Army troops have penetrated deep inside a rebel-controlled city in eastern Ukraine in what could prove a breakthrough development in the four-month-long conflict, the Ukrainian government said today.

International observers have turned back from another attempt to reach the site where Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 went down in eastern Ukraine.

World leaders called for an immediate ceasefire in eastern Ukraine and demanded speedy access for international investigators to the crash site of the Malaysia Airlines jetliner shot down over the country’s battlefields.

The military observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe who were held for more than a week have been released, the leader of pro-Russia insurgents in the eastern Ukrainian city of Slovyansk has said.

Shots have been fired at a Ukrainian air force base in Crimea that has been blocked off by Russian forces.

THE publicity-hungry Central Asian state of Kazakhstan yesterday hosted the first summit of the OSCE in over a decade, seeking to revamp the organisation’s ability to react to security crises.

IVOR Callely is highly regarded and popular – in Denmark.

A European media watchdog today asked Romania’s president to veto legislation that would require radio and TV stations to ensure half of their coverage dealt with good news.

Voting has begun today in Russia's presidential election that will produce a successor to Vladimir Putin.

TENS of thousands of opposition supporters rallied yesterday in the Georgian capital to protest what they denounced as massive vote fraud that helped US-allied Mikhail Saakashvili win a second presidential term.

Bucharest Mayor Traian Basescu claimed victory today in Romania’s presidential run-off, pledging to fight corruption and prepare Romania to join the European Union by 2007.

Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko kicked off campaigning for the December 26 presidential rerun with a call for quick passage of anti-fraud legislation as supporters began signing up en masse to monitor balloting and ensure a fair vote.

Afghanistan’s historic moment turned sour as all 15 challengers to interim Afghan President Hamid Karzai withdrew in the middle of voting in the nation’s first direct presidential election today.

Britain is expected to immediately resume issuing business visas for Bulgarians, the state news agency BTA reported today.

Thousands of Serbs swept to the polls in the final hours of Kosovo's first elections since Nato and the United Nations entered the province.

President Bush compared Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to communist Iron Curtain-era regimes in an appeal today to Eastern Europe, former Soviet republics and Balkan nations for help fighting terrorism.

The head of Nato today told European countries they need to jack up military spending in the wake of the United States terror attacks and warned that America will expect them to shoulder more responsibility within the alliance in future.

Police and Nato peacekeepers have seized control of a Bosnian bank believed to be used by Croat extremists.