Eurasia Press & News

BRDO, Slovenia – The European Union expects to have fully deployed a police training mission to Afghanistan by April and could extend it later, the bloc’s special representative to the country said on Thursday.

BEIRUT – Lebanon has moved to regularize the status of Iraqi refugees residing illegally in the country, a decision the top U.N. refugee agency says will benefit thousands of Iraqis and help release hundreds in detention.

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.