On Tuesday officials of the pro-Russian Ingushetian puppet regime stated at a press conference in Moscow that CIA, British intelligence MI5 and other Western intelligence services are the main culprits in the violations of human rights in Ingushetia.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A “new war” could break out in Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia if Tbilisi uses military force to resolve the conflict, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday.

ASTANA (Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev urged Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili on Saturday to refrain from “stoking tensions” in Georgia’s breakaway regions.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Taliban militants released two Pakistani journalists on Saturday more than 36-hours after they were abducted in a tribal region near the Afghan border. “When it was proven that they’re journalists and not spies, we freed them,” Taliban spokesman Asad said.

SKOPJE (Reuters) – Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski has agreed with the main ethnic Albanian party to form a coalition government to aim at getting its NATO and European Union bids back on track, his party said on Saturday.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Lebanese leaders are finalizing a deal on the formation of a national unity government as stipulated in an agreement that ended the country’s political crisis, political sources said on Saturday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Georgia’s breakaway region Abkhazia said on Saturday Tbilisi had planned to take the area over by military force earlier this year but failed in its mission, Russian agencies reported.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A London-based Syrian human rights group said on Saturday that Syrian security forces had shot dead dozens of prisoners during a riot at a military jail near Damascus.

KABUL (Reuters) – Two gunmen shot dead an Afghan parliamentarian near his home in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday.

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan security forces found more than 100 knives and swords, petrol bombs and dozens of mobile phones in a search of Kabul’s main prison, the Defence Ministry said on Saturday.