PARIS, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Here is a chronology of a seven-year probe into alleged kickbacks paid for the multi-billion-dollar sale of French warships to Taiwan in 1991, which French prosecutors Wednesday said should be dismissed without trial after failing to obtain evidence.

DAMASCUS, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Syria on Wednesday confirmed the assassination of a top army general who was described by the Arab media as having been the Syrian regime's liaison with the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah militant group.

KUWAIT CITY, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Kuwait's foreign minister said on Wednesday that an Iranian threat to close the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial Gulf oil supply route, amounted to a 'punishment' of its Arab neighbours.

NOUAKCHOTT, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Mauritania, where the president was deposed in a coup d'etat on Wednesday, is a mainly desert country in northwestern Africa with a long history of military rule.

Since becoming independent from France in 1960, the country has experienced three previous military coups -- in 1978, 1984 and 2005.

NOUAKCHOTT, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Troops shut down Mauritania's state radio and television Wednesday, witnesses said, amid diplomatic reports that Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf had been taken prisoner by the military.

Witnesses also said troops had moved through the capital and surrounded the state presidency.

PARIS, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - A group of Mauritanian generals are believed to be holding Prime Minister Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf prisoner in the capital Nouakchott, the French foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

PARIS, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Paris prosecutors said Wednesday they have called for a seven-year probe into alleged kickbacks paid for the multi-billion-dollar sale of French warships to Taiwan in 1991 to be dismissed without trial.

BELGRADE, August 6, 2008 (AFP) - Serbia appealed Wednesday for the last two war crimes fugitives wanted by a UN tribunal, Ratko Mladic and Goran Hadzic, to give themselves up.

'I personally would like Mladic to surrender as soon as possible,' Defence Minister Dragan Sutanovac was quoted as saying in an interview published in the daily Blic.

BERLIN, August 5, 2008 (AFP) - Germany on Tuesday denied a Pentagon report that its military was seeking to buy new armed drones that the United States recently began flying in Iraq and Afghanistan.

'There are no plans to purchase a fighter drone for the Bundeswehr,' a spokesman for the defence ministry in Berlin said.

WASHINGTON, August 5, 2008 (AFP) - The Pentagon has extended the deployment of 1,250 Marines in Afghanistan for 30 days until November to keep up the momentum of training of Afghan security forces, a spokesman said Tuesday.