Eurasia Press & News

MUNICH, Germany — The Bush administration is rolling out a diplomatic offensive aimed at persuading Europeans that failure in Afghanistan poses a direct risk to their security.

WASHINGTON – A classified Pentagon assessment concludes that long battlefield tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with persistent terrorist activity and other threats, have prevented the U.S. military from improving its ability to respond to any new crisis, The Associated Press has learned.

MOSCOW – A jailed former oil executive gravely ill with HIV/AIDS was transferred to a specialist clinic on Friday, Russia’s prison service said, following an international campaign on his behalf.

OTTAWA – Canada said on Friday it plans to keep its 2,500-strong military mission in Afghanistan until the end of 2011, almost three years longer than initially scheduled, and wants to shift the focus to training Afghan forces.

PRISTINA, Serbia – Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci said on Friday about 100 countries were ready to recognize the province’s independence from Serbia as soon as it was declared.

MOSCOW  – President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia would not allow itself to be drawn into what he called a new arms race.

BEIRUT  – Arab League chief Amr Moussa brought feuding Lebanese parties together on Friday to try to agree on a new government and end a protracted political crisis.

GHAZNI, Afghanistan – A suicide car bomber targeting an army convoy killed three people on Friday in Afghanistan, witnesses said.

AUSTIN, Texas – Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Thursday a lasting peace accord with Israel was unlikely in 2008 despite renewed diplomatic efforts to resolve the long-running conflict.

TEHRAN (FNA) – Tehran’s interim Friday Prayers leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami stressed that the Israeli regime could never thwart Palestinian Intifada through continued siege on Gaza and massacre of Palestinians