BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will visit Germany and Italy next week to encourage European investment in Iraq, the government’s spokesman said on Thursday.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a rare public appearance, welcomed five Lebanese freed from captivity in Israel on Wednesday after his guerrilla group returned the bodies of two captured Israeli soldiers.

The occupation command of Russian troops reported that under the so-called “Exercises” units of paratroopers gangs from the Pskov Province have been sent to Georgian border.