Eurasia

KHAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani authorities have begun expelling Afghan refugees from a tribal region that has become the main battleground between troops and fighters linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda, officials said on Monday.

BHAKKAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – A suicide bomber killed at least 12 people and wounded around 30 including a leading Pakistani opposition politician and member of the minority Shi’ite Muslim community on Monday, police said.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Bosnian Serbs, Muslims and Croats voted mostly along ethnic party lines in a local election Sunday, keeping them in power some 13 years after the war, preliminary results showed early Monday.

Police in Egypt have blocked a convoy organised by opposition groups to carry medical supplies to the Gaza Strip. The convoy had been due to leave from the journalists’ syndicate in central Cairo but activists gathering there were surrounded by police.

In Turkey, thousands of people have gathered to pay their respects to 15 soldiers killed, according to military officials, by Kurdish fighters in the south-east of the country.

TBILISI (Reuters) – EU ceasefire monitors in Georgia reported the dismantling of a Russian checkpoint near breakaway South Ossetia on Sunday, saying it was the “first open sign” of a promised Russian troop pullback by October 10.

ASTANA (Reuters) – The United States is not trying to poach Russia’s allies in Central Asia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday during a visit to oil-rich Kazakhstan.

Russia’s navy is gearing up to pass through the straits of Gibraltar.The four warships – including the nuclear-powered Russian heavy cruiser Peter the Great – will stop off in Libya before heading to Venezuela.

DIWANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) – The Polish military marked the end of its five-year partnership with U.S. forces in Iraq on Saturday and prepared to withdraw.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani villagers collected the corpses and body parts on Saturday of at least 20 people, including several suspected Arab militants as well as three children, killed by a U.S. missile strike overnight.