Sanctions? Coke and Pepsi found a way around them and are battling for market share in Tehran with local Zamzam Cola. Fortune’s Eric Ellis reports.

GUNMEN in Iraqi army uniforms kidnapped a senior Iranian diplomat in Baghdad on Sunday, an Iraqi Government official said today.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Union oil minister, Murli Deora, said on Tuesday a final agreement between Iran, Pakistan and India on a pricing formula for gas to be delivered by a proposed $7 billion pipeline should by signed by June-end.

LEADERS of the rival Hamas and Fatah groups headed for Saudi Arabia today for talks aimed at ending factional warfare and forming a unity government that could end a crippling Western embargo.

 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided Tuesday to appoint Professor Daniel Friedman, winner of the 1991 Israel Prize for achievements in the field of law, to replace MK Haim Ramon as Israel’s new justice minister, Israel Radio reported.

The United States has no military plans against Iran and Washington agrees to cooperate with Moscow on bringing Iran back to negotiations, the Russian foreign minister said Saturday.

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 6 (Bernama) — The United States of America attacked Iraq not only for its oil, but also to control the flow of the valuable commodity widely used in the east, a renowned media practitioner said here Tuesday.

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Violence raked the capital Monday as the general who will lead Iraqi forces in the coming security crackdown in Baghdad took charge and a senior U.S. military official said the much-vaunted joint operation with American forces to curb sectarian bloodshed would start “very soon thereafter.”

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Police and soldiers ringed a university Monday as students returned for the first time since a political spat in the cafeteria mushroomed into street riots that killed four people and inflamed Sunni-Shiite tensions.

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Two people were killed in the capital early Monday when a mortar round slammed into a central Baghdad neighborhood and a bomb hidden in trash exploded on the city’s east side, police reported.