WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A World Bank team will travel to Georgia on Friday to assess economic damage caused by the conflict with Russia and to discuss reconstruction plans, a senior bank official said on Thursday.

LARNACA, Cyprus (Reuters) – International activists departed from Cyprus by boat on Friday in an attempt to run an Israeli sea blockade on 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza.

SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine (Reuters) – The first Russian navy ship returned to base in the Black Sea on Friday from operations against Georgia. A Reuters correspondent said about 100 Ukrainian protesters, brought by bus by a local party from a nearby town, marched through the Crimean port of Sevastopol as the …

Russia says it will maintain military checkpoints within Georgian territory for good, despite a promise to complete a partial troop withdrawal by the end of the day.A senior Russian official said they will build a permanent infrastructure in a ‘buffer zone’ close to the disputed breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has agreed to a parliamentary debate on re-instating a group of judges who were deposed last year.Sharif had threatened to pull out of the coalition with the party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto if the judges were not restored by today.

Jailed former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky has had his appeal for parole turned down by a court in Siberia.Once Russia’s richest man, he was sentenced in 2005 to eight years in prison for tax evasion and fraud. He maintains his innocence.

TEHRAN, Aug. 22 (ISNA)-foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki urged the U.S. not to seek for illegitimate position and interest in the international arena.

TEHRAN, Aug. 22 (ISNA)-Afghanistan’s foreign minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta called for campaigning against drug trafficking and terrorism as closely-related issues.

TEHRAN, Aug. 22 (ISNA)-Iran’s foreign minister voiced condolences to his Spanish counterpart Miguel Angel Moratinos over the disastrous aircrash.

TEHRAN, Aug. 22 (ISNA)-Iran in the strongest terms condemns the terrorist act in Algeria that left plenty of innocent victims.