Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak approved electricity and fuel cuts against Palestinians living in the impoverished Gaza Strip on Thursday in an effort to curb rocket attacks on the Jewish state.

It’s stalemate on the border with Iraq after Ankara slammed Baghdad’s proposals to deal with the PKK threat in the north of the country as “insufficient”.

It was a summit between Russia and the EU.However comments about American defence policy dominated headlines, with Vladimir Putin comparing US plans for a missile shield in Europe to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

A prominent Iranian lawmaker dismissed US efforts to impose a new round of sanctions on Iran as a violation of the international rules and regulations, saying that the measure is indicative of the failure of Washington’s policies. 

Iran has decided to reopen its consulate centers in the northern Iraqi cities of Erbil and Suleymaniah, an Iranian official said here on Saturday.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) deputy Director General Ollie Heinonen is scheduled to arrive here in Tehran on Monday to wrap up discussions on Iran’s P1 and P2 centrifuges, an informed source said.

OPEC’s second largest producer Iran has made a drastic cut in gasoline imports through rationing and saved over $1.2 bln in this Iranian year.

Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Mostafa Mohammad Najjar underlined that his country’s missiles capability is not meant to pose a threat to any other country and merely serves as a deterrent to enemy invasion.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is scheduled to pay a visit to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia next month to attend the third summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

A gang of three armed robbers broke into a branch of Iran’s Melli Bank here in Tehran on Saturday and took 72 mln Tomans away after they wounded a security guard.