Serbia's pro-Western President Boris Tadic won re-election on Sunday against nationalist challenger Tomislav Nikolic in a vote that will determine the country's future ties with the European Union.

The election commission said it was a narrow victory for Tadic, with a projected 51 percent of the vote.

The election was seen as a referendum on how Serbia should deal with the West after the imminent loss of the breakaway province of Kosovo. Tadic says European Union membership must remain Serbia's priority whatever happens. Nikolic advocates turning to Russia instead of the West.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has pulled out of the Republican race for the White House after disappointing primary results in Florida.

Mr Giuliani announced he was giving his support to Arizona Senator John McCain, describing him as "an American hero".

Arnold Schwarzenegger, California Governor, will later endorse Mr McCain.

Earlier, Democrat John Edwards left the race, without backing any of his rivals, after failing to win a single party nomination contest.

Kenya's government and opposition are due to begin full negotiations to try to end the crisis resulting from last month's disputed presidential election.

President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga have each appointed three-man teams to discuss proposals drawn up by former UN chief Kofi Annan.

At earlier preliminary talks, he urged both sides to help restore calm.

Ahead of the talks, the top US envoy to Africa described recent violence in the Rift Valley as "ethnic cleansing".

President Pervez Musharraf should stand down for the sake of stability in Pakistan, a Brussels-based think-tank said in a report on the deteriorating situation following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

"Stability in Pakistan and its contribution to wider anti-terror efforts now require rapid transition to legitimate civilian government," International Crisis Group said in its report released on Thursday.

"This must involve the departure of Musharraf, whose continued efforts to retain power at all costs are incompatible with national reconciliation."

The Turkish army says it has inflicted "heavy losses" on rebels from the Kurdish separatist PKK movement across the border in Iraq.

The army said it fired on a group of about 50 rebels, though the statement did not say troops entered Iraq.

In October, Turkey's parliament voted to allow the military to launch operations into Iraq to combat the PKK, which had stepped up attacks in Turkey.

But Iraq and the US have urged Turkey not to carry out its threat.

General Pervez Musharraf finally quit as army chief on Wednesday, trading the post for a second five-year term as president and fulfilling a promise many Pakistanis doubted he would keep.

He passed the baton of command to his hand-picked successor, General Ashfaq Kayani, at a ceremony at army headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, is to be sworn in as a civilian president on Thursday, having relinquished his position in the one institution that guaranteed his power.

"The system continues, people come and go, everyone has to go, every good thing comes to an end, everything is mortal," a tearful Musharraf told top brass and government leaders at the change-of-command ceremony.

Pakistan has been suspended from the Commonwealth because of its imposition of emergency rule, the organisation has announced after a meeting in Uganda.

Secretary General Don McKinnon said Pakistan was being suspended "pending restoration of democracy and the rule of law".

Pakistan has criticised the decision as "unreasonable and unjustified".

Earlier Pakistan's Supreme Court dismissed a legal challenge to Pervez Musharraf's re-election as president.

The president has said that would allow him to step down as head of the army.

In recent days Gen Musharraf's regime has also released more than 3,400 people who had been detained under the emergency rule which the president imposed earlier this month.

Australia's prime minister has condemned members of his own party for distributing leaflets implying the Labor opposition supports terrorism.

John Howard, who trails Labor's Kevin Rudd in opinion polls ahead of a Saturday's general election, said the Liberal Party had not authorised them.

The flyers purported to be from an Islamic group thanking Labor for its sympathy for the Bali bombers.

Two Liberal activists have been expelled from the party.

The leaflets were distributed in the Sydney constituency of Lyndsay - a marginal seat in what will be a keenly fought election.

Pakistani opposition politician Imran Khan has been arrested after making his first public appearance since emergency rule was declared, police have said.

The former cricketer was detained after going to the University of Punjab in Lahore to address a protest by students against President Pervez Musharraf.

Mr Khan was initially held for an hour by students from the Jamaat-e-Islami party after a confrontation on campus.

On Tuesday, Mr Khan said there should be no negotiations with Gen Musharraf.

Georgia's parliament on Friday prepared to endorse President Mikhail Saakahvili's state of emergency decree banning independent media and mass meetings, defying criticism from Western allies and domestic opponents.

As traffic returned to normal in central Tbilisi and soldiers took a lower profile, foreign governments and human rights organizations pressed Saakashvili to lift the state of emergency he declared on Wednesday and to allow a free press.

But a deputy speaker of parliament, Mikhail Machavariani, said the 15-day emergency would be approved by the assembly, where Saakashvili's party and its allies control some two-thirds of the seats. A debate was planned at 4 p.m. (7:00 a.m. EST).

"We think we will approve the decree on the state of emergency," Machavariani said. "We have a lot of information that Russian intelligence services are interfering in Georgian affairs."