Eurasia

MOSCOW (Reuters) – An Internet bookmaker has stopped taking bets on Russia’s presidential election because the outcome is so predictable.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Imagine a crisis breaking out somewhere in the world, and President George W. Bush suddenly has to get the Kremlin on the hotline. After Sunday’s presidential election in Russia, who’s he going to call?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday dismissed the notion that Russia’s likely new president would be Vladimir Putin’s puppet but said he did not know how much power Dmitry Medvedev would wield with his predecessor still in the picture.

ANKARA – Turkey’s top general said on Saturday the Turkish armed forces withdrew its troops from northern Iraq on schedule and dismissed speculation that it had acted under pressure from its NATO ally the United States.

ISLAMABAD – A suicide bomber killed at least 38 people at a funeral of a policeman in the Swat district of Pakistan, days after the Pakistan army said it had begun to bring the mountainous region under control.

LAHORE, Pakistan – A Pakistani court acquitted the brother of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday in a case of unlawful killing, paving the way for him to contest a by-election, his lawyer said.

U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, who has argued she would be stronger on foreign policy than rival Barack Obama, stumbled over the name of the likely new Russian president on Tuesday while predicting he would not be an independent leader.

TBILISI – Several thousand Georgians paid their last respects on Thursday to the country’s richest man, Badri Patarkatsishvili, in a low key funeral ceremony which his most well-known business partner did not attend.

BAKU – Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has asked parliament to vote to withdraw the ex-Soviet country’s peacekeepers from Kosovo, an Azeri official said on Thursday.

KALININGRAD, Russia – The new maternity hospital in Russia’s westernmost region has state-of-the-art German equipment in its operating theatres and the staff know who to thank: Dmitry Medvedev.