TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Commander of Iran’s naval force said his troops enjoy high capabilities for defending the country’s territorial waters.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran has turned down demands by the United States to halt its uranium enrichment program as a precondition for direct negotiations with Washington, Iranian foreign minister said here today.

TEHRAN – Iran has boosted oil export earnings in non-U.S. dollar currencies to 90 percent, a senior official said on Sunday, making clear the world’s fourth-largest crude exporter would continue to reduce its dollar exposure.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Some 2,500 tons of narcotics enter Iran from neighboring Afghanistan annually, an anti-drugs official said on Sunday.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran’s Supreme Council for Management and Economic Planning has allocated $1bln for the acquisition of new passenger aircraft.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran will be announcing bidding for its 19 nuclear power plants, an MP was quoted as saying.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian energy minister said his country’s first nuclear power plant will be functional within three months, contradicting earlier claims by Russian company constructing plant that it won’t be operational before end of 2008.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran and Italian power company Edison are nearing agreement on a deal to pump more than a billion cubic feet of Iranian gas to Europe per day, the Iranian oil minister said on Sunday.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here Sunday voiced Tehran’s support for Zimbabwe’s independence and progress, and called for the utilization of all the ample potentials existing for the expansion of Tehran-Harare cooperation.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stressed that expansion of Tehran-Beijing all-out ties would serve the two nations’ interests as well as global peace and security, and warned against the plots hatched by the enemies of the two states’ consolidated ties.