Middle Orient News

 The South Asian regional grouping SAARC approved observer status for Iran alongside the United States and the European Union, an Indian minister said.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here on Wednesday issued the required orders for the release of the 15 British troops arrested on March 23rd after trespassing on Iran’s territorial waters.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here on Wednesday said if Washington revises its attitude, resumption of ties between Iran and the US will be possible, stressing that his country seeks friendly and extensive ties with all the world nations, except for Israel.

The 15 British troops, who were arrested by Iran’s border guards on March 23rd for illegal entry into Iranian waters, appreciated Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for pardoning them.

Today, man’s honor and value are ignored, people’s rights are trampled, their lands are usurped and their progress is impeded while there exists no world authority to stand up to the bullying states and defend the rights of the oppressed, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said here on Wednesday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad awarded a third degree medal of courage to the commander of Iran’s southwest coast guards, Captain Abol-Ghassem Amangah.

Multiple suicide bombers struck in predominantly Shiite markets in Baghdad and in a town north of the capital, killing at least 104 people and wounding scores on Thursday — the day that new US Ambassador Ryan Crocker took office.

As people flocked Saturday to a hospital in a Shiite Muslim district of the capital to visit loved ones injured in recent attacks, a car bomb tore through the crowd of well-wishers, killing five people and wounding two dozen others.

The real deadline for Congress to provide more money for the war in Iraq is well beyond the April 15 deadline cited by President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Iraq’s government has endorsed plans to relocate thousands of Arabs who were moved to Kirkuk as part of Saddam Hussein’s campaign to force ethnic Kurds out of the oil-rich city, in an effort to undo one of the former dictator’s most enduring and hated policies.