TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- An Iranian pianist and an Italian clarinet player are scheduled to stage a duet in Tehran’s Andisheh Hall on December 22.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in separate phone talks with Arab League chief Amr Moussa and OIC Chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu on Monday discussed important regional issues.

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran is to shift its foreign currency reserves from dollars to euros and use the euro for oil deals in response to US-led pressure on its economy.

KING ABDULLAH ON Tuesday offered to host a meeting in Amman between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh to defuse escalating Fateh-Hamas tension.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Thirteen men convicted of murder, kidnapping and other crimes were hanged in a Baghdad jail on Tuesday, lining up shortly before their execution in hoods and green jumpsuits, their hands bound behind their backs.

BEIRUT (AP) — Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa began a new round of talks with rival Lebanese factions on Tuesday to resolve growing political and sectarian tensions that are threatening to tear the country apart.

TRIPOLI (AP) — A court on Tuesday convicted five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor of deliberately infecting 400 children with the HIV virus and sentenced them to death, provoking condemnation from the EU and Bulgaria and shouts of joy in Tripoli.

MOGADISHU (AFP) — Somalia’s powerful Islamists Tuesday said they were finalising plans to fight Ethiopian forces deployed in the lawless country as a seven-day ultimatum for Addis Ababa to pull out its troops was due to expire.

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Graphic video footage of villagers fleeing or falling dead from what prosecutors called a chemical attack against Kurdish civilians was shown at Saddam Hussein’s genocide trial on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed Syrian leader Bashar Assad for talks Tuesday focusing on fighting between Palestinian factions and the political crisis in Lebanon — as part of Moscow’s effort to strengthen its role in the Middle East amid escalating tensions in the region.