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.

Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon led international condemnation of a suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed as many as 80 people, one of the deadliest attacks since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) — The United Nations condemned “in the strongest terms” the suicide attack that killed about 80 people and injured 50 others in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar Sunday morning.

Photo: Eliminated ringleader of Chechen murtadin Akhmad Kadyrov   The ringleader of Chechen murtadin (apostates) Kadyrov, in widely advertised Internet-conference once more declared that Mujahideen allegedly suffered “total defeat”. Kadyrov reiterated his thesis that “total of 50-60 militants” are remaining in Chechnya’s mountains.

Observers say violence in Ingushetia’s main town shows republic is spiralling out of control. A growing confrontation between the authorities in Ingushetia and a new opposition movement is turning violent and making this autonomous republic the most volatile region in the North Caucasus.

January 2008, St. Petersburg. A group of neo-nazis beat a teenager belonging to the so called “emo sub-culture”, breaking his arm and causing brain concussion

A former Russian top spy says his agents helped the Russian government steal nearly $ 500-million from the United Nations’ oil-for-food program in Iraq before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

David King, who as the Government’s Chief Scientist played a key role in the investigation into Litvinenko’s murder, has accused the Russian president of masterminding the murder of nearly 300 of his own people in the Moscow apartment bombings in 1999, which Putin blamed on Chechen rebels.