ISLAMABAD – Violence may erupt in volatile Pakistan in the run-up to February elections but a six-week postponement of the polls has not fueled unrest, the head of a European Union observer mission said on Friday.

ISTANBUL – Turkish police have detained more than 40 suspected members of the outlawed Turkish Islamist militant group Hezbollah, state news agency Anatolian said on Friday.

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey – The death toll from a bomb explosion in southeast Turkey’s largest city has risen to five, including three children, and the number of injured stands at 110, security sources said on Friday.

GAZA – Israeli troops killed two Palestinian Hamas gunmen and wounded three others in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the Islamist faction and hospital officials said.

TEHRAN (FNA) Tehran’s interim Friday Prayers leader Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani called on Iranians to watch out for any wasteful use of the country’s heavily subsidized energy supplies, cautioning that Iranians are the only world nation consuming cheap energy supplies extravagantly.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iranian Vice-President for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Seyed Ahmad Moussavi was assigned as Tehran’s ambassador to Damascus.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iran’s deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Seyed Abbas Araghchi was appointed as the country’s ambassador to Japan.

TEHRAN (FNA) Libya has hinted it will not support further sanctions on Iran if its nuclear file goes back to the UN Security Council.

TEHRAN (FNA) Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said in the central city of Yazd on Thursday that Iran should have launched nuclear efforts several decades ago to meet the growing need to electricity.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iranian embassy in Ankara reacted angrily to an article last month by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband in the Turkish daily Zaman which argued the need to keep up the pressure on Iran over its nuclear activities.