ANKARA (AP) - Ending an active political career that spanned nearly half a century, former Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit stepped down from the leadership of his center-left Democratic Left Party yesterday to make way for a younger leader. Looking frail, Ecevit, 79, addressed delegates at the party’s congress for one hour, criticizing the policies of the current government and ending his speech by wishing success to the person who will succeed him. Delegates were scheduled to elect a new leader among six candidates later in the day.

ISTANBUL (AP) - A passenger plane from Dusseldorf, Germany, skidded off the runway early yesterday after landing in Istanbul, officials said. No one was injured. The Turkish-owned private Inter Airlines flight, carrying 102 passengers and six crew members, landed at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport shortly after midnight, an airport official said. But the Fokker-100’s left side wheel system broke after touching down, causing the plane to turn to the left and skid off the runway, he said.

Bulgarian archaeologists have discovered the ruins of a house dating back to the sixth millenium BC near Veliko Tarnovo in the north of the country, Bulgarian national radio reported on Saturday. The team found a wall and a chimney of the 8,000-year-old dwelling, as well as several ceramic tools, their leader Stefan Tchokhadjiev said. They also found a ceramic altar with inscriptions at which the inhabitants of the house apparently prayed, and considered this the most important part of the discovery. (AFP)

Lightning that struck parts of Romania during summer storms killed four people over the weekend, police and media reported yesterday. A family of three died Friday as they were hit by lightning while cutting hay in the northwest town of Zagra, officer Sorin Cozma Moldovan said. On Saturday, lightning killed a shepherd in the town of Seica Mare, 270 kilometers (168 miles) northwest of Bucharest, the state news agency Rompres said. (AP)

Twenty-one tourists from Germany, Russia and Austria were slightly injured in a blast caused by an oxygen canister in a hotel in the popular Turkish Mediterranean resort of Kemer, local police said Saturday. The tourists were at the bar near the hotel’s pool at the time of the explosion of the canister late Friday, a police spokeswoman said. (AFP)