<B>TURKEY - Gunman opens fire in court. </B>A gunman opened fire in Turkey’s top administrative court yesterday injuring five judges, a court official told Reuters.

WASHINGTON - Domestic spying program reviewed. The White House, in an abrupt reversal, has agreed to let the full Senate and House of Representatives intelligence committees review President George W. Bush’s domestic spying program, lawmakers said.

<B>GAZA - Hamas dominated police in place. </B> The Palestinian interior minister declared a new Hamas-dominated police force operational yesterday, defying President Mahmoud Abbas in a powerful challenge that could stoke more internal bloodshed.

<B>AKARTA -Six more cases of bird flu. </B>The World Health Organisation confirmed six more human cases of bird flu infections in Indonesia yesterday, including five members of a family whose case has triggered fears of human-to-human transmission.

<B>BAGHDAD - Saddam back to court. </B>Saddam Hussein returned to court yesterday to hear testimony from defence witnesses for some of his lesser-known co-defendants, who like the ousted Iraqi president have denied crimes against humanity.

<B>ISLAMABAD - British MPs ask Pakistan not to hang condemned Briton. </B> British parliamentarians have asked Pakistan to spare the life of a British national due to be hanged for murder on June 3, officials told Reuters yesterday. Mirza Tahir Hussain, from Leeds in northern England and of Pakistani descent, was arrested in Rawalpindi in 1988 on charges of murdering and robbing a taxi driver who had reportedly tried to physically and sexually assault him.

<B>JOHANNESBURG - S.Africans to strike today for jobs, less poverty. </B> Workers represented by South Africa’s biggest labour federation Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu) will strike today against unemployment and poverty, the union said. spokesman Patrick Craven said its 1.7 million members were expected to take part in the one-day stay away which could disrupt schools, rail and harbour operations, mining and vehicle assembly plants. “It’s part of a long running campaign against a high unemployment rate, which started in 1999. Unfortunately the unemployment rate remains unacceptably high and poverty is worsening,” Craven told Reuters .

<B>MOGADISHU - Rallies for peace, new attack kills 5. </B>Chanting anti-American slogans, hundreds of Somalis protested for peace in lawless Mogadishu yesterday after militia battles that killed 150 people — but a fresh attack claimed five more lives. Civil groups called the demonstration after a ferocious, week-long battle between militia linked to Mogadishu’s Islamic courts and a self-styled anti-terror alliance of warlords. Some foreign and Somali analysts view the fighting, which has been the worst in the Horn of African nation for a decade, as a proxy battle between Islamist militants and Washington.

<B>ROME - Prodi takes power. </B> Italy’s incoming prime minister Romano Prodi formally took power yestersday after protracted coalition bickering over cabinet posts and more than a month after his narrow general election victory.