President Nicolas Sarkozy announced Friday that "several hundred" French troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan before the end of 2011.

"Between now and the end of the year, early next year, several hundred French soldiers will return to France in full agreement with the decision taken by the American president," Sarkozy told a news conference at the close of a two-day European Union summit.

Russian nuclear scientists, who planned, designed, built and put into operation Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr this year, were killed in the Russian plane that crashed earlier in the week, the Israeli website Debkafile reported.

Debkafile's sources revealed that the three scientists Sergey Ryzhov, Gennady Banuyk and Nikolay Trunov, were among the 44 passengers who were killed when the plane exploded into flames after crashing on a highway just short of its airport.

As Osama bin Laden watched his terrorist organization get picked apart, he lamented in his final writings that al-Qaida was suffering from a marketing problem. His group was killing too many Muslims and that was bad for business. The West was winning the public relations fight. All his old comrades were dead and he barely knew their replacements.

Faced with these challenges, bin Laden, who hated the United States and decried capitalism, considered a most American of business strategies. Like Blackwater, ValuJet and Philip Morris, perhaps what al-Qaida really needed was a fresh start under a new name.

After 16 long years, the arrest of notorious Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger appeared to end a long, frustrating manhunt that had embarrassed the FBI and raised questions about its efforts to find one of its most wanted fugitives.

But Bulger's capture could be only the beginning of a new scandal for the Boston FBI and others.

Ukraine's ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko on Friday went on trial for alleged abuse of power, denouncing her rival President Viktor Yanukovych as a coward fearing political competition.

The former premier, known as the "Iron Lady", is accused of abuse of power in connection with a contract she signed with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin after a brief interruption of gas deliveries from Russia in early 2009.

A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake shook Alaska's Aleutian Islands late Thursday, and U.S. officials issued a localized tsunami warning near the remote island chain.

There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

A cell phone used by Osama bin Laden's courier appears to show that the al-Qaida leader was aided by militants linked to Pakistani intelligence, The New York Times said Thursday.

Citing U.S. officials briefed on an investigation into the phone, the Times said calls from the device were traced to Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, a militant group linked to Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

India and Pakistan held talks on peace and security issues in Islamabad on Thursday, part of efforts to stabilize South Asia as the United States prepares to draw down troops from Afghanistan.

Concerns over terrorism are likely to dominate India's agenda since U.S. troops killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and since a four-year peace process collapsed when Islamist gunmen killed 166 people in Mumbai in November 2008.

U.S. authorities Thursday charged firms in France and the United Arab Emirates for conspiring to export components for attack helicopters and fighter jets to Iran without a license.

The Justice Department said that among the individuals and five corporate entities charged were Aerotechnic, based in Pinsaguel, France, its president Philippe Sanchez and sales manager Luc Teuly. They remain fugitives.

U.S. President Barack Obama's Afghan withdrawal plans "are more aggressive and incur more risk than I was originally prepared to accept," the top U.S. military officer told lawmakers Thursday.

"More force for more time is, without a doubt, the safer course. But that does not necessarily make it the best course," U.S. Joints Chiefs chairman Admiral Mike Mullen told the House Armed Services Committee in prepared testimony.