KABUL (Reuters) – A suicide car bomber targeted a convoy of foreign troops on Wednesday in southern Afghanistan, police said. The attack happened on a road leading to Spin Boldak, a town near the border with Pakistan, said border police commander Abdul Razaq, adding he had no information about casualties …

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel reopened its border crossings with Gaza on Wednesday and was expected to let in supplies of cement for the first time in a year, an Israeli official and a Palestinian official in the territory said.

KABUL (Reuters) – A helicopter belonging to U.S.-led coalition troops was shot down by small-arms fire south of the Afghan capital on Wednesday, but there were no serious injuries to the people on board, the U.S. military said.

CAIRO (Reuters) – Red and white banners along Nile bridges and Cairo streets this month were Egypt’s latest effort to curb an increasingly pressing problem: a population growing faster than the economy can support.

LAGONISSI, Greece (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed hope of reaching a lasting peace accord with Israel before the end of the year, ahead of a meeting with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish authorities detained at least 21 ultra-nationalists, including two prominent retired generals, on Tuesday in a widening police investigation into a suspected coup plot against the government.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The U.S. military has begun withdrawing from Iraq the last of the five additional combat brigades that were deployed to the country in 2007, a U.S. military spokesman said on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – The man suspected of killing Russian reporter Anna Politkovskaya in 2006 is hiding in Western Europe, Russia’s chief criminal investigator was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanon said on Tuesday a prisoner swap deal reached between Israel and Hezbollah marked a “big failure” for the Jewish state which had earlier refused to agree to such a plan.

KABUL (Reuters) – NATO troops in Afghanistan and Pakistani soldiers together killed a number of militants along the rugged border, the NATO force said on Tuesday, in a rare show of close cross-border military cooperation.