Ankara  - The 5th World Water Forum got under way in Istanbul on Monday morning, with Turkish President Abdullah Gul playing host to various world leaders who plan to discuss water issues in the 21st century.

Some 20,000 people from more than 130 countries were in Istanbul for the forum, which is held every three years. The forum aims to bring together people from both within and outside the water sector in order to find sustainable solutions to the world's water challenges.

Ankara  - Turkish investigators looking into reports that the bodies of several people murdered in the 1990s in south-east Turkey had been dumped into wells have discovered a human skull, Turkish media reported on Monday.

Digging around several wells in the district of Silopi, investigators found human hair, clothes, a military cap and various human bones.

Dozens of people went missing, presumably murdered, during the 1990s at the height of fighting between the separatist Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) and the Turkish armed forces.

Ankara - Turkish warplanes bombed a number of suspected Kurdish separatist positions in northern Iraq on Thursday, the private NTV television broadcaster reported a military official as saying.

The jets bombed suspected bases in the Zap and Avasin regions just over the Turkish border with Iraq, General Metin Gurak told reporters in Ankara on Friday.

Ankara  - Fifty-six people suspected of involvement in a secular, ultranationalist plot to overthrow the Turkish government will face trial after prosecutors in Istanbul on Tuesday released a second indictment in the so-called Ergenekon probe.

The list of suspects, which includes two former generals, are suspected of being connected to the secretive Ergenekon coup plotters.

Ankara - Controversy erupted in Turkey on Tuesday after a science institute withdrew a planned cover story about evolution theory founder Charles Darwin from its magazine and sacked the publication's editor who had approved the article.

The television news channel CNN Turk, on its website, accused the state-run Turkish Science and Research Institute (TUBITAK) of "unbelievable censorship" in removing the planned cover story marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of the the British scientist.

Ankara - Turkish President Abdullah Gul warned Tehran on Tuesday to review its political stance, ahead of setting off on a diplomatic visit to Iran.

Gul said the arrival of US President Barack Obama in the White House had been very important and that "all countries must rethink their policies," just prior to departing for neighbouring Iran.

The Turkish president also suggested a meeting in Tehran of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO).