KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – Hundreds of families fled their homes in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday as foreign and Afghan forces prepare to drive out Taliban insurgents who have overrun several villages, officials and witnesses said. About 600 Taliban insurgents took over several villages in Arghandab district in the south on …

GAZA (Reuters) – Envoys from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction visited the Gaza Strip on Tuesday to brief members there on his bid for reconciliation with the territory’s Islamist Hamas rulers, officials said. It was the first Fatah mission to Gaza since Hamas took over a year ago, triggering …

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) – Israel and Syria agreed this week to hold new rounds of indirect peace talks mediated by Turkey in July, Turkey’s foreign minister said on Tuesday. Israel and Syria concluded a second round of indirect peace talks on Monday and agreed to continue the negotiations, though not face-to-face …

GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli air strikes killed six Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, medical workers said, amid Egyptian efforts to broker a truce between Israel and militant groups in the Hamas-controlled territory. The Islamic Jihad militant group said five of its members were killed when a missile …

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Egyptian-mediated truce that appears likely between Israel and Hamas will begin with only a gradual and partial easing of an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, officials said on Tuesday. “If Hamas keeps the ceasefire, we can gradually deliver more goods and supplies,” an Israeli official …

PRISTINA (Reuters) – The United Nations is expected to name Italian diplomat Lamberto Zannier this week as the new head of its Kosovo mission, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday. Zannier takes over from German diplomat Joachim Ruecker as part of a planned “reconfiguration” of the mission after Kosovo …

GENEVA (Reuters) – The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan drove up the number of world refugees for a second straight year in 2007, the United Nations said on Tuesday. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said there were 11.4 million refugees under its responsibility at the end of 2007, …

KOHAT, Pakistan (Reuters) – Suspected pro-Taliban militants shot and killed four Shi’ite Muslims in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday in what appeared to be the second deadly sectarian attack in two days. Pakistan has a bloody history of violence between militants from the majority Sunni community and minority Shi’ites and a …

Russian invaders reported that June 12 in Amur Province (Oblast) of the Far Eastern Republic (occupied by Russia) train number 326 (the Khabarovsk-Nerungri service) derailed on the railroad span between Hilitkan and Shimanovsk. 13 cars of the passenger train were turned over (photo).  

Conference under the name of New Political Nationalism was held in Cosmos Hotel in Moscow. According to the idea of its organizers, the conference is supposed to become the first step on the way of forming a large political party of “nationalistic trend”.