World leaders hailed President Barack Obama’s sweeping re-election, with allies pledging to deepen cooperation with the United States on fighting the world economic slump and maintaining security across the globe.

A pro-government Syrian TV station said four of its employees have been kidnapped while on assignment in a suburb of the capital Damascus.

Turkey has deployed anti-aircraft guns and other weapons alongside its border with Syria, reports say, days after the downing of a Turkish military jet by Syrian forces.

Turkey has suspended all military ties with Israel after a UN report slammed the "excessive" force used in a raid on a Gaza aid flotilla last year.

A suicide bomber blew himself up today beside a police vehicle in a major Istanbul square near tourist hotels and a bus terminal, wounding 32 people, including 15 policemen.

A solid majority of Turkish voters approved sweeping changes to their military-era constitution – a referendum hailed by the government as a leap towards full democracy in line with its troubled bid to join the European Union.

President Mary McAleese leaves today for a three-day visit to Turkey to mark the deaths of thousands of Irish soldiers in the First World War.

TURKEY’S prime minister yesterday vowed to put everyone who conspired against the country’s democracy on trial as more military officers were arrested.

Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert met Turkish leaders for talks expected to centre on the Middle East and Turkish-mediated peace talks between Israel and Syria.

The Turkish army clashed with Kurdish rebels in the south east and northern Iraq in their deadliest battle in eight months, as the government pledged there would be no let-up.

Turkish police have arrested three teenagers in connection with two bomb blasts in a packed Istanbul square which killed 17 people, a newspaper reported today.

Two bombs have exploded minutes apart in a crowded Istanbul square, killing 16 and injuring more than 150 in the deadliest attack against civilians in Turkey in almost five years.

TURKEY’S top court has annulled a law allowing women to wear Islamic headscarves in universities on grounds it violates secularism, in a huge blow for the prime minister and his Islamist-rooted party.

Turkey’s president today said his country “has decided” on how to proceed against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq and had informed the US.

Turkish helicopters attacked Kurdish rebel positions in mountains near the Iraq border today as troops kept up pressure on the guerrillas.

Turkey’s head of state has protested a US congressional panel decision to approve a bill calling the First World War-era killings of Armenians a genocide, saying the decision came as a result of “petty domestic politics”.