Middle Orient

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian border security guards on Friday evening arrested 21 Pakistanis on the two countries’ border and handed them over to Taftan police.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran’s Charge d’affaires in Lebanon conferred with Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh on Friday.

NICOSIA (Reuters) – Activists seeking to challenge Israel’s sea blockade of Gaza were struggling with rough seas and disruptions to their communications, the group said on Saturday.

(Reuters) – Following are security developments in Iraq at 1200 GMT on Saturday. NEAR BAIJI – Gunmen killed four members of a U.S.-backed neighborhood patrol in a drive-by shooting at their checkpoint just south of Baiji, 180 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s former culture minister, believed to be in hiding since last year, has been sentenced to death by hanging for involvement in the killing of another politician’s two sons, a court spokesman said on Friday.

(PNN) – The Israeli High Court is scrutinizing a ruling in the shooting case of Ashraf Abu Rahma. Israeli forces shot him in western Ramallah’s Nal’in Village, a town active in the nonviolent resistance against the Wall. He was blindfolded and handcuffed when an Israeli soldier shot him at point …

Human rights activists set sail from Cyprus on Friday, August 22, to the Gaza Strip to break the months-long Israeli blockade on the 1.6 million Palestinians in the poverty-stricken strip.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Syria’s head of international markets and exhibitions organization Friday night said that Iran’s presence in the 55th Damascus International Exhibition was significant.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq wants an agreement authorizing the continued presence of U.S. troops on its soil to expire in three years, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Friday.

CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) – The White House on Thursday said the United States hoped an agreement extending the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq beyond 2008 would be reached soon.