PARIS/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia and European powers took a step back from confrontation over Georgia on Friday, with Moscow urging the EU not to rush into punitive action and France saying now was not the time for sanctions.

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A keen sense the West cheated Moscow out of promised warmer ties after the Cold War explains why Russia, recovered from post-Soviet collapse, has refused to be cowed over Georgia and demanded its views be heard.

RIGA (Reuters) – Latvia favors the suspension of talks on a new cooperation pact between the European Union and Russia until Moscow has withdrawn its troops from Georgia, the Baltic state’s foreign minister said on Friday.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgia said on Friday it was cutting diplomatic ties with Russia over the Kremlin’s recognition of two Georgian rebel regions as independent states.”We have received instructions at the Foreign Ministry and we will cut diplomatic relations with the Russian Federation,” Deputy Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze told reporters.

DUSHANBE/MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s energy minister and a top oil company denied on Friday they were preparing to cut oil flows to Europe in response to threatened sanctions, a step Moscow never took even at the height of the Cold War.

ANKARA (Reuters) – An explosion rocked a gunpowder factory in central Turkey on Friday, killing two people and injuring another 12, Turkish broadcasters reported.

TEHRAN (FNA)- A documentary film group registered the hottest point on Earth in the district of Gandom-Berian (Parched corn) in Shahdad desert in Kerman province with the temperature of 63 degrees centigrade on Wednesday.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Developing science and technology is impossible without promoting post-graduate education, Iranian Science Minister Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi said.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said no one doubts Iran’s right to use peaceful nuclear energy in accordance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

TEHRAN (FNA)- Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei on Thursday highlighted momentous task of the Assembly of Experts as the top policy making body envisaged in the Constitution.