The following is the full text of Ahmadinejad’s letter to George Bush:  “In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful, Mr George Bush, President of the United States of America, For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international …

TRIPOLI (AP) — Oil-rich Venezuela’s anti-American president, recently slapped with a US arms embargo, was given a warm welcome to the Libyan capital Wednesday by Col. Muammar Qadhafi, whose authoritarian regime was only just removed from Washington’s list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

DAMASCUS (AP) — Iran’s foreign minister warned against a possible “escalation of the crisis in the region” as he arrived in Damascus on Thursday to discuss his country’s nuclear programme and the situation in Iraq with the Syrian president.