MOSCOW (Reuters) – A U.S. deal with the Czech Republic on missile defense complicates European security and cancels out consultations with Moscow on the missile shield, media quoted a Russian foreign ministry source as saying.

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) – The Shi’ite Mehdi Army militia is finished as a fighting force in Iraq’s oil rich Basra province and upcoming provincial elections should pass without violence, the province’s governor said on Tuesday. Mohammed al-Waeli said an Iraqi security offensive against the Mehdi Army of anti-American cleric Moqtada …

TBILISI (Reuters) – Moscow-backed separatists in Georgia’s breakaway South Ossetia region detained four Georgian soldiers on Monday, raising tension a day before U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits Tbilisi. South Ossetia, and Georgia’s second breakaway region of Abkhazia, are a regular source of friction between the pro-Western government in …