeless amid melting snow and swelling rivers. Authorities said yesterday that a landslide in Belgrade damaged a local power system, and that residents on the outskirts could lose electricity. (AP)

Municipal authorities in the southern Romanian town of Giurgiu have come under media criticism for spending public funds on two parties for female employees which featured male strippers. The city spent a total of 42,000 lei ($14,000, 11,500 euros) on the parties, which were held on March 1, a traditional holiday symbolizing the arrival of spring, and on March 8, for International Woman’s Day, national daily Gandul reported. (AP)