Eurasia Press & News

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A blast killed two people in an apartment building early on Wednesday in Sochi, the southern Russian city set to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, police and emergency services said.

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.