ANKARA (AFP) – Turkey’s chief prosecutor yesterday demanded heavy jail terms for former energy ministers Cumhur Ersumer and Zeki Cakan in their trial at a special court on corruption charges, Anatolia news agency reported. The prosecutor sought 36 years for Ersumer for rigging public tenders for the construction of two power plants and an irrigation facility, Anatolia said. He called for a sentence of 28 years and six months for Cakan on charges of abuse of power and rigging two public tenders. The judge adjourned the hearing to May 1.

SOFIA (AP) – Bulgaria’s population has dropped by 1 million to 7.7 million since the end of communist rule in 1989, a nearly catastrophic decrease in such a small country. The Balkan state, which joined the EU in January, has the lowest population growth rate in the 27-nation bloc, according to figures released by the National Statistics Institute yesterday. If the trend of emigration and a high mortality rate continues, Bulgaria could lose a third of its population in a few decades’ time, experts said. According to an analysis by the Washington DC-based Population Reference Bureau, published earlier this year, Bulgaria’s population will decline by 34 percent from 2005 to 2050, falling to 5 million people.

Bosnian Serb police confiscated property owned by the family of a war crimes suspect for the first time yesterday, a report said. The police had sealed off access to a petrol station owned by an unnamed son of Stojan Zupljanin, who is wanted by the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Bosnian Serb radio said. Stojan Zupljanin, 56, has been wanted by the tribunal since 1999. (AFP)

The parliament of Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat federation approved a new government yesterday, a week after the country’s peace overseer blocked the appointment of the candidate for interior minister. The lower house voted in ethnic Muslim Nedzad Brankovic as prime minister, some six months after a general election, and approved his 16-member cabinet representing the main Muslim and Croat parties and including two Serb ministers. The parliament is set to approve the federation’s 2007 budget, a day before a decision on the temporary financing of the region expires. (Reuters)