Minsk - Belarusian police on Wednesday deported a pair of foreign pro-democracy activists, as opposition groups held rare public gatherings throughout the former Soviet republic.
Plain-clothes KGB agents meeting an train arriving in the Belarusian capital Minsk from Moscow initially detained three members of the Russian pro-democracy Oborony (Defence) youth group.
The cops later charged and placed on a return train to the Russian capital two of the activists, Oborony leader Oleg Kozlovsky and associate Aleksander Savelev, said Andrei Kim, a Oborony spokesman.
Washington - US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sent the US currency tumbling Wednesday by saying he was open to enlarging the International Monetary Fund's currency reserves, but rallied again as he clarified the dollar will remain "the world's dominant reserve currency."
Baghdad - Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallim arrived in the Iraqi capital on Wednesday, the latest in a series of diplomatic visits to the country following US pledges to withdraw its troops.
Brussels - Officials in Brussels on Wednesday called on European Union countries to step up their fight against human traffickers and paedophiles through better prevention, harsher penalties for offenders and improved assistance to their victims.
Cairo - Al-Qaeda's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri Tuesday demanded Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir "repent" for kicking the terrorist group's leaders out of Sudan and called on the Sudanese people to "prepare for a guerrilla war against the West."
Washington - The United States will stay "on the offensive" against terrorist strongholds in Afghanistan and elsewhere, President Barack Obama said Tuesday, offering a glimpse into the administration's review of its policy in the region.
