* Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov said the commission inquiring into the fire that killed 13 children in an orphanage in Dushanbe early Sunday had 10 days to determine what caused the blaze

* The lawyer of the mother of Heorhiy Gongadze, the investigative journalist killed in 2000, accused judge Irina Hrihoriyeva of being biased and demanded she be recused

* The Swiss Federal Court honored in part Swiss companies' demand to end Yukos-related legal aid to Russia

* The Armenian government said it planned to allocate $111,000 on measures to prevent bird flu from entering the country

* Russia's chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko said the border with Turkey would have to be closed if bird flu continued to spread in the country

* Bird flu was confirmed at a poultry farm in the Crimean peninsula, Ukraine's autonomy, the local veterinary department said.