Eurasia

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – The narrow tunnel that ran beneath Sarajevo airport was people’s only escape route during the longest siege in modern history, a symbol of a brutal war that split families and pitted neighbors against each other.

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – The school priest wanted to convert Andrei to Romania’s Orthodox Christianity, because his school could not hire a teacher for religion classes for the 12-year-old Adventist.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Blocking Russia from joining the World Trade Organization because of the conflict in Georgia would defy common sense and break Western promises, a Russian official said on Thursday in response to U.S. warnings.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Turkey on Thursday for a two-day visit to the neighboring country for talks expected to focus on bilateral ties, including the enhancement of an energy partnership.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO has barred a Russian ship from joining its multinational anti-terrorism patrol in the Mediterranean in apparent retaliation for Moscow’s military action against Georgia, a NATO diplomat said on Wednesday.

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) – At least nine militants were killed in a missile strike on their training camp in Pakistan’s South Waziristan region, near the Afghan border, security officials and residents said on Wednesday.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Turkey will increase its imports of gas from Iran to compensate for a reduction in supplies from Azerbaijan resulting from the conflict in Georgia, a senior source from the Turkish pipeline company Botas said on Tuesday.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – European Union foreign ministers agreed in principle on Wednesday to send monitors to supervise a French-brokered ceasefire between Russia and Georgia in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia.

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 …

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.