Turkey opens largest coup trial to date

ANKARA • Turkey yesterday opened the biggest trial yet over the failed July coup aimed at ousting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, trying 270 suspects including, in absentia, the alleged mastermind Fethullah Gulen.

The suspects, 152 of whom are in pre-trial detention, include former high-ranking military officials, the state news agency Anadolu reported. United States-based Islamic preacher Gulen is charged with ordering the coup, which he strongly denies.

AGENCE-FRANCE PRESSE

Iranians mourn firemen killed in building collapse

TEHERAN • Tens of thousands of Iranians poured onto the streets of Teheran yesterday for the funeral of 16 firefighters killed when the city's oldest high-rise collapsed after a blaze.

The 15-storey Plasco building, home to a shopping centre and hundreds of clothing suppliers, collapsed two weeks ago while emergency services were still evacuating people from a huge fire. The bodies of four civilians were also pulled from the debris, and six more are still missing.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Brazil court approves plea deals in graft case

BRASILIA • The president of Brazil's Supreme Court Carmen Lucia Rocha approved plea bargain statements from 77 executives of engineering conglomerate Odebrecht, under investigation for paying bribes in the country's biggest graft scandal, the court said yesterday.

The testimony, which will remain sealed, is expected to name dozens of politicians who received graft money in the corruption scheme centred on Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras.

REUTERS