Moscow  - At least 14 people were killed in a col

Minsk  - Thousands marched against Belarus' authoritarian regime on Wednesday, as opposition groups held rare public gatherings throughout the former Soviet republic.

More than 4,000 demonstrators gathered in the capital Minsk, some carrying the flag of the European Union, banners proclaiming "Independence!" and the banned red-white-red flag of 1918 Belarus.

The marches came on a semi-official Belarusian holiday known as Will Day that marks the short-lived independent Belarusian republic formed in 1918, and destroyed by invading Soviet troops months later.

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.

Moscow, Mar. 25 : Joining the international community's concern over the increasing extremism in Pakistan and its precarious political situation, Russia has said that peace can not be established in Afghanistan until Pakistan is stabilized.

Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Sergei Ivanov said that Moscow is `very much concerned' about the security of Pakistan's nuclear armaments.

Moscow - Russia, angered at being left out of a gas transit deal between Kiev and the European Union this week, on Tuesday indefinitely postponed inter-governmental gas talks with Ukraine.

President Dmitry Medvedev made the announcement at a meeting of the country's security council one day after the European Commission signed a memorandum pledging to invest in developing Ukraine's gas pipeline system.