Month: February 2010

Tehran, February 03: Iranian official has announced that a budget of USD three billion is needed for controlling drug trafficking on the country’s borders.

“The Majlis has approved 115 million dollars for budget allocation to strengthen border security this year. The Interior Ministry, however, had presented a 200-million-dollar-bill for the matter,” Deputy Interior Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Mahdi Mohammadifar, said Tuesday.

Sanaa, February 03: Saudi fighter jets have launched a new round of aerial bombardments of Houthi positions in northern Yemen despite a truce offer put forward by the Yemeni Shia fighters.

According to a statement released by the Houthis on Tuesday, Saudi forces carried out 24 aerial attacks on the northern regions of Ghamar, Muhazat, Bani Maaz, al-Mukash, Qatabir, and Harf Sufyan as well as the villages in close proximity to the border regions with the oil-rich kingdom.

Several homes were reportedly destroyed while more than a dozen people lost their lives in the airstrikes.

Tehran, February 03: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he will announce good news about “great achievements” by Iranian scientists in the aerospace industry in the near future.

He made the remarks in a live interview with Channel One of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting on Tuesday night.

Ahmadinejad did not elaborate on the details of the aerospace industry breakthroughs, but on Monday, Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi announced that Iran will inaugurate five important aerospace projects on February 3, which is the country’s Aerospace Technology Day.

Ankara, February 03: Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have held talks in Ankara that focused on the expansion of ties between Iran and Turkey.

Mottaki travelled to the Turkish capital on Tuesday to attend the 21st meeting of the Iran-Turkey Joint Economic Commission and met Erdogan after his arrival.

During the meeting, the Iranian foreign minister highlighted the importance of the agreement between Iran and Turkey to set up joint industrial towns and said the move could lead to a great enhancement in their bilateral relations.

Kabul, February 03: The Taliban fighter sitting in the front of the car was expressive, engaging, and dismissive of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s pleas for men like him to lay down their guns.

Omar Khel, a tribal militant from Wardak province outside Kabul, is exactly the kind of reluctant rebel the Afghan government and the international community want to bring in from the cold.

Tehran, February 03: A senior Iranian military official says Iran has developed a special weapon that can bring down Apache helicopters.

Col. Nasser Arab-Beigi, the director of the self-sufficiency organization of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), told the Fars news agency on Tuesday that the “special weapon” can also target advanced tanks.

He noted that the new weapon will put an end to the battlefield supremacy of the United States’ Apache helicopters.

Manama, February 03: A Kuwaiti social affairs and labour ministry official has denied media reports claiming that visit visas can be turned into work permits.

“There is no truth to the reports that family visit or tourism visas can be changed to residence permits,” the unnamed official was quoted as saying by Al Siyassah daily on Tuesday.

“Such a possibility is confined to business visits provided that the visa holder has an advanced qualification. The condition is to ensure strict limits on the number of unskilled and marginal labourers in the country”

Riyadh, February 03: A 12-year-old Saudi girl has dropped her petition to divorce an 80-year-old man her father forced to marry in exchange for a dowry, according to media reports on Tuesday.

The girl and her mother reportedly withdrew the case on Monday in a court in Buraidah in Al Qasim province.

The girl told the court that her marriage to the man was done with her agreement, according to Okaz newspaper.

According to reports, the girl’s father, who is separated from her mother, arranged her marriage to the 80-year-old in exchange for a dowry payment of $22,667 (Dh83,414).

Abu Dhabi, February 03: Chief of Dubai Police and Hamas officials on Tuesday made light of an Israeli press report pointing fingers at Arab parties, and not Israelis, for the assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai two weeks ago.

“As usual, they are lying,” Lt General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, Chief of Dubai Police, told when reached for his comment on a report published by the Haaretz newspaper.

Hamas officials, also, accused the Israeli media of deception and “covering their crime”, a reference to the killing of senior Hamas military commander Mahmoud Al Mabhouh in his hotel room.