TEHRAN (FNA)- The second phase of archeological excavations at Iran’s Kelar Tappeh site has yielded an Iron Age cylindrical seal made of soapstone.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The United States has once again stonewalled the visa process for the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend the United Nations General Assembly later this month in New York.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview published on Sunday he will remain in office until 2010, a decision likely to stoke tensions with Islamist Hamas rivals who oppose his peace talks with Israel.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s cabinet debated for the first time on Sunday a proposal to offer compensation to Jewish settlers who volunteer to leave parts of the West Bank that would be handed to the Palestinians in a future peace deal.

KABUL (Reuters) – A suicide bomber rammed a car into a United Nations convoy on Sunday as it drove through a market in southern Afghanistan, killing a driver and two local doctors, U.N. officials and police said.

It has emerged that an adviser to the Russian president was among the 88 people who died when an Aeroflot plane crashed in Siberia. General Gennady Troshev had worked for both Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin. Debris from the 16-year-old Aeroflot Boeing 737-500 covered part of Russia’s main East-West railway …

TEHRAN (FNA)- Israel has urged Russia to turn a blind eye to its military deals with Georgia and to halt its sale of advanced weapons to Iran and Syria.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran and Ecuador have agreed to build an oil refinery in the Latin American country, Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian officials have set a target of $2.5 billion for the export of technical and engineering services for the current Iranian calendar year.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s agriculture output can be increased from the current 100 mln tons to 300 mln tons per year through using modern technology and science, Minister of Agricultural Jihad Mohammad Reza Eskandari said.