ISTANBUL (AFP) - Turkey said yesterday it has “put out of action” the group behind last month’s devastating suicide bombings in Istanbul in which dozens of people died and hundreds more were injured. The Turkish group, “has been put out of action and other possible attacks have been prevented,” Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler told a televised news conference. He confirmed that the Turkish cell was linked to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group. In a document leaked to the media last week, police warned of possible new attacks during the New Year holidays, although officials later sought to play down the threat. Guler said yesterday there was now no reason to fear further attacks by the cell, adding, “There is no need for hysteria.”

ANKARA (AFP) - Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul warned the Iraqi Kurds on Wednesday that attempts to expand their autonomy in the north of Iraq could spark new tensions in the war-ravaged country. “We have warned against developments in northern Iraq or elsewhere in Iraq that could endanger the territorial integrity and political unity of Iraq. All regional countries have also done so,” Gul said in response to a question about a Kurdish bid to establish a federal system in Iraq. “If these dangerous developments continue, I am afraid that Iraq... will again become a center of suffering and tears,” he said.

US and Russian experts removed a cache of highly enriched uranium from a mothballed Bulgarian reactor and whisked it out of the country as part of an international plan to keep loosely guarded nuclear material out of terrorists’ hands, officials said. It was the third such US-Russian operation, aimed at securing uranium from reactors run with fuel from the former Soviet Union. The nuclear and security experts, helped by Bulgarian special police, took 17 kilograms (37 pounds) of uranium from the Institute of Nuclear Sciences just outside the capital, Sofia, Bulgarian and Russian officials said Wednesday. (AP)

At least five people died and several others were unaccounted for after a storm of unprecedented intensity accompanied by torrential rain lashed large parts of southern Turkey over the Christmas period, local officials said yesterday. The popular coastal tourist resort of Antalya was the focus of the devastation as bridges collapsed, fields were flooded and several houses were swept away during the atrocious weather, which lasted for three days. (AFP)

Authorities prevented more than 1 million Romanians from leaving the country this year, a sharp increase over last year and the result of a crackdown on illegal cross-border traffic, police said yesterday. The number of Romanians prevented from traveling abroad was almost triple that of 2002, Romanian border police said in a statement. (AP)

Turkey has banned the import of livestock from the US following the discovery of a suspected case of mad cow disease there, the Agriculture Ministry said Thursday. (AFP)