BEIRUT – Lebanon has moved to regularize the status of Iraqi refugees residing illegally in the country, a decision the top U.N. refugee agency says will benefit thousands of Iraqis and help release hundreds in detention.

OTTAWA – Canada’s minority Conservative government, bowing to a key opposition demand, said on Thursday its military mission in southern Afghanistan would end in 2011 and would not be extended.

ISLAMABAD  – Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif joined a protest by lawyers on Thursday and vowed that judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf would be reinstated if his party came to power.