SUKHUMI/TSKHINVALI, Georgia (Reuters) – Residents in Georgia’s breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia fired into the air, drank champagne and wept on Tuesday after Russia recognized them as independent states.

PARIS (Reuters) – French forces will draw lessons from an incident last week in which 10 soldiers were killed in a Taliban ambush but France’s commitment to Afghanistan remains unshaken, ministers said on Tuesday.

QARAH TAPPAH, Iraq (Reuters) – A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of police recruits in northern Iraq on Tuesday killing 28 people, in an attack that showed that parts of Iraq have yet to see the security gains felt elsewhere.

KABUL (Reuters) – The Taliban were very clear about their strategy this year, declaring it for all to see on their Web site in March; more suicide bombs, isolating Kabul and hitting troop supply lines. So far they have not disappointed.

MOSABRUNI, Georgia (Reuters) – Russian forces pushed Georgian police out of a disputed village on the de facto South Ossetian border on Tuesday after a tense stand-off that underlined the fragility of their peace.

Russia has defied pressure from America and the West, and has recognised the independence of Georgia’s two breakaway regions. President Dimitry Medvedev said he had signed decrees accepting Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, and urged all other nations to do the same.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s oil minister said on Monday he expected OPEC to work on preventing the falling trend in crude prices and also to study oversupply in the market when it meets in September.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran has launched bid inviting companies to take part in tender for the Islamic Republic’s third mobile operator.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Officials said a Russian nuclear delegation was scheduled to arrive in Iran in September 2008 to discuss a final timetable for the 1,000 megawatt Bushehr power plant.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar said Monday that the country has begun a submarine production line to equip its army for protecting the important oil shipping route of the Strait of Hormuz on the Persian Gulf.