GAZA – Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Saturday dismissed U.S. President George W. Bush’s upcoming visit to the Middle East as a “photo opportunity” and said he was not welcome in the region.

BAGHDAD – An Iraqi soldier opened fire on U.S. troops during a joint patrol in the northern city of Mosul on December 26, killing two and wounding three others along with a civilian interpreter, Iraqi and U.S. officials said on Saturday.

KABUL – Afghanistan’s Islamic council has told President Hamid Karzai to stop foreign aid groups from converting locals to Christianity and also demanded the reintroduction of public executions.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iranian inventors made a man-like robot which walks on two feet, discerns words in the Persian language and does other manly actions.

TEHRAN (FNA) Iranian air force commander here Saturday said his country has achieved the technology for manufacturing radar-evading fighter jets and would soon start production of such planes.

TEHRAN (FNA) Turkmenistan has violated a last year contract which required Ashgabat to double supplies to Iran following an increase in prices, an Iranian oil ministry official said.

TEHRAN (FNA) An earthquake measuring 4.3 on the Richter scale jolted the port city of Kong in Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan on Saturday.

TEHRAN (FNA) Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said that Iran would humiliate any possible attacker over its nuclear program.

TEHRAN (FNA) Registration for March 14 parliamentary elections opened on Saturday throughout Iran, with potential candidates set to vie for 290 seats in the legislature including a politically important 30 in the capital Tehran.

TEHRAN (FNA) China’s Soueast Motor Co. Ltd. has clinched a deal with an Iranian company to sell 5,700 minibuses this year after exporting 8,000 of the vehicles to the country last year, the company said on Friday.