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By Patrick Markey ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika appeared set to win re-election for another five years on Friday after a vote opponents dismissed as a stage-managed fraud to keep the ailing leader in power. Sitting a wheelchair, Bouteflika cast his vote on Thursday in a rare public appearance since suffering a stroke last year that has raised doubts about whether, after 15 years in power, he is fit enough to govern the North African oil state. Official results were scheduled to be released later on Friday by the interior ministry, but Bouteflika's allies on Thursday were already claiming a landslide victory for the veteran of Algeria's independence war. Bouteflika, 77, was already widely expected to win with the backing of the ruling Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) party, which has dominated the political system since independence from France in 1962.

MINSK/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko signaled to Russian potash producer Uralkali on Friday that he was interested in ending a nine-month dispute that has hurt both sides. Uralkali, the world's largest potash producer, left a powerful trading joint venture with Belarus in July, triggering a slump in potash prices and a row with Belarus, which eventually led to a change in the company's owners. "The main thing is that we get out of all this mess together ... with minimum losses," Lukashenko said at a meeting with new Uralkali co-owner Dmitry Mazepin, local state agency Belta reported. It was the first public meeting between Lukashenko and Mazepin after the Russian tycoon's firm Uralchem bought a stake in Uralkali in late 2013.

By Michael Holden LONDON (Reuters) - Labour Party has hired David Axelrod, the U.S. strategist who helped President Barack Obama win two presidential terms, to help with its campaign for the 2015 election, the party said on Friday. Axelrod plans to replicate tactics he used in the Obama campaigns in 2008 and 2012 to win Britons over to Labour and its leader Ed Miliband, focusing on the wealth gap and the "squeezed middle". Prime Minister David Cameron hopes an expected full-scale recovery in Britain will translate into poll success next year while Miliband argues that most Britons are still facing a cost of living crisis. "That is how we won in the U.S., Barack Obama articulated a vision which had, at its core, the experience of everyday people.