ANKARA. Turkish parliament debates early election call. Turkey?s parliament began debating a proposal yesterday for early national elections, a move intended to end a political crisis that has pitted the Islamist-rooted government against the secular establishment. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan proposed early polls on Wednesday, a day after Turkey?s highest court ruled the first round of a presidential election in parliament invalid in a serious setback for his ruling AK Party. Parliament, where the AK Party has a majority, was to examine a proposal by the assembly?s constitutional committee to hold national elections on July 22.

The main opposition Republican People?s Party (CHP), which helped trigger the crisis by asking Turkey?s Constitutional Court to halt the presidential poll, said it would prefer the general election to be held in early June or in September.

NASSAU. Bahamas voters oust government, bring old PM back. Bahamian voters ousted their government and returned former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham?s party to power in parliamentary elections dominated by economic issues and political scandals. Ingraham?s Free National Movement, or FNM, won 23 of the 41 seats in the House of Assembly and will form the new government to lead the Atlantic island chain for the next five years, according to unofficial results reported by the state-owned ?ZNS television station?. Outgoing Prime Minister Perry Christie?s Progressive Liberal Party, or PLP, campaigned mainly on its economic record in the affluent, tourism-dependent nation of 700 islands and 320,000 people.

LAGOS. Foreign wokers kidnapped. Gunmen kidnapped up to six foreign workers yesterday from an offshore pil production platform operated by Italian oil company, security sources said. It was the second time within a year that foreign workers had been kidnapped from the Mistras platform which is located off the southern Nigerian state of Bayelsa.

JAKARTA. Indonesia deforestation fastest in world-Greenpeace. Indonesia had the fastest pace of deforestation in the world between 2000-2005, with an area of forest equivalent to 300 soccer pitches destroyed every hour, Greenpeace said yesterday.

?The next generation of Indonesians will not see any forest if no action is taken by the government to deal with the problem,? Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Bustar Maitar told a news conference. The Guinness World Records had approved a proposal by Greenpeace that Indonesia?s forest destruction be included in its 2008 record book to be published in September this year, said Greenpeace Southeast Asia campaigner Hapsoro.

MEXICO CITY. Mexico finds world?s oldest lobster fossil. Mexican scientists said they have identified the world?s oldest lobster fossil, a creature that was alive when Africa was only just breaking apart from the Americas some 120 million years ago. The fossil is 4.7 inches long and its shell and legs are immaculately preserved by the mud in the southern state of Chiapas where it was found. It is dated as 120 million years old, some 20 million years older than existing lobster fossils.

SHARM EL-SHEIKH. Talk of US-Iran meeting overshadows Iraq conference. An international conference to bring peace and economic recovery to Iraq opened in Egypt yesterday, with all eyes on a possible meeting between the United States and its old enemies, Iran and Syria. In his opening speech to the two-day conference, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on all countries to write off Iraq?s foreign debts.

Ministers from 50 countries and international organisations gathered in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for the meetings. Delegates were to endorse an International Compact for Iraq, a five-year plan offering Iraq financial, political and technical support in return for key reforms.

Bangladesh. Nobel peace winner drops political plan. Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who late last year announced plans to form a party to bail out the country from confrontational politics, said yesterday he has decided to give up the plan. Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for helping poor women escape poverty by offering micro-credit through his Grameen Bank, earning the nickname ?banker to the poor?. Bangladeshis, irrespective of caste and creed, felt national pride at Yunus?s worldwide recognition, but he drew criticism from various quarters after unveiling his plan to form a political party that would lead the country forward through good work and harmony.