TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Monday called for expansion of all-out ties between Tehran and Prague.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described those states seeking to acquire nuclear weapons as “politically backward”.

TEHRAN (FNA)- An Iranian educational complex on Tuesday started its operation in Turkmenistan in presence of 120 Iranian and foreign students.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The director of the Iranian National Tax Administration here on Tuesday announced that the value added tax (VAT) law has been enforced as of September 22.

KABUL (Reuters) – Three policemen were killed by a land mine planted by Taliban insurgents in a police post in the Afghan capital on Wednesday, a police official said.

SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) – At a checkpoint consisting of a wooden shack wrapped in steel sheets, five young Iraqis with AK-47 rifles have the task of stopping al Qaeda bombers striking the ancient city of Samarra.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s parliament passed a provincial elections law on Wednesday after months of arguing between Arabs and Kurds, and called for the vote to be held before January 31 next year, legislators said.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A suspected U.S. pilotless drone has crashed in the northwestern Pakistani region of South Waziristan after a spate of missile attacks by unmanned U.S. aircraft in Pakistan strained ties between the allies.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is set to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday in what is expected to be a tense encounter following Moscow’s incursion into Georgia last month.

Gunmen have killed at least 20 people in an ambush to the north-east of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, officials say.