OTTAWA – Canada’s minority Conservative government, bowing to a key opposition demand, said on Thursday its military mission in southern Afghanistan would end in 2011 and would not be extended.

ISLAMABAD  – Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif joined a protest by lawyers on Thursday and vowed that judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf would be reinstated if his party came to power.

MOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s anointed successor, Dmitry Medvedev, has the support of 70.4 percent of the voters and will easily win the presidential election in 10 days’ time, a poll on Thursday said.

GATE 3 BORDER POST, Kosovo – Several hundred Serb army veterans protesting against the independence of Kosovo threw rocks at Kosovo riot police on Thursday at a border crossing between Kosovo and Serbia, a Reuters reporter said.

YEREVAN – Thousands of opposition supporters gathered in Armenia’s capital for a second day on Thursday and said they would not leave until the victory of Prime Minister Serzh Sarksyan in a presidential election is overturned.

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq – The Turkish military shelled several Kurdish rebel positions inside northern Iraq on Thursday, an Iraqi security official said.

ANKARA – Turkey’s president said on Thursday he hoped the victory of Serzh Sarksyan in Armenia’s presidential election would lead to a normalization of relations between their estranged countries.

KABUL – The Afghan army has killed more than 30 Taliban fighters in an operation backed by air support in the violent south of the country, the defense ministry said on Thursday.

TEHRAN (FNA) – A senior Iranian lawmaker said here Wednesday that Russia would have priority in future tenders for the construction of new nuclear power plants in the Islamic Republic.

TEHRAN (FNA) – Iran National Library and Archives (INLA) Director Ali-Akbar Ash’ari held talks with the director of Turkey’s state archives Yusuf Sarinay in a meeting in Istanbul on Tuesday.