Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev on Wednesday returned home from medical treatment in Germany after an absence of around a month, his press service said Thursday.

`President Kurmanbek Bakiyev on Wednesday returned after treatment in Germany,` a presidential statement said.

A bill lengthening Russian presidential terms passed its latest hurdle in parliament on Wednesday, amid speculation over the implications for the future of powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

A constitutional amendment extending the length of Russian presidential terms to six years passed its latest hurdle in parliament Wednesday, winning overwhelming approval in a second reading debate.

A constitutional amendment extending the length of Russian presidential terms to six years passed its latest hurdle in parliament Wednesday, winning overwhelming approval in a second reading debate.

LJUBLJANA, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - A year before general elections, the Slovenian presidential vote this Sunday is seen as a litmus test for Prime Minister Janez Jansa's coalition government, whose popularity has slipped in the polls.

None of the seven candidates is tipped to win an outright majority in the first round Sunday, so the vote is likely to go to a second round on November 11. And that could see a few surprises, analysts said.

LJUBLJANA, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - Slovenian presidential elections next weekend will likely lead to a run-off vote as none of the seven candidates is expected to win an absolute majority, opinion polls show.

Sunday's vote, in which the incumbent Janez Drnovsek is not running, represents a key test for Prime Minister Janez Jansa's centre-right coalition, which has suffered a serious drop in public support a year ahead of parliamentary elections.

THE HAGUE, Oct 8, 2007 (AFP) - German President Horst Koehler arrived in the Netherlands Monday for an official three-day visit.

Dutch Queen Beatrix will receive Koehler and his wife Eva Luise later Monday at her palace in The Hague. The president will also meet with several Dutch politicians and visit the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

On Tuesday, Koehler will lay a wreath at the Rotterdam World War II monument to commemorate the German bombing which destroyed nearly the entire centre of the port city in May 1940 and led the Dutch government to capitulate.

TASHKENT, Oct 4, 2007 (AFP) - President Islam Karimov, who has ruled Uzbekistan since 1989, is to be nominated as candidate for another term in upcoming elections by a pro-government party, a spokesman told AFP Thursday.

The Liberal Democratic Party (UzLiDep) 'has decided to nominate and discuss President Islam Karimov's candidacy for the upcoming elections at a party congress scheduled for early November,' said party spokesman Shuhrat Oripov.

Presidential elections in Uzbekistan are scheduled for December 23.

THE HAGUE, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - The judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Thursday re-elected Italian judge Fausto Pocar, 68, as president, the UN court said.

The Italian academic became an ICTY judge in February 2000 and has been the court's president since November 2005. The vice president will remain Australian judge Kevin Parker, 70, who specialized in maritime law.

BEIRUT, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - Lebanon's rival factions will have thrashed out agreement on a new president by November 24 when current President Emile Lahoud's term runs out, parliament speaker Nabih Berri said on Monday.

'By November 24, there will be a president of the republic who will have the approval of all the Lebanese,' said the influential opposition leader.

He was speaking on the eve of a crucial parliament session to choose a new president and which has appeared doomed, with rival parties still deadlocked on the choice of a consensus candidate.

MOSCOW, Sept 14, 2007 (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin did not rule out a presidential bid in 2012 on Friday, saying it was too early to consider, London-based analyst Oksana Antonenko said after a roundtable discussion with the president.

'What he said is that it is really too far away and that he doesn't want to think about it now,' Antonenko, a senior fellow at the Institute for International and Strategic Studies, told AFP after meeting the Kremlin leader at the annual Valdai Discussion Club of experts.

MOSCOW, Sept 14, 2007 (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin did not rule out a presidential bid in 2012 on Friday, saying it was too early to consider, London-based analyst Oksana Antonenko said after a roundtable discussion with the president.

'What he said is that it is really too far away and that he doesn't want to think about it now,' Antonenko, a senior fellow at the Institute for International and Strategic Studies, said after meeting Putin at the annual Valdai Discussion Club of experts.

JAKARTA, Sept 11, 2007 (AFP) - Former Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri has announced a re-election bid for 2009, a senior party executive said Tuesday.

The 60-year-old Megawati, daughter of Indonesia's founding president Sukarno and leader of its second largest party, has maintained a relatively low profile since losing 2004 polls to Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

STRASBOURG, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - Lebanese opposition leader Michel Aoun warned Wednesday that his country risks an 'explosion' unless the Western-backed government seeks a compromise on its choice of national president.

The vote for a successor to Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud has exacerbated Lebanon's ongoing political crisis which has split Beirut into pro- and anti-Damascus camps.

If agreement cannot be reached on a new president 'there will be an explosion,' Aoun warned during meetings at the European parliament in Strasbourg.

