TEHRAN (FNA)- Russian Vice-Speaker of State Duma Valery Vazev conferred on Tuesday with Head of Iran-Russia Parliamentary Friendship Group Mehdi Sanaei on expansion of parliamentary cooperation between the two countries.

TEHRAN (FNA)- For the second time during his tenure, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been officially invited by his counterpart to visit Iraq.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran reiterated on Tuesday that it is prepared to help establish peace and security in Iraq.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said it is evident that Washington’s delusion of global hegemony has finally come to an end.

TEHRAN (FNA)- A National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGE) official announced that Iran plans to launch gas exports to Armenia in the very near future.

KABUL (Reuters) – The U.S. military is to provide the Afghan army with armored vehicles and NATO standard weapons in an attempt to boost the capability of the fledgling force, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.

KARALETI, Georgia (Reuters) – Russian troops started pulling back from buffer zones outside South Ossetia on Wednesday, two months after Russia’s brief war with Georgia which increased tension with the West.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – An onshore associate of Somali pirates holding a Ukrainian ship with tanks and other weaponry on board said on Wednesday an $8 million ransom deal was in the offing which may enable the boat to be freed within days. “A boat will carry the money from Djibouti …

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An inquiry by the U.S. military has concluded that U.S. air strikes on an Afghan village in August killed more than 30 civilians, far more than U.S. commanders have acknowledged, The New York Times said on Tuesday.

Egypt’s occasionally fragile sectarian ties have been shaken by the murder of a Muslim whose wife converted to Islam against her Christian family’s wishes.