In the World

ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey said yesterday it would strive to increase the amount of water it releases to Syria and Iraq through the historic Tigris and Euphrates Rivers but warned that it, too, was suffering from a severe drought.

Hours earlier, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yildiz had said his country was already too overstretched with its own water needs. But in a quick change of heart the environment minister, Veysel Eroglu, said Turkey would release more water than its legal obligation of 500 cubic meters per second. He did not specify how much more.

Water disputes threaten to disrupt the newly warm relations between Turkey and its neighbors as the populations of the three countries increase and demand for water grows.

Drought-stricken Iraq has accused upstream neighbors Turkey and Syria of taking too much from the rivers and their tributaries. - AP

TORONTO - The Canadian government said yesterday it would challenge in court a ruling by a panel of the country's immigration board last week granting refugee status to a white South African man who claimed persecution from blacks in his home country.

Brandon Huntley argued that whites are targeted by black criminals in South Africa and that the government does nothing to protect them. He alleged he was attacked seven times during attempted robberies and muggings.

Tribunal chair William Davis ruled that Huntley would stand out like a "sore thumb" due to his color in South Africa and that his fear of persecution was justified.

The ruling angered many in South Africa, where race is a sensitive issue. "There is no persecution of the white community in South Africa. What crime does happen happens to targets of convenience," Abraham Nkomo, South Africa's High Commissioner to Canada, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. - AP

MOSCOW - Russia's Supreme Court changed the rules yesterday for the investigation into Kremlin critic Anna Politkovskaya's 2006 killing, giving her family a glimmer of hope for justice and testing President Dmitry A. Medvedev's commitment to judicial reform.

In a surprise, the court's military bench reversed a lower court and granted a request from Politkovskaya's family for a broader probe.

Her children have criticized the state for focusing on three suspects accused of minor roles in the shooting, saying justice won't be done until the gunman and the mastermind of the slaying are found and punished.

Rights lawyer Karinna Moskalenko, who represents the family, said the ruling did not dispel doubts about the government's willingness to conduct an honest probe that could lead to people in power. - AP

Russian maritime expert Mikhail Voitenko, who was among the first to raise the alarm about the mysterious disappearance of the freighter Arctic Sea, suggesting it might have carried illicit arms, said yesterday he had fled Russia after a threatening phone call.