The time is 17:30 (UTC) on May 24th, 2006, and this is Audio Wikinews News Briefs.

Turkey
A huge fire which started in the cargo area has engulfed part of Turkey's Atatürk International Airport in Istanbul. All flights to and from the airport have been diverted and major fire-fighting efforts are in progress. Hundreds of people have evacuated the area which is about 1 kilometre away from the passenger terminal.

Australia
On Tuesday Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer (Division of Mayo, Liberal) told parliament that the government has received fresh reports of violence in East Timor.

United States
James Yee, a Muslim chaplain formerly stationed at the Guantanamo detention camp, spoke at the University of California, Davis on May 5. The UC Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (CSHRA) hosted a forum about the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.
Yee, who earlier said that journalists and congressmen who visit Guantanamo prison don't get a real unsanitized picture of conditions there, told about his personal experience, what prisoners and interpreters told him during his time as Guantanamo chaplain, and what happened afterward.
Australia
The Australia Institute, an Australian research organisation that some consider to be aligned to the political left, has released its analysis of ideal locations for a nuclear power plant in Australia.
According to the institute, they consulted with a number of nuclear energy experts and determined the best possible sites for a nuclear power reactor in Australia. These sites include the popular holiday destinations of Port Stephens in New South Wales and Westernport Bay in Victoria.

New Zealand
Sir Edmund Hillary, a New Zealand mountaineer and explorer, is angry with 40 mountaineers, including Mark Inglis, the first double amputee to reach the summit of Mount Everest, who left a British climber to die.

New Zealand
Police retrieved the body of an American tourist who plunged to his death moments after stepping out of a helicopter while hunting in the Southern Alps, New Zealand.

sports - sailing
British sailor Adrian Flanagan, seeking to become the first person to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe in a north-south direction, set sail from Honolulu on May 17 after an nine-day stop for supplies and repairs to his boat.

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Wikinews:Briefs/May 24, 2006