* U.S. President Barack Obama said that relations between the U.S. and Iraq were developing rapidly and were no longer exclusively security-related
* The United States will not establish military bases in Georgia but will help the country to modernize its defense system and integrate into NATO, a senior U.S. defense official said
* Afghan President Hamid Karzai gave in to international pressure and agreed to take part in a second round of elections on November 7, election authorities said
* France will not pull out of uranium enrichment talks with Iran, despite the Islamic Republic's insistence that Paris's participation is unnecessary, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman said
* About 3,000 employees of the German mail-order retailer Quelle are to lose their jobs as the result of the company's bankruptcy, a spokesman for the firm's parent company said
* The Danish Energy Authority issued permission for the construction of the Russian-German Nord Stream gas pipeline on its seabed
* The United States trusts the government of Pakistan as both countries have a shared goal of fighting extremism, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of State said
RUSSIA
* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reiterated that Moscow was looking to reset relations with the U.S. and other Western partners, including NATO
* Russia and Serbia signed agreements on the Serbian leg of the South Stream natural gas pipeline and an underground gas storage facility
* Russia fell to 153rd place in the latest Reporters Without Borders report on press freedom
* Russian state-controlled nuclear fuel supplier TVEL plans to control 25% of the world's nuclear fuel market by 2030, the company's vice president said
* A Moscow court formally sanctioned the arrest of the interior minister of the Russian east Siberian republic of Buryatia, detained in a smuggling case last week
* Russia's top prosecutors have contacted Spanish authorities on the request of tycoon Oleg Deripaska, seeking clarification over the mention of his name in a money laundering investigation, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors said
WORLD
