KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghan authorities this week shut down two private security companies and said more than 10 others – some suspected of murder and robbery – would soon be closed, Afghan and Western officials said yesterday.

The pilot and co-pilot of a civil plane were killed after it crashed onto a factory in northeastern Tehran at around midday.

Iran, enjoying wide popular support, is the most democratic, stable and secure country in the region, but enemies cannot stand this fact, Iranian Parliament Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel said in a meeting with members of the Presidential Council of Bosnia-Herzegovina Wednesday night.

Iran’s military achievements are not at all comparable with what existed in the past, a senior Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) official said here on Wednesday.

The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2007 was awarded to Doris Lessing, an English writer of Iranian origin.

Iran’s first Vice-President Parviz Davoudi extended his congratulations to Moudibo Sidibe and the Malian government and nation on his appointment as the country’s prime minister.

Iran’s caretaker Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari here Thursday assigned Ali Kordan as his acting deputy.

Secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council Mohsen Rezayee proposed that Muslim countries establish a union under the title of Arab Asia in order to achieve regional convergence.

Japan said Thursday it was working with Tehran to free a 23-year-old Japanese university student kidnapped by suspected bandits as he traveled alone in southeastern Iran.

Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said the country’s political establishment should be open to criticism.