KABUL, Oct 21, 2007 (AFP) - President Hamid Karzai left Sunday for Britain where he is due to meet Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles and Prime Minister Gordon Brown for talks on post-Taliban Afghanistan, the palace said.

The four-day visit would cover 'regional issues, and the role of Britain in Afghanistan's reconstruction, the strengthening of security, and the training of the Afghan national army,' the presidential palace said in a statement.

WASHINGTON, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - First Lady Laura Bush will visit the Middle East from October 20-26 to highlight the fight against breast cancer in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Jordan, her office said Monday.

'While in the region she will also visit several cancer treatment and screening centers and launch new cancer awareness activities. She will observe first-hand the US-Middle East Partnership for Breast Cancer Awareness and Research and discuss ways to expand its role,' the first lady's spokeswoman, Sally McDonough, said.

WIESBADEN, Germany, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed here he was going ahead with a visit to Iran on Monday despite reports of a possible assassination plot.

'Of course I am going to Iran,' Putin said at a news conference after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

'If I listened to what the security services said, I would never leave my home,' Putin said.

'They have to do their work and we, along with the chancellor and our other colleagues, have to do ours.'

TEHRAN, Oct 15, 2007 (AFP) - Russia is now unable to confirm whether a landmark visit to Iran by President Vladimir Putin will still take place following a reported assassination plot, a Kremlin spokesman said on Monday.

'We do not have information if the visit will take place or not,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told AFP.

Earlier, he had said that there was no indication of a change of plan for Putin's visit.

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.

NEW YORK, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - US First Lady Laura Bush said Monday that she will visit the Middle East in October to highlight the fight against breast cancer in places like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.

'I'll visit the Middle East in October, during Breast Cancer Awareness month. And I look forward to talking with women there about this important issue,' she said in a speech here.

WASHINGTON, Sept 24, 2007 (AFP) - US First Lady Laura Bush will announce on Monday that she will travel to the Middle East next month to burnish the image of the United States there, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

'She will announce that she is traveling to the Middle East next month to promote US public diplomacy, meet world leaders and see the work of the US-Middle East partnership for breast cancer awarness and research,' she said.

SEOUL, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - The head of a major Middle Eastern development company flew to North Korea Wednesday, and a South Korean report said he may be looking at investment opportunities.

Mohamed Alabbar, chairman of Emaar Properties based in the United Arab Emirates, used his own plane for the trip from South Korea, an education foundation official said.

It was the first time a private plane had been allowed to fly from Seoul to Pyongyang through a west coast route that opened in 2000 for official trips.

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 28, 2007 (AFP) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced Tuesday he was to visit the war-shattered Sudanese region of Darfur next week ahead of a landmark deployment of international peacekeepers.

Ban was to visit Sudan, Chad and Libya on the trip, he told reporters in New York, ahead of the deployment of some 26,000 UN-African Union forces as agreed by the The UN Security Council last month.

WASHINGTON, Aug 7, 2007 (AFP) - A US official will accompany an American academic delegation on a visit to North Korea this week, the State Department said Tuesday amid efforts to end the Stalinist state's nuclear weapons drive.

But John Merrill of the department's bureau of intelligence and research will not be engaged in any negotiations with the North Koreans on behalf of the US government, department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos told reporters.

WASHINGTON, Aug 2, 2007 (AFP) - US President George W. Bush on Saturday will travel to Minneapolis, Minnesota to visit the site of the bridge that collapsed over the Mississippi river, the White House announced Thursday.

The hastily announced trip will come after Bush's wife Laura visits the bridge site Friday to talk to rescue workers, in the course of a previously scheduled trip to Minneapolis.

WASHINGTON, July 26, 2007 (AFP) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is to make his first official trip as premier to the United States, for two days of talks with US President George W. Bush, the White House said Thursday.

Brown was to arrive at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland late Sunday, have dinner with Bush, 'then there will be a pretty full meeting schedule the following day,' spokesman Tony Snow said.

SOFIA, July 24, 2007 (AFP) - France`s President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Cecilia will visit Bulgaria in September, the office of the Bulgarian president Georgy Parvanov announced Tuesday.

The visit was agreed in a phone conversation between the two presidents minutes before the Bulgarian medical workers jailed for life in Libya for infecting children with the AIDS virus were flown home Tuesday morning.

They arrived in Bulgaria on board a French presidential plane and were accompanied by Cecilia Sarkozy and EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.