ANKARA (AFP) – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday that he would change the constitution to limit the president’s powers and expand basic rights and liberties if his party is re-elected in next month’s legislative elections. “I believe our republic deserves a new constitution... and we are working on this issue,” Erdogan was quoted by the Anatolia news agency as telling a news conference on his party’s manifesto for the July 22 elections. The new constitution should fully protect and guarantee basic rights and liberties in accordance with international agreements and clearly define the division of powers under the parliamentary system, Erdogan said. “In this respect, the president’s powers should be redefined,” he added.

ISTANBUL (AFP) – Turkish police have arrested five people, among them Chechens, suspected of having links with al-Qaida in the country’s biggest city Istanbul, the CNN-Turk news channel reported yesterday. The suspects were detained in different neighborhoods as part of a general sweep against militants of outlawed groups ahead of a summit of Black Sea nations, the report said. The one-day summit today brings together the leaders of 12 Black Sea countries, among them Russian President Vladimir Putin, to discuss projects aimed at boosting trade and economic cooperation.

Police in Austria and other Eastern European countries have cracked a large human trafficking network operating in the region, Austrian police said yesterday. A total of 91 suspects, including some of the network’s leaders, were arrested in the past six months as part of “Operation Danube,” which began in mid-2006 and was jointly run by investigators from Austria, Bosnia, Croatia, the Former Yuguslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Serbia and Slovenia, said Captain Gerald Tatzgern of the Austrian criminal police. The suspects, mostly men under 45, were believed to have illegally brought up to 500 people from Kosovo and Turkey into the European Union, making almost 1 million euros (1.35 million dollars) in the process. (AFP)

An American tourist was killed and another lightly injured after they were attacked by a bear in the Carpathian mountains in central Romania, police said yesterday. The incident occurred overnight Saturday in the Bucegi mountains when the bear, a female that had come out of the forest in search of food, encountered the group of six tourists – three Americans, two Israelis and one Romanian, police said. One American woman was killed and another was receiving medical care after sustaining light injuries, police said. The bear was apparently irritated by flashes from the tourists’ cameras and attacked the group, local media reported witnesses as saying. (AFP)