BEIRUT, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - Lebanese Parliament speaker Nabih Berri Wednesday officially called for a special session on September 25 to elect a new president, as the country remains mired in a crisis threatening unity.

'(Berri) called for a general assembly at 10:30 am (0730 GMT) on Tuesday September 25 in order to elect a new president of the republic,' his spokesman told AFP.

The vote for a successor to Syrian-backed President Emile Lahoud has exacerbated Lebanon's ongoing political crisis which has split Beirut into pro- and anti-Damascus camps.

WARSAW, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - Polish President Lech Kaczynski, 58, was hospitalised Monday following an acute viral infection but was expected to return home later in the day, doctors said.

'The Polish president is suffering from an acute viral infection,' the spokesman for Warsaw's military hospital, Wojciech Lubinski, told journalists.

'The president feels much better and will leave hospital again today,' he said, adding that Kaczynski should be back at work in a few days.

WARSAW, Sept 3, 2007 (AFP) - Polish President Lech Kaczynski was hospitalised for examinations Monday, his office said.

'After a deterioration in his state of health the president of the republic Lech Kaczynski was taken to hospital for tests,' his office said in a statement.

It gave no further details about the president's health, saying only that more information would be provided after the examination results had been received.

BEIRUT, Aug 31, 2007 (AFP) - Lebanon's pro-Syrian president has raised the stakes in a looming presidential election by announcing that he would appoint the army chief to head an interim government if the country's feuding political leaders fail to agree on a candidate.

Thursday's announcement, which legal experts say is not in line with the constitution, was likely to further escalate tensions between the Western-backed government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and the opposition, led by the Shiite movement Hezbollah.

BEIRUT, Aug 30, 2007 (AFP) - Lebanese President Emile Lahoud said Thursday he would name army chief General Michel Suleiman as his provisional successor if the country's competing political camps fail to agree on a permanent one.

He was speaking ahead of a planned parliamentary vote this autumn to elect a new president, with the country's pro- and anti-Syrian blocs in a deadlock that threatens to exacerbate ongoing political paralysis.

BEIRUT, Aug 30, 2007 (AFP) - Anti-Syrian MP Boutros Harb on Thursday announced his candidacy for Lebanon's presidency, calling for renewed national dialogue and reconciliation with powerful neighbour Syria.

Harb said he would help end Lebanon's 10-month political paralysis between the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority of Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and the opposition, led by the Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

ANKARA, Aug 29, 2007 (AFP) - Turkey's new president Abdullah Gul will be walking a political tightrope, balancing between pressure from army-backed secularists who mistrust him for his Islamist past and conservative supporters who seek broader religious freedoms, analysts said on Wednesday.

The generals, who see themselves as the guardians of Turkey's secular system, sent a strong signal that they are unhappy with Gul's presidency when they snubbed his oath-taking ceremony Tuesday.

ANKARA, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - Turkey's new president, former Islamist Abdullah Gul, formally took over Tuesday from his predecessor Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who was seen on live television driving away from the presidential palace.

The brief handover ceremony was closed to the press.

Sezer and his wife waved to the media and well-wishers outside the gates of the palace as they left.

One group chanted 'Turkey is secular and will remain secular', applauding and throwing carnations at the car in which Sezer, a staunch secularist, was travelling.

ANKARA, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - Former islamist Abdullah Gul was sworn in Tuesday as president of Turkey, pledging loyalty to the secular system and calling for respect for religious freedoms in his inaugural speech.

'The Turkish Republic is a democratic, secular and social state based on the rule of law... I will work with determination to protect and strengthen all those tenets,' Gul told parliament after being sworn in following his election in a third-round parliamentary vote.

ANKARA, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - Abdullah Gul, a former Islamist, was sworn in as president of secular Turkey Tuesday, shortly after he was elected in a third-round parliamentary vote.

Gul took the oath at a ceremony in parliament, pledging impartiality and loyalty to the country's secular system.

'I swear before the great Turkish nation... to be loyal to democracy and the secular Republic... and to conduct my duty impartially,' he said, reading out a text enshrined in the constitution.

ANKARA, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - Nearly three-quarters of Turks have no objections to a first lady wearing the Islamic headscarf, but want the president to be impartial, a public opinion poll published Tuesday showed.

The survey, conducted by the respected Konda company for the Milliyet newspaper, showed that 72.6 percent of those polled in this secular Muslim country would view it as 'normal' if the wife of the president covers up.

NOUAKCHOTT, Aug 27, 2007 (AFP) - A hearing in the trial of a Mauritanian editor of independent daily El Bedil Athalith, charged with slandering the first lady, was Monday postponed indefinitely.

The court on Wednesday postponed proceedings in the case of Sidi Mohamed Ould Ebbe, who was accused of slandering Khatou Mint El Boukhari, wife of new President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi.

The Arabic newspaper alleged in articles that the first lady abused her position as wife of the head of state to raise funds for a charity organisation she heads.

