Tuesday, June 16, 2009 YEKATERINBURG: Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Russia on Tuesday to attend a security summit, in his first trip abroad following his disputed election victory, an official in the Iranian delegation said."Yes, yes, yes, his plane is now sitting" at the airport in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg in the Urals Mountains, the Iranian official said on condition of anonymity. Ahmadinejad was expected in Russia on Monday, but postponed his trip following unrest over his disputed election victory. A Kremlin spokesman confirmed Ahmadinejad's arrival, saying the Iranian leader would participate in a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a six-group regional security organization dominated by Russia and China. The group also includes Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. Iran has in the past expressed interest in becoming a full member and currently has observer status. Ahmadinejad was initially scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev but the Kremlin spokesman said that meeting has been cancelled. His visit to Russia, Iran's key ally, is Ahmadinejad's first foreign trip since his landslide re-election victory over his moderate rival Mir Hossein Mousavi sparked two days of street protests and some of the worst rioting in Tehran in a decade.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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