GAZA – Palestinian gunmen stormed the American International School in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Saturday, smashing windows, seizing computers and torching buses but causing no injuries, security sources said.

AMMAN – Iraq hopes to conclude by July a pact with the United States that lays the basis for long-term strategic ties between the two countries and defines the legal status of U.S. troops, Iraq’s foreign minister said on Saturday.

BAGHDAD – Iraq’s parliament passed a law on Saturday to ease restrictions on mostly Sunni Arab members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party returning to public life, one of the main political benchmarks set by the United States.

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan – Dozens of Afghan journalists and activists on Saturday sought the release of a journalist detained by security officials for allegedly making blasphemous comments.

KABUL – Dozens of people have been killed by heavy snow and freezing weather in recent days in Afghanistan, an official said on Saturday.

TEHRAN (FNA) UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei expressed the hope that continued cooperation between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency would lead to the normalization of Iran’s nuclear issue by the next meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors in March.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the International Atomic Energy Agency not to be influenced by the great powers and to fulfill its duties on the basis of legal criteria.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission is decisive to increase the country’s defense budget, a commission member said here on Saturday.

TEHRAN (FNA) An earthquake measuring 3.8 on the Richter scale jolted the region of Hoseiniyeh in Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan on Saturday.

TEHRAN (FNA) Pakistan will sign a key gas sale and purchase agreement with Iran in January to import gas via a proposed pipeline, Pakistan Petroleum Minister Ahsan Ullah Khan said yesterday.