Eurasia

MITROVICA, Kosovo (Reuters) – An explosion in the Kosovo town of Mitrovica wounded three U.N. police officers and two NATO soldiers during heavy clashes on Monday with Serb protesters, Kosovo police said. A police statement said the wounded personnel were being evacuated.

MITROVICA, Kosovo (Reuters) – Serbs attacked a U.N. convoy carrying Serb detainees from a raid in Kosovo on Monday, enabling several detainees to escape, a Reuters witness said.

GERDEC, Albania (Reuters) – Albanian troops searched through rubble on Sunday for survivors of a huge munitions blast that razed an army base near the capital Tirana and killed at least nine people.

BELGRADE/PRISTINA (Reuters) – The red box of the buttery ‘Plazma’ cookie, one of ex-Yugoslavia’s best-loved snacks, offers a quick introduction to the dilemma of businesses trapped in the political tussle between Serbia and Kosovo.

TIRANA (Reuters) – About 160 people, including several Americans, were killed or injured on Saturday by a series of large explosions at an Albanian army base on the outskirts of the capital Tirana, government officials said.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday condemned a bid by state prosecutors to shut down his ruling AK Party as an attack on democracy and political stability and vowed to resist it.

The arrests came after police raids in several districts of Istanbul and the seizure of bomb-making equipment and documents, the agency said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian newspaper said on Saturday security forces foiled an attempt by a sniper to kill President Vladimir Putin near the Kremlin this month. Itar-Tass news agency cited a security source denying the report.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – NATO said on Saturday it was nearing a deal to use Russian land and airspace to supply its security forces in Afghanistan, but Western diplomats denied any trade-off with Moscow to keep Ukraine and Georgia out of NATO.

ANKARA (Reuters) – A state prosecutor asked Turkey’s top court on Friday to shut the ruling AK Party for anti-secular activities, intensifying tensions between the secular elite and the Islamist-rooted government.