Middle East

French president says Iran is entitled to use nuclear energy, calling on Syria to play a role in solving Tehran's nuclear dispute.

Head of country's Expediency Council in a meeting with head and members of Tehran Chamber of Commerce and Industries stressed Iran's need for wide scale privatization, "in real sense of the word."

Iraq's Health Ministry is leading a crackdown on expired and illegally imported medicines which have flooded the Iraqi market since the US-led invasion in 2003, a senior health official said on 19 August.

Iraq and the U.S. have reached a draft agreement on a proposed withdrawal timetable and other issues on the U.S. military presence in Iraq beyond 2008, CNN reported Friday.

Israel's Interior Minister warns Tel Aviv against attacking Tehran saying such an attack would be a 'megalomaniacal reckless' idea.

Referring to the Zionist regime, President Ahmadinejad described it as the main cause of all corruption and wickedness in the contemporary era, adding that the Zionism is the most complicated political and social scheme which has ever taken place.

The Iranian Navy is more capable than ever in protecting our waters in the Persian Gulf, says Iranian Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf addressed the closing session of the so-called "Grand Jirga" and acknowledged that Pakistani tribesmen near the Afghan border were supporting Taleban insurgents in Afghanistan.

The Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) quotes a lawmaker as saying that Iran has barred 38 UN nuclear inspectors from entering the country.

More than 100 Iranian intellectuals and activists have issued a statement condemning a conference in Iran last month that questioned the existence of the Holocaust.

For months, Iraqi and U.S. officials have been trying to shut down a satellite television station that shows Iraqi insurgent videos and denounces the Shi'ite-led government of Iraq. But the station continues to be broadcast on Nilesat, a satellite provider run by the government of Egypt, one of Washington's closest allies in the Middle East.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has threatened to review relations with any country that criticized his government's execution of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The president of Iran dismissed U.N. sanctions imposed against his country as, in his words, "superficial" and "unimportant." He spoke in Tehran Sunday, one day after the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved measures aimed at persuading Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

Iranian leaders have condemned the U.N. Security Council for imposing sanctions on its controversial nuclear program, vowing to speed up the development of it nuclear capabilities.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed sanctions on Iran for its suspect nuclear program. The vote came nearly four months after Iran defied an earlier Council deadline to halt uranium enrichment.