Middle Orient

TEHRAN (FNA) An earthquake measuring 3.8 on the Richter scale jolted the region of Hoseiniyeh in Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan on Saturday.

TEHRAN (FNA) Pakistan will sign a key gas sale and purchase agreement with Iran in January to import gas via a proposed pipeline, Pakistan Petroleum Minister Ahsan Ullah Khan said yesterday.

TEHRAN (FNA) United Nations nuclear watchdog head Mohamed ElBaradei started talks Saturday with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran.

TEHRAN (FNA) Former Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani registered on Friday to run in the Islamic Republic’s March parliamentary election.

BAGHDAD – Snow fell on Baghdad on Friday for the first time in memory, and delighted residents declared it an omen of peace.

BEIRUT – Lebanon on Friday postponed its presidential election to January 21 from Saturday, the 12th such delay, despite efforts by the Arab League to get rival Lebanese leaders to agree an Arab plan to end the country’s crisis.

ARBIL, Iraq – Turkish artillery shelled northern Iraq on Friday morning, but there were no immediate reports of any casualties or material damage, a Kurdish government official said.

LAHORE, Pakistan – Pakistani investigators were trying on Friday to identify a suspected Islamist militant suicide bomber who attacked police in the eastern city of Lahore the previous day killing 19 people.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iran’s former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani here Friday registered for the looming parliamentary elections in Iran.

TEHRAN (FNA) Tehran’s interim Friday Prayers leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said that the current visit to the Middle-East by the US President George W. Bush would prove futile.