TEHRAN (AP) — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday shrugged off the West’s criticism of Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme and said that eventual new UN sanctions would not harm Iran.

IN A BOLD BLOW to Iraqi hopes for peace, suspected Al Qaeda bombers toppled the towering minarets of Samarra’s revered Shiite shrine on Wednesday, adding new provocation to old wounds a year after the mosque’s golden dome was destroyed.

A POWERFUL CAR bomb killed anti-Syrian Lebanese politician Walid Eido and nine other people on Wednesday in an attack his colleagues blamed on Damascus, Reuters reported.