Eurasia

RIGA (Reuters) – Latvia favors the suspension of talks on a new cooperation pact between the European Union and Russia until Moscow has withdrawn its troops from Georgia, the Baltic state’s foreign minister said on Friday.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgia said on Friday it was cutting diplomatic ties with Russia over the Kremlin’s recognition of two Georgian rebel regions as independent states.”We have received instructions at the Foreign Ministry and we will cut diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation,” Deputy Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze told reporters.

DUSHANBE/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s energy minister and a top oil company denied on Friday they were preparing to cut oil flows to Europe in response to threatened sanctions, a step Moscow never took even at the height of the Cold War.

ANKARA (Reuters) – An explosion rocked a gunpowder factory in central Turkey on Friday, killing two people and injuring another 12, Turkish broadcasters reported.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said no one doubts Iran’s right to use peaceful nuclear energy in accordance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described Western interference as the root cause of conflicts in the region, particularly in South Ossetia.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The presence of Islamic Republic in the 8th Summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organization would help boost the organization, Kazakh Ambassador to Tehran Yerik Utembayev said on Thursday.

KOHAT, Pakistan – A suicide bomber tried to force his vehicle into a Pakistani military camp in the northwest on Friday but was blown up when soldiers opened fire on him, a day after dozens of people were killed in violence across the region

Criticism by the G7 group of nations of Russia’s actions in Georgia is biased and groundless, Russian officials say.

A Bosnian-born man has pleaded not guilty in Norway’s first war crimes trial since the end of World War II.