MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party will name its candidate for next year’s presidential election at a congress on December 17, party leader Boris Gryzlov said on Friday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian and Belarus officials rejected on Friday a media report that President Vladimir Putin could create a new role for himself by heading a union of Russia and ex-Soviet Belarus after he quits next year.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO ministers pledged on Friday to keep their KFOR peace force in Kosovo at current strength as the Serbian province heads towards independence and to make more troops available as necessary to deal with any violence.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon’s presidential election was postponed again on Friday, despite rival leaders’ agreement in principle to give the post to army chief Michel Suleiman in a step that would ease the country’s deep political crisis.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Investigators are probing the death of a top manager at Russia’s second largest bank VTB, who was found with his arms and legs bound in a swimming pool, police and law enforcement sources said on Friday.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s ruling AK Party, which has Islamist roots, signaled on Friday it plans to ease a ban on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf in universities under a new draft constitution.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Fair Russia, a small political party backing President Vladimir Putin, will not nominate its own candidate for a presidential election in March, the party’s leader said on Friday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A female suicide bomber wearing a vest packed with explosives killed 16 people and a suicide car bomb killed 10 in two attacks in Iraq’s most restive province northeast of Baghdad on Friday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A Shi’ite lawmaker and the head of Iraq’s main Sunni Arab bloc shouted accusations at each other in parliament on Thursday, underscoring deep sectarian divisions just days after Sunnis ended a brief boycott of the legislature.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The air still smelled unmistakably of blood and the street was still strewn with shredded store mannequins and clothes.