Kidnappers holding a Japanese student taken hostage in Iran are still holding him outside the Islamic republic in the border zone between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the judiciary said on Tuesday.

NEW YORK – The Defense Department is announcing that a 34-year-old soldier from Queens has been killed by a roadside bomb while on duty in Afghanistan.

Tehran dismissed the recent statements made by the French defense minister about Iran’s nuclear activities, saying that such meaningless remarks which bear no value undermine France’s international status.