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.

The Iraqi parliament has passed a law which paves the way for provincial elections.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Former President Seyed Mohammad Khatami said he would run in the presidential elections in Iran next year if he is convinced that his candidacy has a dramatic effect on the ongoing trend of developments.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s resistance against bullying powers has given rise to new movements all around the world, Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces Major General Hassan Firouzabadi said on Tuesday.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHHTO) is searching for more documents to enable the country to win the court case against the University of Chicago on the matter of the Achaemenid tablets.