TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations Organization Mohammad Javad Zarif will be replaced by deputy economy and finance minister and head of investment organization Mohammad Khaza’ee, an informed source said here on Wednesday.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Romania’s incoming Ambassador to Tehran Christian Teodorescu met with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and submitted to him his credentials here on Tuesday.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- The deployment of the mine hunter USS Gladiator in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday was not aimed at Iran, a US Navy spokesman said.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran stressed on Tuesday that his country was still cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency despite announcing a day earlier that it had banned 38 of the UN watchdog’s inspectors from working in the country.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- The United States is incapable of inflicting “serious damage” on Iran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday.

BAGHDAD (AP) — US attack helicopters chattered overhead Wednesday as American and Iraqi troops fought a ferocious daylong battle with fighters who fired heavy weapons from concrete high-rises in a stronghold just north of the heavily fortified Green Zone.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee dismissed President George W. Bush’s plans to increase troops strength in Iraq on Wednesday as “not in the national interest”, an unusual wartime repudiation of the commander in chief.

BEIRUT (AFP) — Calm returned to Lebanon as roads were cleared and Beirut airport reopened on Wednesday after the opposition called off a general strike that sparked deadly street fights ahead of a donor conference in Paris.

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TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- US navy aircraft carrier Eisenhower left the Persian Gulf for the eastern coasts of Oman a few days ago, an informed source in the Iranian armed forces said here on Tuesday.