Ankara  - Four people were killed and more than 50 injured as a number of fights broke out in Turkey during Sunday's local elections, the Dogan news agency reported.

Fighting was reported at a number of polling stations in eastern and south-eastern Turkey with two deaths reported in Diyarbakir province and one each in the provinces of Sanliurfa and Kars.

Washington, Mar 29 : Republicans appear to be crafting their own version of Bill Clinton''s legendary campaign phrase in an effort to recapture both chambers in Congress next year.

According to FOX News, sixteen years ago, Bill Clinton surged to an improbable presidential victory over incumbent George H. W. Bush, primarily on the strength of a snarky campaign phrase: "It''s the economy, stupid."

Now, the Republicans have come up with a message: President Obama''s fiscal policy "spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much."

Washington - The United States on Saturday invited 16 other major economies and the United Nations to Washington to prepare for international efforts to reduce climate changing greenhouse gas emissions.

The White House said it would ask the countries' leaders and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to send representatives to Washington on April 27-28 for the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate to prepare for UN climate change negotiations in Copenhagen set for December.

Hluboka Castle, Czech Republic  - Turkey and seven Western Balkan nations knocked on the European Union's door Saturday asking to be let, but found it bolted by France and Germany.

"There will be no enlargement if there is no Lisbon Treaty," said French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner during an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Czech Republic.

That position was echoed by German foreign ministry officials, who said: "We will not be in a position to accept new member states in the EU without the Lisbon Treaty."

Doha/Cairo - Egyptian and Qatari diplomats on Saturday shrugged off the decision of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to absent himself from the annual Arab League summit in Doha scheduled for Monday.

The announcement that Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit made in Cairo early Saturday to declare Mubarak's decision to delegate Moufid Shehab, a cabinet minister, to head the Egyptian delegation to the summit was simply, in both capitals, expected.

Doha  - Arab League summits often go like a bad wedding party. Everything begins grandly, but then rapidly slides into farce. Either one erratic leader storms out at a perceived slight, or another bores everyone else to sleep. Now and then the guests call each other names.

But on Monday, when the two-day summit begins in the Sheraton Hotel in the Qatari capital of Doha, a little more interest should be expected. The summit promises to be one of the most crucial Arab League gatherings in recent years, and one of the most controversial.