Iran

Iran has built a new longer-range missile named “Ashura” with a range of 2,000 kilometers, (1,240 miles), the defense minister announced on Tuesday.

Inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog on Monday began examining uranium fuel that Russia is likely to send to Iran’s first atomic power station, a Russian nuclear official said.

Lebanon’s opposition groups voiced strong opposition to the attendance of the country’s prime minister at the so-called Middle-East peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland, warning that Siniora’s participation in the US meeting would serve the interests of the Israeli regime.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa here on Monday, said Tehran believes that Sri Lanka’s progress and mightiness would serve interests of regional countries.

Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa, heading a high-ranking delegation arrived here in Tehran on Monday.

Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said that his country’s oil revenues are projected to hit US$60 billion this year.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Sunday that Tehran hopes to resolve a decades-old dispute with neighboring Kuwait over their maritime border before the end of the year.

Iran said on Sunday a Middle East conference organized by the United States would result in an erosion of Palestinian rights because Washington had shown in the past that it was not an objective mediator.