Middle Orient

The Secretary-General of the United Nations was forced to duck behind the podium at a press conference in Baghdad today when a suspected rocket attack shook the building he was in and sent debris falling from the ceiling.

Members of a Hamas-led police force clashed on Thursday with gunmen loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction in a second straight day of factional fighting since the formation of a unity government.

British soldiers fired plastic bullets at inmates in a British-run prison in Iraq after several guards were attacked while serving them food, a British military official said on Thursday.

Efforts to resolve the Lebanon political crisis seem to have reached a dead end. Leaders on Tuesday blamed each other for obstructing what was considered an imminent deal that would have satisfied the minimum demands of both the majority and the opposition.

Police defused a small bomb at the American University of Beirut on Thursday in what appeared to be the latest of a series of attempts to cause explosions in Lebanon, security officials said.

In a message on the occasion of the new Iranian year 1386, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei named the new Iranian year 1386, the year of national unity and Islamic solidarity.

Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar Conveyed Separate Messages to the Defense Ministers of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan wishing them happy Norooz (new year).

President of Armenia Robert Kocharian stressed the point that the Armenian nation will not forget the assistances that the Islamic Republic of Iran provided to the Armenian nation during the hard times experienced by the Armenian nation.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the ceremonies marking inauguration of the pipeline project for the transfer of Iran’s natural gas to Armenia reiterated that Iran-Armenia joint projects reinvigorate friendship bonds between the two nations and cause expansion of mutual cooperation to the interest of the two nations as well as …

 In his message on the occasion of the new Iranian year 1386, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wished the Iranians a happy new year and reiterated that today Iran and Iranians are known in the world as symbols of ethics, faith, purity, culture, affection, unity and might.