London, Apr 28: Pakistan Army Chief General Ashfaq Kiyani has done an about-turn from his quiet, but shocking position that the Government’s appeasement of the Taliban in the Swat Valley was a necessary step, a leading UK based daily has said.

His view, it has emerged in the year and a half since his appointment, is that the army was built to fight India, not Pakistanis, The Times has said.

General Kiyani seems to suggest that the Taliban is merely an uncomfortable phenomenon.

Sofia - Bulgaria will hold parliamentary elections on July 5, President Georgi Parvanov's cabinet said Tuesday. The poll would be the first since Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007. The new centre-right GERB party, headed by former top policeman and now Sofia mayor Boyko Borisov leads popularity surveys with 30 per cent. GERB was however still not tested in elections.

Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev's Socialist Party, which leads the ruling coalition, is ranked in second in surveys with a 20-per cent support.

Luxembourg - Russia would like to believe European Union assurances that the bloc is not trying to create a sphere of influence in the former USSR, but the EU has not yet been convincing enough, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday. "We would like very much to believe" that the EU's planned Eastern Partnership with six former-Soviet states is not aimed at encircling Russia, Lavrov said after talks with EU diplomats in Luxembourg.

Nonetheless, "some comments I have heard do worry us," he said.

Peshawar, Apr 28: More than 30,000 people in Lower Dir have been displaced by a Pakistani military offensive to flush out Taliban militants.

Thousands of terrified women and children left the area after troops and helicopter gunships launched Operation Black Thunder

“Up to 30,000 people have left Maidan in Lower Dir district over the past few days,” Iftikhar Hussain, the NWFP Information Minister, told reporters here.

“We are making arrangements for them in Peshawar, Nowshera and Timargarah districts,” he said.

Gaza City/Cairo - Rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah continued their fourth round of reconciliation talks in Cairo on Tuesday. Participants described the atmosphere as talks resumed on Monday as "very positive," according to local press reports, and said they had agreed to resolve all outstanding issues in a single "package deal," then consider a Cairo proposal for implementing the agreement.

Surat, Apr 28: Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday said that the Narendra Modi Government in Gujarat is more concerned about protecting the interests of the business community than in helping the farmers and poor people.