TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian state oil company and Vietnamese oil group Petrovietnam signed a $115 million deal for the exploration of Iran’s southwestern Dana oilfield near Iraq.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) has made an offer to Iranian metallurgical company of Esfahan on the purchase of a controlling stake in it, Chairman of the Russian steel company’s Board of Directors Viktor Rasnikov told journalists Thursday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – It was an incident that aptly summed up the fog of war in Iraq — relatives burying nine women and a child they said were victims of a bomb attack on a bus in which the U.S. military said no one died.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) – Israeli forces killed four Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, hours after the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers demanded a halt to all Israeli “aggression” as a condition for a ceasefire.

PRISTINA (Reuters) – U.N. authorities in Kosovo told Serbia on Wednesday to stop interfering in Serb areas of the new state, where a Serb boycott has fuelled speculation Belgrade is trying to partition the territory.

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) – A Hamas leader and representatives of the Fatah-dominated PLO plan separate visits to Yemen to discuss Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s initiative to reconcile the rival Palestinian groups.

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey plans to invest up to $12 billion in its impoverished, mainly Kurdish southeast region as part of efforts to drain support for separatist PKK rebels, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) – Hundreds of students burnt tires and blocked roads in the eastern Pakistani city of Multan on Wednesday in protest at the reprinting in Danish newspapers of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad last month.

(Reuters) – Following are security developments in Iraq at 8:30 a.m. EDT on Wednesday. * NEAR KIRKUK – A roadside bomb targeting a local council member near Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, wounded two of his bodyguards, police said.

AMMAN (Reuters) – Jordanian authorities on Wednesday released Jordanian Sheikh Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi, a leading al-Qaeda mentor, after several years imprisonment without trial, security sources said.