Warsaw  - Poland still expects a scheduled visit from a Russian diplomat after sealing a deal on a controversial US missile defence shield to be hosted in Eastern Europe, the foreign ministry said Friday.

Poland's PAP news agency reported earlier that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had cancelled a planned trip to Poland in September after Thursday's US-Polish agreement.

Poland's Foreign Ministry has no official word that Lavrov has called off the trip, local media quoted a ministry spokesman as saying.

Nairobi/Mogadishu  - Islamic insurgents attacked the Somali president's convoy as he prepared to fly out to Ethiopia for crisis talks aimed at healing a rift with the prime minister, reports said Friday.

The BBC reported that insurgents detonated two landmines near President Abdullahi Yusuf's convoy as he travelled to the airport in the Somali capital Mogadishu.

Ethiopian troops opened fire after the attack and killed five civilians, the BBC said.

Jersualem  - A star witness in the corruption trial of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has refused to be cross-examined in Israel, attorneys announced Thursday.

The Israeli lawyers for US businessman and fundraiser Morris Talansky refused to come back to Israel for the proceedings at the advice of his US lawyers.

The refusal was related to an investigation taking place in the United States into Talansky's activities.

Islamabad  - Pakistan on Wednesday urged the international community to press New Delhi for "restrain" in its administered part of disputed Kashmir valley, where 20 people were killed by Indian police early this week during protests.

"We are deeply concerned over the deteriorating situation in Indian Occupied Kashmir which is resulting in loss of life and property of the Kashmiri people and violation of their human rights," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq ministry told reporters in the weekly media briefing.

Phnom Penh  - Cambodian journalists Wednesday announced they would answer a call for aid from soldiers stationed at a remote northern temple complex and travel there to distribute supplies.

A group of journalists including the privately owned Cambodian Television Network said they would visit the Ta Moan temples in the north of the country soon to deliver food and other essentials to troops near the site that is disputed by Thailand.

Islamabad  - Pakistan on Wednesday announced plans to release 35 Indian prisoners later this week when New Delhi celebrates 61 years of independence from British rule.

The measure is a goodwill gesture and part of Pakistan's strategy to improve relations with India, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said in a statement.

The group includes 34 fishermen seized by Pakistan's Maritime Security Agency as they entered Pakistani waters, possibly in search of a bigger catch, and one civilian, who has completed his prison term for illegally entering and staying in the country.