ANKARA, Aug 27, 2007 (AFP) - Hayrunnisa Gul, poised to become Turkey's first lady this week, is a cheerful and elegant woman who avoids the spotlight, but the Islamic headscarf that covers her head has made her the bete noire of hardline secularists.

A devout person who prays five times a day, the 42-year-old wife of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, virtually certain to be elected president Tuesday, says that her headscarf, hated by opponents as a symbol of defiance of the secular system, is a personal choice that should be respected.

ISTANBUL, Aug 27, 2007 (AFP) - With the election of Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul to the Turkish presidency all but certain on Tuesday, many secularist opponents are calling for a more moderate stance against the former Islamist and his governing Justice and Development Party (AKP).

For months, hardline secularists followed the cue of the opposition Republican People's Party's (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal to condemn Gul's candidacy as part of a secret plan by the Islamist-rooted AKP to undermine Turkey's secular regime.

ANKARA, Aug 26, 2007 (AFP) - Turkey's president is a largely ceremonial figure but holds some important powers that influence the fate of laws passed by parliament and the make-up of high courts and other top institutions.

Parliament, which elects the president for a single seven-year term, will hold a decisive third round of voting Tuesday to chose the country's 11th head of state, who is almost certain to be Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

Here are some key facts about the president:

ANKARA, Aug 26, 2007 (AFP) - Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, certain to be elected Turkey's president in a parliamentary vote Tuesday, is a man whose past in political Islam has sharply divided public opinion.

For his followers, many liberal Turks and Turkey's western allies, the 56-year-old is a respected, moderate politician who has championed far-reaching democratic and human rights reforms enabling Turkey to start accession talks with the European Union in 2005.

NOUAKCHOTT, Aug 23, 2007 (AFP) - A hearing in the trial of a Mauritanian editor of an independent daily El Bedil Athalith, charged with slandering the First Lady has been postponed to next week.

The court on Wednesday postponed proceedings in the case of Sidi Mohamed Ould Ebbe, who was accused of slandering Khatou Mint El Boukhari, wife of new President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallah.

In articles ran last week, the Arabic newspaper alleged the First Lady used her position as wife of the head of state to raise funds for a charity organisation she heads.

MALE, Aug 20, 2007 (AFP) - Asia's longest serving leader, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, says he wants to be the first directly elected president of the Maldives after winning a landslide victory for his political reform package.

Gayoom told AFP that he would invite the opposition to join him in implementing sweeping reforms in the Indian Ocean atoll nation, after winning 62 percent support for a US-style presidential system in a weekend referendum.

ANKARA, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) - A small Turkish opposition party Sunday fielded a candidate to run in upcoming presidential elections, poised to be won by a former Islamist from the ruling party.

Huseyin Tayfun Icli from the centre-left Democratic Left Party (DSP) submitted his name to parliament just hours before the deadline for nominations ended, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Icli, 50, who briefly served as a junior minister in 2002, is the third candidate to file his papers for the parliamentary vote which begins Monday.

ANKARA, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) - Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, Turkey's likely next president after an electoral process that starts Monday, is a former Islamist who has disowned his radical past but is still viewed with suspicion by those who doubt his true commitment to secularism.

Gul's first attempt to become president sparked a political crisis and forced snap elections on July 22 that resulted in a huge victory for the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), which the 56-year-old interpreted as popular support to his presidential ambitions.

ANKARA, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) - Turkey's parliament is poised to elect a former Islamist as president in what some analysts say could be a watershed in this secular Muslim country's transition into a liberal democracy with a strong economy.

But hardline secularists, who blocked Abdullah Gul's first presidential bid in April with a strong campaign against the militant Islamist past he says he has disowned, remain unconvinced.

ANKARA, Aug 19, 2007 (AFP) - The Turkish parliament meets Monday for the first round of a presidential election that is certain to see Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, a former Islamist, eventually become the country's 11th head of state.

The 550 newly elected lawmakers will hold a secret ballot to pick a new president for a single seven-year term between candidates Gul and Sabahattin Cakmakoglu of the right-wing Nationalist Action Party (MHP).

Both men are from the central province of Kayseri, a conservative stronghold.

ANKARA, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) - A Turkish opposition party fielded a candidate Friday to challenge Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul in presidential elections next week, although the former defence minister stands little chance.

Sabahattin Cakmakoglu from the right-wing Nationalist Action Party (MHP) is a rank outsider compared to Gul, whose ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) holds a solid majority in parliament, which elects the president.

ANKARA, Aug 17, 2007 (AFP) - Turkey's most influential business group urged presidential hopeful Abdullah Gul on Friday to keep his promise to stay loyal to the secular system if he is elected.

'We place importance on the principles of political impartiality, the inseparable integrity of democracy and secularism.