On the Christmas Eve, the parliamentary foreign relation commission in Latvia decided to back the current presidential Chief of Staff as the country’s next ambassador to the United States.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Sudan’s visiting Defense Minister Field Marshal Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein met with Iran’s Parliament Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel here in Tehran on Sunday.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- A slow landslip which started in recent weeks in a highland region called 2000 in the vicinity of Tonekabon in northern Iran has deteriorated since Saturday, a local official said.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran on Sunday called on the US troops to release the five Iranian diplomats who have been kidnapped during an earlier raid by the US forces on the Islamic Republic’s consulate general in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Deputy Governor General of Iran’s southern province of Hormuzgan strongly rejected rumors about eruption of clashes between Iranian and US battleships in the Persian Gulf.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian parliament speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel here on Sunday condemned the Thursday raid by the US military troops on Iran’s consulate general in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran’s Ahmadinejad and Venezuela’s Chavez in Caracas on Sunday said they were decisive to establish a strategic investment fund.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Tehran and Caracas issued a joint statement and signed 10 cooperation agreements and Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) in various grounds on Saturday.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran and Venezuela called on the other members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to slash their production in a bid to prevent any further drop in the world oil prices.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- A senior Iranian lawmaker, assessing the new Iraq strategy of the US President George W. Bush, said that the United States’ new moves in Iraq and the region are all destined to failure.