Middle East, Turkey | featured news

A Turkish court on Friday convicted 330 military officers, including the former air force and navy chiefs, of plotting to overthrow the Islamic-based government in 2003, state television reported, in a case that has helped curtail the military's hold on politics.

The United Nations on Friday confirmed that veteran Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi would become the new international mediator on Syria, as the 17-month-old conflict slid deeper into civil war and refugees fled to Turkey in increasing numbers.

The Syrian army pressed its offensive against rebels, bombarding the city of Douma near Damascus, and Turkey said it had scrambled warplanes after Syrian helicopters flew near its border.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday threatened a military response if Syrian forces approached the Turkish border, hardening the tone over Turkey’s downed warplane.

Turkey promised on Saturday to do "whatever necessary" in response to Syria's shooting-down of a Turkish fighter, but did not immediately contest an assertion by Damascus that the jet had been in its airspace at the time.

Syrian forces on Monday fired across the border at a refugee camp in Turkey, killing one and wounding four, activists said. It is the first such attack since Ankara began allowing thousands of refugees to find shelter in the country.

Mazen Hajisa has a secret. Amid the olive groves of Turkey just a stone's throw away from the Syrian border, he has hidden away several Styrofoam boxes. Their contents are deadly: a dozen unexploded antipersonnel mines.

The Duchess of York faces charges in Turkey for going undercover and secretly filming children at a state-run home for a documentary, according to the semiofficial Anatolian news agency.

Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki told Kurdish leaders there would be “problems” if they do not turn over a vice president who has been accused of assassinations.

Turkey threatened to cut off supplies of electricity to its neighbor Syria on Tuesday, as the Damascus regime found itself under growing pressure from Arab, Turkish, European and North American governments for its ongoing lethal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.