Turkey has agreed to host an early warning radar as part of NATO's missile defense system aimed at countering ballistic missile threats from neighboring Iran, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Friday.

A ministry statement emailed to journalists said discussions on NATO-member Turkey's contribution to the alliance missile defense shield had reached "their final stages."

Two blasts and a shooting in Russia's turbulent North Caucasus region killed four people and injured five, officials said Thursday.

The local police chief in Baksan, a town in Kabardino-Balkaria, died when unidentified assailants attacked his car on Wednesday evening.

A senior Russian officer in President Dmitry Medvedev's security entourage died in the Tajikistan capital Dushanbe ahead of a visit by the Kremlin chief, the Tajik interior ministry said Thursday.

The 38-year-old Vladimir Kuznetsov died of a heart attack in the Dushanbe's Hyatt Regency hotel on Wednesday, the ministry said, adding doctors have ruled out foul play.

Russia on Thursday officially recognized Libya's rebels as the governing authority in the country, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"The Russian Federation recognizes Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) as the ruling authority and notes its reform program that includes the development of a new constitution, holding general elections and forming the government," it said.

Eight people, mainly police officers, were killed and more than 20 injured in two suicide bomb blasts in Chechnya as Russia's Muslim region feted the end of the Ramadan holy month, officials said on Wednesday.

Three suicide bombers blew themselves up the day before in the Chechen capital Grozny, killing five policemen, an emergencies ministry official and a passer-by and wounding more than 20.

A senior Russian envoy said after talks in Damascus on Monday that there was no change in Russian policy on Syria which has been opposed to Western calls for sanctions, Syrian state media said.

"Russia's position on Syria is unchanged," the official SANA news agency quoted deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying.

Russia on Friday proposed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria that would omit Western calls to sanction President Bashar al-Assad for his deadly crackdown on opposition protests, diplomats said.

Signaling an intensifying Security Council battle on how to act over Syria, a European-U.S. resolution calling for sanctions and a Russia draft which only calls on Assad to implement reforms were officially put forward Friday for a potential vote.

It's summer, so it must be time for Russian strongman Vladimir Putin to take his shirt off.

And any Russians disappointed that Putin had not been photographed this holiday season riding bare-chested on a horse or fishing would have been happy to have seen state television pictures of him visiting a provincial doctor.

Russia stressed on Thursday it was important that the U.N. Security Council play a "leading role" in post-Gadhafi Libya as the six-month rebellion against its old ally appeared to be drawing to an end.

The Russian foreign ministry said Russia's top diplomat Sergei Lavrov and U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon had earlier in the day discussed global assistance to Libya's transition following the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi.

Bruno Senna will replace Nick Heidfeld in the Renault line-up at Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix, driving alongside Russia's Vitaly Petrov, the team announced on Wednesday.

"Lotus-Renault are happy to announce that Bruno Senna will race at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend," said a statement.