Eurasia Press & News

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr extended indefinitely a ceasefire for his Mehdi militia on Thursday and ordered his followers to protest peacefully against the U.S. occupation.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgians flocked to church on Thursday to pray for their country, reeling from military defeat by Russia, and their Orthodox Patriarch asked God to give them back two breakaway provinces backed by Moscow.

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan and international forces killed or wounded more than 30 militants in fighting in the south and southeast of the country, the Defense Ministry and the U.S. military said on Thursday.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Thousands of lawyers blocked roads across Pakistan on Thursday to press the government to reinstate judges purged by former president Pervez Musharraf, as militants attacked police in the northwest, killing 11 people.

GAZA (Reuters) – Israel on Thursday reopened its border crossings with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, two days after they were shut in response to rocket attacks.

LONDON (Reuters) – There is no question of launching “all-out war” against Russia, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Thursday, while condemning Moscow’s “invasion” of Georgia.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A car bomb blew up as a Pakistani police bus traveled across a bridge in the country’s northwest on Thursday, killing 11 people, police said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy that Georgian troops must return to their barracks in line with a French-brokered ceasefire, the Kremlin said on Thursday.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Despite leading Georgia into a disastrous war with Russia and losing two of the country’s provinces, President Mikheil Saakashvili looks politically secure for now as Georgians unite in adversity.

Russia has received limited backing from the East over its role in Georgia. At an Asian regional security summit, Russia’s fellow members of the Shanghai Cooperation Council – China, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan – expressed support for what they called Moscow’s efforts to restore stability in the Caucasus.