Eurasia

MOSCOW (Reuters) – President-elect Dmitry Medvedev urged experts outside the Kremlin to stimulate public debate about Russia’s economic and social challenges.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia, which cut passenger flights to Georgia in November 2006 amid a bitter political row, said on Tuesday it would resume civil aviation links with the Caucasus neighbor from March 25.

MITROVICA, Kosovo (Reuters) – A Ukrainian police officer serving with the United Nations in Kosovo died of injuries sustained in violent clashes with Serbs on Monday, Ukraine’s interior ministry said, confirming earlier reports.

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan recognized Kosovo’s independence on Tuesday, a month after the majority Albanian region declared secession from Serbia with the backing of the United States and most European Union states.

BELGRADE (Reuters) – Serbia and its ally Russia are consulting on joint steps to stop “all forms of violence against Kosovo Serbs”, Serbia’s caretaker prime minister Vojislav Kostunica said in a statement on Monday.

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Reuters) – Members of a pro-Kremlin youth group demonstrated outside a U.S. consulate in Russia’s far east on Monday to support Alexander Kashin, a local man paralyzed in an accident involving a U.S. diplomat’s car.

PRISTINA (Reuters) – NATO troops came under automatic weapons fire during Serb riots in the northern Kosovo flashpoint town of Mitrovica on Monday, a French NATO spokesman told Reuters.

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.