Middle Orient

BEIRUT – Lebanon’s presidential election was postponed from Monday to February 11, the parliament speaker said on Sunday, announcing the 13th delay of a vote blocked by the country’s political crisis.

GAZA – Gaza’s main power plant began shutting down on Sunday due to a fuel shortage caused by Israel’s closure of the Hamas-controlled territory’s borders, a move taken in response to Palestinian rocket attacks.

TEHRAN (FNA) Half of Iran’s hand-woven carpet exports are destined for the US, head of the National Center for Iranian Carpet said here on Sunday.

TEHRAN (FNA) US President George Bush is making hasty efforts to correct his abundant mistakes in this last year of his presidency, but he won’t succeed in doing so, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Alireza Sheikh Attar said.

TEHRAN (FNA) Senegal’s Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio voiced pleasure in the expansion of his countries’ relations with Iran, and said he would pay a state visit to Tehran in the near future.

TEHRAN (FNA) Mexican deputy foreign minister voiced her country’s preparedness to attend a third round of joint economic cooperation commission meetings with Iran in 2008.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in a message on Sunday demanded secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to arrange an extraordinary meeting of the OIC foreign ministers to deal with the inhuman crimes committed by the Zionist regime of Israel in Gaza.

TEHRAN (FNA) An earthquake measuring 4.7 on the Richter scale jolted the region of Tabas in Iran’s central province of Yazd on Sunday.

TEHRAN (FNA) Russia has delivered more than half the fuel for Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, after a fourth consignment arrived on Sunday.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iran’s finance minister has raised the stakes in Southeast Asia by another notch by suggesting that a planned natural gas pipeline to Pakistan can be extended to Thailand.