ANKARA (AP) - Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer yesterday vetoed controversial constitutional amendments allowing the cash-strapped government to sell off deforested land. It was the second time Sezer vetoed the amendments, which were strongly opposed by environmentalists. Sezer argued that the changes would encourage the destruction of forests. The government has said the sales would raise some $25 billion. It has said the areas don’t need to be protected because they’re no longer forested. If lawmakers pass the laws again without any changes, Sezer must either approve them or refer them to popular referendum — a rarity in Turkey.

SOFIA (AP) - Blood-strapped hospitals in this poor Balkan country are urging patients to look for blood donors before turning to the surgeon, a health official said yesterday. Bulgaria’s hospitals are chronically short of blood for transfusions, as the number of blood donors has dwindled some three times over the past decade. “Before the fall of communism in 1989, we had some 400,000 blood donors per year, compared to slightly more than 140,000 now,” said Toshko Lisichkov, the chief of the National Center of Transfusional Hematology. With just 18 blood donors per 1,000 people, Bulgaria lags far behind the international standard of up to 60 donors per 1,000 people.

A former guard at a Serb-run prison camp where Muslims and Croats were tortured during the Bosnian war was remanded in custody at the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague yesterday. Mitar Rasevic has been charged with 11 counts of war crimes and seven counts of crimes against humanity. They include murder, torture, persecution and slavery. Government officials in Belgrade told AFP that Rasevic had voluntarily surrendered to the UN court. (AFP)

Top Iraqi-Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani said yesterday he would welcome more international forces in Iraq but opposed the presence of troops from Turkey and other neighbors. Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two Kurdish groups that control northern Iraq, arrived in Japan on Wednesday for a six-day visit. “We are against the presence of the Turkish army,” he said, noting that the presence of some 3,000 Turkish troops based in northern Iraq was “enough.” (AFP)