Middle Orient

TEHRAN (FNA)- Dana Gas said yesterday it would start to receive the much-delayed natural gas supplies from Iran in mid 2008, although Tehran has remained silent over earlier statements by the UAE company that deliveries would start soon.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said global problems can only be resolved if the followers of monotheistic faiths work together to overcome them.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini said that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to disclose new achievements in the country’s nuclear program on Tuesday.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United Arab Emirates will establish the first joint high political commission in Tehran this week, Iran’s envoy to Abu Dhabi said.

BUCHAREST (Reuters) – President George W. Bush urged NATO allies on Wednesday to send more troops to Afghanistan, but France distanced itself from expectations in the alliance that it could deploy 1,000 extra soldiers.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli court-martial charged a military tracker from the Jewish state’s Arab minority on Monday with spying for Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

LONDON (Reuters) – The exiled leader of the Islamist Palestinian Hamas group, Khaled Meshaal, said on Monday that an Israeli soldier captured in 2006 and held in Gaza is alive and being well treated.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The Dutch foreign minister met ambassadors from Muslim countries on Monday to try to cool tempers over a film by a Dutch lawmaker critical of the Koran and ask for protection for Dutch citizens and property.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki expressed hope that Syria’s presidency over the Arab Summit will help put an end to the ongoing crisis in Palestine.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The managing director of Marun Oil and Gas Production Company said his firm is ahead of a planned program of production and is now producing 590,270 barrels of crude oil per day.