● Spain. Car blast hurts several at Navarre university. A car bomb exploded in a car park near the University of Navarre in northern Spanish city of Pamplona yesterday, slightly injuring several people. No telephone warning was received before the bomb exploded around 11 a.m. local time, smashing windows in a university building and damaging nearby cars. ?There were students taking their classes, academic staff in their offices, and they got a fright,? university spokesman Jesus Diaz told Spanish radio. The blast came just two days after Spanish police arrested four suspected ETA guerrillas they said had been planning attacks in the region. ETA has killed more than 800 people in four decades of armed struggle for independence of ancient Basque territories in Spain and France, including Navarre. Authorities blamed the separatists for two bomb attacks which caused no casualties over the weekend.

● Somalia. Pirates seize Turkish ship. Somali pirates hijacked a Turkish ship off the lawless Horn of Africa country on Wednesday in the latest wave of attacks. The MV Yasa Neslihan had 20 Turkish crew when pirates seized the ship in Aden Bay as it was carrying iron ore from Canada to China, state news agency Anatolian said, quoting the Turkish Under Secretariat for Maritime Affairs. ?We have lost contact with the ship for the last 24 hours. There is no contact or demand for a ransom from the pirates yet. According to the information we have the ship is in Aden Bay in Somalia,? Fehmi Ulgener, an official at the company that owns the ship told Turkish NTV. Andrew Mwangura, head of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers? Assistance Programme, said a Turkish ship had been hijacked but said no more details were available. Somali pirates have been causing havoc in one of the world's busiest shipping areas connecting Europe to Asia and the Middle East, taking millions in ransoms, hiking insurance costs, and threatening humanitarian supplies.

● Austria. Police track bank robber and hostage. An armed man was being tracked by police in Austria yesterday after he robbed a bank and took a female employee he forced to drive off with him, police said. The man, described as ?extremely dangerous? by police, took the 37-year-old woman hostage after holding up the bank in Feldkirch, a town near Austria's border with Germany and Switzerland. The car, a blue Volkswagen Golf driven by the hostage, was later spotted over 300 km away driving through the province of Salzburg. Police said they were tracking its progress. ?He is armed with a pistol with a silencer,? a police spokesman in the western Vorarlberg province said. The man stole several thousand euros before escaping with his hostage, according to the chief investigator, Hardy Tschofen.

● BRUSSELS. Boost for Croatia in EU enlargement. The European Commission (EC) will next week give Croatia a conditional date for concluding EU accession talks but will not give Macedonia the green light to start talks, a draft seen by Reuters yesterday showed. ?Croatia is expected to reach the final phase of accession negotiation by the end of 2009 if it has taken necessary preparatory steps,? the draft strategy paper prepared ahead of a Nov. 5 publication of annual reports on entry hopefuls. The bloc's executive Commission will tell EU-aspirant Turkey it needs to put more effort into reforms to progress in its path to EU accession, said the draft -- which could see minor changes when the EU executive adopts it next week. The draft report reaffirms the view of EC officials that Serbia could get EU candidate status in 2009 if it steps up reforms and cooperates with the Internatio-nal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia.