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NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - Leaders of a military coup in Mauritania promised on Thursday to hold a free and transparent presidential election as soon as possible, but the United States suspended aid and demanded an immediate return to civilian rule.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The world must solve crises in the Middle East and Somalia or they will spawn more of the extremism that led to bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa a decade ago, Kenya's prime minister warned on Thursday.

KHARTOUM (Reuters) - The United Nations on Thursday raised concerns Sudanese anti-terrorism courts which condemned 30 Darfur rebels to death did not meet international standards and urged the appeals courts to review the sentences.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) - A small group of Jewish settlers attacked a delegation of British diplomats during a visit to the West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday, the British Consulate said.

REGGIO CALABRIA, Italy (Reuters) - Italian police on Thursday arrested the head of a Calabrian mafia clan whose feud with rivals has killed about 20 people, including six Italians gunned down outside a pizzeria in Germany a year ago.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - One person was killed and another injured on Thursday by an explosion at a beach in Sochi, Russia's popular Black Sea resort which will host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, the Interfax news agency reported.

NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - Leaders of a military coup in Mauritania promised on Thursday to hold a "free and transparent" presidential election as soon as possible, defying foreign calls to reinstate the country's first freely elected president.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Hundreds of volunteers from Russia and Abkhazia headed for Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia on Friday to join separatists fighting Tbilisi forces, Interfax news agency reported.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe said on Thursday power-sharing talks with the opposition MDC were going well, but dismissed media reports about a draft agreement as nonsense.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Roadside bomb incidents involving U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan hit their highest level in at least four years between April and June, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A mortar shell attack which injured three people in Istanbul on Thursday had targeted an army headquarters, broadcaster NTV reported security sources as saying.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's ruling coalition will move to impeach President Pervez Musharraf on charges of plunging the country into a political and economic crisis, party leaders said on Thursday.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A top U.N. nuclear watchdog official began talks in Iran on Thursday aimed at improving cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency over Tehran's nuclear program.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's leading opposition figure Anwar Ibrahim was charged with sodomy and granted bail by a court on Thursday, letting him campaign in a by-election on which he is staking his political future after a 10-year absence.

Michele Kambas is a senior correspondent in Cyprus, where she has worked for Reuters since 1995. A British national, she has lived on the east Mediterranean island for 20 years. In the following story, she recounts the upheaval caused by stringent water rationing and one of the worst droughts on record.

TRINIDAD, Bolivia (Reuters) - Anti-government protesters on Wednesday mounted roadblocks and surrounded an airport, forcing Bolivia's leftist President Evo Morales to abandon rallies days before a recall vote.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Roadside bomb incidents involving U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan hit their highest level in at least four years between April and June, the Pentagon said on Wednesday.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Britain on Wednesday criticized a United Nations probe into the March storming of a courthouse by U.N. and NATO troops in Kosovo that concluded that commanders had ignored cautionary advice from New York.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Leaders of Pakistan's civilian coalition consulted into the early hours of Thursday morning on whether to strip President Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally, of his powers and possibly impeach him.

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a senior police homicide investigator in Ciudad Juarez on the U.S.-Mexico border, the fourth policeman killed in the city this week, an attorney general's office said on Wednesday.