KIEV (Reuters) – Ukraine’s defense sector has called for a big rise in funding for the military after Russia’s war with Georgia but its reliance on Russian supplies of weapons and parts poses a dilemma.

SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) – Russia hopes the crisis in Georgia will not disrupt strategically important relations between the United States and Russia, a top Kremlin aide said on Tuesday.

NAZRAN, Russia (Reuters) – Masked police in the southern Russian region of Ingushetia used batons to break up an anti-government protest on Tuesday, two days after an opposition leader died in police custody.

LANDIKOTAL, Pakistan (Reuters) – Ethnic Pashtun tribal elders in Pakistan have promised to ensure security for supplies trucked through the Khyber Pass bound for foreign forces in Afghanistan, a government official said on Tuesday.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani Taliban said on Tuesday they had kidnapped two Chinese telecommunications engineers and two Pakistanis and that abductions would continue until the government stopped attacking militants.

As of Monday, Sept. 1, 2008, at least 4,151 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.The figure includes eight military civilians killed in action. At least 3,371 died as a result of hostile action, …

JERUSALEM – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas rejected Israel’s idea of an interim peace agreement at a Sunday summit, a Palestinian negotiator said, insisting on an all-or-nothing approach that virtually ruled out an accord by a January target date.

The US military has handed Anbar province, once the centre of Iraq’s Sunni insurgency, to Iraqi control at a ceremony in the provincial capital.

Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank have shot and wounded a mentally disabled Palestinian man during a raid on his house, medical officials say.

It has been described as a diplomatic slap on the wrist.The European Union has decided to freeze talks with Moscow on closer ties until Russian troops withdraw from Georgia. The extraordinary summit in Brussels was the first to be called since the outbreak of the war in Iraq in 2003.