MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia will spend at least $400 million in 2008 on restoring South Ossetia’s battered capital Tskhinvali, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said on Wednesday. Tskhinvali, with a population of about 35,000, bore the brunt of five days of fighting that began last Friday when Georgia sought to retake …

TRIPOLI, Lebanon (Reuters) – A bomb killed at least 18 people, including nine soldiers, in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli on Wednesday, security sources said. The bomb, which also wounded at least 45 people, was the deadliest attack on the army since its battle with al Qaeda-inspired Islamist militants …

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – Romania’s parliament rejected a request from prosecutors to investigate corruption allegations against former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase on Wednesday, in a case seen as a test of the country’s justice system reforms.

BAQUBA, Iraq  – Iraqi authorities imposed a curfew on the capital of restive Diyala province on Tuesday after the governor survived a suicide attack that left the bomber’s body parts scattered across the street.

SANAA (Reuters) – Yemeni tribesmen abducted a French-Algerian man on Tuesday to press for the release of jailed relatives, a provincial government source said.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan’s ruling coalition said on Tuesday the army would not intervene to support embattled President Pervez Musharraf, whom the government says it will impeach for years of alleged misrule.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Thirteen people were killed and 10 wounded on Tuesday in a bomb attack, claimed by the Taliban, on an air force bus in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, police said.

TEHRAN,  (ISNA)-Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi declared on Tuesday Iran’s top nuclear negotiator’s letter to the EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana was not Iran’s answer to the 5+1 countries’ package of incentives.

TEHRAN, (ISNA)-Iran president’s adviser Morteza Tamadon emphasized Tehran believes that there is nothing as a “stalemate for the nuclear talks” with the West.

TEHRAN,  (ISNA)-Iran’s defense minister Brigadier General Mustafa Mohammad Najar and the Algerian president Abdul- Aziz Bouteflika held a meeting on Monday.