MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia successfully tested a long-range Topol missile designed to avoid detection by anti-missile defence systems from its Plesetsk launch site, a Russian military spokesman said on Thursday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr extended indefinitely a ceasefire for his Mehdi militia on Thursday and ordered his followers to protest peacefully against the U.S. occupation.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgians flocked to church on Thursday to pray for their country, reeling from military defeat by Russia, and their Orthodox Patriarch asked God to give them back two breakaway provinces backed by Moscow.