Middle Orient News

BRESSANONE, Italy (Reuters) – Pope Benedict called on Sunday for an immediate halt to the fighting between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway South Ossetia region and urged world powers to help find a peaceful solution.

TEHRAN, (ISNA)-Iran will do its best to provide Iraq’s security vital for the country’s development, said Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili as meeting prime minister of Iraq’s Kurdish regional government Nechirvan Barzani.

TEHRAN, (ISNA)-Iran’s president senior adviser Samare Hashemi said the Zionist regime letter of objection to Turkish government over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visit to Istanbul is “of no value.”

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgia will withdraw 1,000 soldiers from Iraq to help fight off Russian forces in Georgia’s breakaway region of South Ossetia, the head of Georgia’s Security Council, Kakha Lomaia, said on Friday.

TBILISI (Reuters) – Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili will declare martial law in a few hours time, the secretary of Georgia’s Security Council said early on Saturday.

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) – The failure of Iraqi politicians to resolve competing ethnic claims for the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk is storing up explosive problems for the country’s future.

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s forces shut down four Islamic charities and two photocopying shops in the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday for alleged ties to the rival Hamas faction, a security source said.

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – A car bomb in a vegetable market in the northern Iraqi town of Tal Afar killed 18 people and wounded 25 on Friday, police said.

ANKARA (Reuters) – A Turkish man set himself on fire during a protest by ethnic Uighurs in front of the Chinese embassy in Turkey on Friday against China’s rule in the region of Xinjiang as Beijing opened the Olympics.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The Iranian government is planning to sell off up to a quarter of the state owned telecoms operator, Telecommunications Company of Iran (TCI).