Turkish Armenians are on edge after weekend attacks against members of the community during Orthodox Easter raised fears about their security. An unidentified assailant fired seven blank rounds outside an Armenian church in Istanbul's Kumkapi neighbourhood on Sunday, causing panic among people celebrating Easter there, the Hurriyet newspaper reported. A young Armenian was also beaten the same day by a gang outside a church in the nearby neighbourhood of Samatya, Archbishop Aram Atesyan of the Armenian Orthodox patriarchate, was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday expressed hope that the Boston bombing tragedy would result in closer cooperation between Moscow and Washington in the fight against terror. "I hope this tragedy pushes us closer to one another in stopping shared threats," Putin said during his live televised call-in session in Moscow, saying Russia was also a victim of "international terrorism". But Putin criticised excessive "speculation" about the Boston suspects' Chechen origins as a possible motivation for their embrace of terror.

By Gul Yousafzai QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A prominent leader of Pakistan's ethnic Hazara minority narrowly escaped a suicide attack that killed six people on Tuesday, underscoring the growing threat militants pose to secular politicians in the run-up to next month's general elections. The blast in Quetta was the worst attack since a series of bombings in the city at the start of the year killed almost 200 people, briefly drawing global attention to a growing campaign of persecution of the Hazaras by sectarian militants.

A suicide bomber blew up his car at a check point near a Shiite dominated area in southwest Pakistan late on Wednesday, killing a soldier and wounding more than 30, officials said. The attacker had attempted to drive his vehicle into Hazara Town in Baluchistan province's capital Quetta, where a recent surge in sectarian unrest has killed scores of Shiites, city police chief Zubair Mahmood said. "He detonated the vehicle when the soldiers at a paramilitary check post near the Shiite neighbourhood stopped it," the police officer told AFP.