IRISH people travelling to Turkey should “exercise the utmost vigilance and caution” given the recent spate of bombings in the country, the Department of Foreign Affairs has said.

An explosion in a rubbish container in the southern Turkish Mediterranean city of Mersin injured one person today.

British and American officials said their evacuations from Lebanon were wrapping up today, as ships continued to carry people to safety in Cyprus and Turkey.

A bomb went off outside a shopping mall in the Turkish Mediterranean port city of Mersin today, injuring at least eight people, private NTV television reported.

Turkish doctors today scrambled to save the life of a five-year-old boy, one of 21 people infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, as laboratories tested samples from dozens more patients across Turkey to detect the virus.

A passenger train rammed into a truck carrying farm workers in southern Turkey today, killing nine people and injuring at least 18 others, officials said.

A fishing boat carrying dozens of illegal immigrants sank off the coast of northern Cyprus, leaving one person dead and 33 others missing, the Turkish Cypriot news agency TAK reported today.

A man carrying a gun hidden inside a loaf of bread was arrested today as he approached a bus that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was boarding, and a prosecutor said the suspect may have intended to shoot the premier.

An explosion in a car in southern Turkey tonight killed one person and injured one other, the Anatolia news agency reported, quoting a local official.

A bomb exploded today under a police car at a pop concert in southern Turkey, injuring at least 14 people, officials have said.

Dozens of suspected members of a Turkish al-Qaida cell were going on trial in Istanbul today accused over a series of suicide bombings in the city that killed 61 people including the British Consul-General.

The death toll from Turkey’s prison hunger strike has reached 23 after a former inmate died after a six-month fast to protest a new maximum security prison system.

Tens of thousands of business people took to the streets across Turkey, demanding that the government resign amid a crippling financial crisis.