Five people killed in Kurdish militant attacks in SE Turkey

EU report slams Istanbul for ‘backsliding’ on rights

Meanwhile, Gaza’s Hamas rulers handed over the house of the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to officials from his Fatah party on Tuesday with the intention of turning it to a museum for the iconic leader.

The house has been closed since the Islamic militant group Hamas took over Gaza in 2007 after routing the Palestinian Authority’s forces and ousting Fatah under the leadership of Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, in bloody street battles.

The ceremony, attended by officials from all Palestinian factions, took place on the eve of the anniversary of Arafat’s 2004 death. During his final years, at the height of the second Palestinian Intifada, or uprising, Arafat lived under Israeli siege in the presidential compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah. After falling ill in the fall of 2004, the 75year-old leader was flown to France, where he died in a military hospital.

when Kurdish insurgents opened fire on their car, officials said.