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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran plans to send a manned rocket into space in the next 10 years, state television reported on Thursday, just days after the Islamic Republic announced it had put a dummy satellite into orbit.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A draft agreement between the United States and Iraq contains no fixed dates for U.S. forces to withdraw, but Iraq would like combat troops out by the end of 2011, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Thursday.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Eight police officers and three soldiers were wounded on Thursday by a car bomb which ripped through a minibus in the western Turkish city of Izmir, the local governor said.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Forty-five nations met on Thursday to consider lifting a ban on nuclear trade with India, a move which will help launch a U.S.-Indian nuclear deal.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Forty-five nations met on Thursday to weigh whether to lift a 34-year ban on nuclear trade with India, a crucial step towards launching its civilian atomic cooperation accord with the United States.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea could provide food aid to impoverished North Korea through a U.N. agency after Seoul halted direct shipments of rice due to political tensions with its neighbor, a government official said on Thursday.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has threatened to pull his party out of Pakistan's ruling coalition it does not decide by Friday to reinstate judges purged by former president Pervez Musharraf, the Wall Street Journal reported.

PARIS (Reuters) - France reacted in shock on Wednesday to the death of 10 of its soldiers in an ambush in Afghanistan and questions began to be asked about the country's worst military loss in 25 years.

TBILISI (Reuters) - Russia said it would complete a pullback of troops in Georgia by the end of Friday but it stopped short of the extensive withdrawal demanded by the West, saying it would keep a force deep inside Georgia's heartland.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican cement firm Cemex said on Wednesday it will seek international arbitration to resolve a dispute with Venezuela's government, which seized the company's unit there in a nationalization drive.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Eight scientific organizations urged the next U.S. president to help protect the country from climate change by pushing for increased funding for research and forecasting, saying about $2 trillion of U.S. economic output could be hurt by storms, floods and droughts.

MADRID (Reuters) - Grieving relatives on Thursday tried to identify charred bodies from the wreckage of a Spanish jet which crashed at Madrid airport on its second attempt at takeoff after mechanical problems.

ALOFI, Niue (Reuters) - South Pacific leaders warned Fiji's post-coup government on Wednesday it could be suspended from a regional forum if it failed to hold democratic elections in early 2009.

Jon Hemming has been Reuters chief correspondent in Afghanistan for just over a year and traveling, when conditions allow, across the country. Before moving to Afghanistan, Jon worked for Reuters in London, Tehran, Ankara and Istanbul. In the following story, he tells of an experience traveling in a convoy of U.S. troops through the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, a hot-bed of Taliban insurgents.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - Libya, now in the mainstream of international politics after decades of isolation, needs reforms to revamp its political system into one that stands out against the region's "forest of dictatorships", Muammar Gaddafi's most prominent son said on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp lost out on a Navy patrol plane contract because of problems with past work on the unmanned Predator aircraft it proposed, offsetting a $5 billion higher life-cycle cost of Northrop Grumman Corp's winning bid.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - California's attorney general is reviewing a request by former employees of IndyMac Bancorp Inc to investigate whether a New York senator triggered the bank's collapse by releasing confidential information.

CHESTER, Virginia (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama attacked Republican John McCain on Thursday for not knowing how many houses he owns and said it proves his presidential rival is out of touch with the economic struggles of most Americans.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, an Ohio Democrat who was one of the few dissenting voices in Congress during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, died on Wednesday after a brain aneurysm, a hospital spokeswoman said.

SUSIA, West Bank (Reuters) - In the stony hills south of Hebron, Palestinian shepherds complain of frequent attacks by militant Israeli settlers encroaching on their land.