Eurasia

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia warned NATO on Friday against expansion into ex-Soviet neighbors Georgia and Ukraine ahead of a NATO summit next week that will discuss what Moscow sees as deep encroachment into its backyard.

TBILISI (Reuters) – A court in Georgia on Friday found the ex-Soviet state’s former defense minister and opposition politician Irakly Okruashvili guilty of corruption and jailed him for 11 years in absentia.

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Eighteen Ukrainian sailors are missing after their tug boat sank off the Hong Kong coast following a collision with a cargo ship last night, local media reported on Sunday.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf assured his full support on Sunday for an incoming government that will almost certainly be led by a prime minister he had jailed for over four years.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – The party of assassinated former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto nominated on Saturday former National Assembly speaker Yousaf Raza Gilani as its candidate for prime minister.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – About one thousand people protested in central Amsterdam on Saturday against right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders and the imminent release of his film expected to be critical of the Koran.

BELGRADE (Reuters) – Serbia has proposed a plan for the “functional division of Serbs and Kosovo Albanians” in Kosovo, Minister for Kosovo Slobodan Samardzic was quoted on Saturday as saying.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) – More than 100 Kurdish demonstrators and 10 policemen were injured and more than 160 Kurds detained across southeastern Turkey on Saturday when police broke up spring festival celebrations, security sources said.

BELGRADE (Reuters) – Serbia’s neighbors in Croatia, Hungary and Bulgaria dealt a blow to the Serb campaign to overturn Kosovo’s month-old independence on Wednesday by announcing they would recognize the new republic.

MITROVICA, Kosovo (Reuters) – U.N. police in Kosovo returned to the Serb stronghold of north Mitrovica on Wednesday with heavy NATO support, having pulled out two days ago after deadly riots by Serbs opposed to secession.