KABUL (Reuters) – Violence in Afghanistan has reached its worst level since 2001 with more than 260 civilians killed in July alone, a group of 100 aid agencies said on Friday, calling on all sides to do more to protect the lives of non-combatants.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The former U.S. peace mediator for Bosnia, Richard Holbrooke, on Thursday dismissed a claim by Radovan Karadzic that the United States had offered a deal that would spare him prosecution for war crimes.

NABLUS, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered his security services on Thursday to release all pro-Hamas activists arrested in the occupied West Bank this week, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa said.

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Radovan Karadzic’s appearance before a U.N. judge in The Hague on Thursday starts a process that many Bosnians hope will help them understand better what happened during the 1992-95 war.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – California will no longer exist on the Russian map. Russia’s north-western region of Nizhny Novgorod has decided to eliminate the tiny village of California due to the lack of inhabitants, Itar-Tass news agency reported on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev expressed frustration on Thursday over his government’s inability to break the vicious circle of red tape and corruption which he said was hampering small businesses.

ZAGREB (Reuters) – Israel’s ambassador in Croatia on Thursday condemned the funeral given to a World War Two concentration camp head, saying it insulted the memory of those killed in the camp run by Croatia’s Nazi-allied Ustasha regime.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – Abu al-Abed Abu Karsh sees Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s political demise as almost irrelevant. For many Palestinians, Israeli governments come and go without ever bringing peace closer.

THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic said he would like more time to study genocide charges against him before entering a plea, when he appeared in court for the first time on Thursday.

(Reuters) – Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic appeared before a U.N. war crimes judge for the first time on Thursday to answer genocide charges after his dramatic arrest that ended 11 years on the run.