Middle Orient

TEHRAN (FNA) – Radio Ma’aref (Islamic Knowledge) has launched its English service on the ninth anniversary of the start of its work which coincided the birth anniversary of Imam Musa Kazem (Shiites’ seventh Imam) on Sunday 17 February.

TEHRAN (FNA) – Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said the reason Western powers threaten Iran is that they are afraid of the nation’s determination.

TEHRAN (FNA) – Iran’s parliament has approved a bigger budget for 2008-09 totaling the equivalent of $310 billion.

BAGHDAD – Negotiations to free a CBS News journalist seized in the southern Iraqi city of Basra a week ago are being held up over discussions about how he should be released, a leading Shi’ite militia group said on Sunday.

JERUSALEM – French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Sunday that Israel and the Palestinians have made no real progress since a U.S.-sponsored peace conference in November, and called the situation dangerous.

ISMAILIA, Egypt  – A locally made Palestinian rocket exploded on the Egyptian side of the crossing point with Gaza on Sunday, damaging an Egyptian administrative building, security sources said. There were no injuries.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Sunday, ending a long chapter in the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia.

GAZA – Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, has voiced confidence that Egypt will help it ease the effects of an Israeli blockade.

BAGHDAD – A female suicide bomber killed at least three people and wounded four others in central Baghdad, police said on Sunday, the latest such attack to be carried out by a woman.

GAZA – Israeli forces killed three Palestinian militants and a civilian during fighting in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on Sunday, medical workers said.