Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that under the light of its religious beliefs, the Muslim Iranian nation will never let any aggression against the ideological and geographical borders of this sacred territory, IRNA reported.

In an apparent reference to the four-point Kashmir formula, mooted by Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf which, includes demilitarisation and joint control of the Jammu & Kashmir state, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he welcomed “all new ideas with an open mind”. “It was time both countries work together for a new future”, he said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad renewed on Wednesday a call upon world powers not to interfere in the internal affairs of neighboring Lebanon, the official SANA news agency reported.

Arab League chief Amr Moussa worked with rival Lebanese leaders on Wednesday on a draft agreement to end Lebanon's political crisis, but wide gaps remained, political sources said.

The first batch of 30 Qatari troops arrived in Lebanon yesterday as part of a United Nations peacekeeping mission that will see some 203 Qatari armed forces personnel deployed in the country by the end of January.

The United States believes arms continue to be smuggled into Lebanon through Syria, U.S. ambassador to Lebanon Jeffrey Feltman said on Wednesday.

President George W. Bush publicly said on Wednesday that insurgents in Iraq had this year succeeded in fomenting sectarian violence, undermining the Iraqi government and thwarting US efforts to secure stability.

President George W. Bush delivered two messages on Iraq yesterday: He isn't in denial about the difficulties of the war, and he will spurn any strategy that includes a withdrawal on terms short of what he calls victory.

UNITED NATIONS: Britain and France circulated a revised U.N. resolution that would impose sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program and predicted approval Friday after a mandatory travel ban was dropped to meet Russian objections.

The Lord Stevens report on the deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed comes nearly a decade after the fatal Paris car crash. Why has it taken so long to reach this point?