ANKARA (Reuters) - In a move likely to enrage Turkish secularists, ruling party lawmakers voted yesterday for a massive increase in the number of Muslim clerics and preachers employed by the State. The Justice and Development Party (AK) lawmakers backed the increase in committee discussions on the budget for the Department of Religious Affairs, the state body that employs around 88,000 staff and preachers to run mosques across Turkey and in other countries. They voted to employ an additional 15,000 clerics and preachers, instead of a proposed 1,600. The dramatic increase, broadcast as breaking news on local television channels, looks certain to expose the AK government to renewed attack from secularists.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Croatia handed over a Bosnian-Croat war crimes suspect to the Hague tribunal yesterday with Zagreb bidding to enhance its prospects of joining the European Union by cooperating with the court. Former militia commander Ivica Rajic, accused of ordering a 1993 massacre of Bosnian-Muslim civilians, was flown to the Netherlands from Zagreb under police guard after Croatia’s Supreme Court approved his handover earlier this month.

Forensic experts exhumed 50 bodies yesterday from a mass grave believed to hold Muslims killed at the beginning of Bosnia’s 1992-95 war. The bodies were found in the predominantly Serb town of Zvornik, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of Sarajevo, said Murat Hurtic, who runs the local office of the Muslim Commission for Missing Persons. (AP)

Five people were killed and four wounded yesterday when a high-speed passenger train crashed into a van on a level-crossing in northeastern Romania, dragging it 300 meters (yards), police said. The van, carrying nine people, was struck by the train traveling between western Timisoara and northeastern Iasi near the town of Stroiesti. Police said initial investigations showed the van driver had failed to stop at a red light signaling the arrival of the train. (AFP)

Turkey got a measure of revenge against its nemesis Brazil late Monday with a tremendous second-half effort which ousted the five-time World Cup champion from the Confederations Cup with a 2-2 draw. The result was enough to squeeze Turkey past Brazil into the semifinal against defending champion France. (AP)