MOSCOW  – President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia would not allow itself to be drawn into what he called a new arms race.

BEIRUT  – Arab League chief Amr Moussa brought feuding Lebanese parties together on Friday to try to agree on a new government and end a protracted political crisis.

GHAZNI, Afghanistan – A suicide car bomber targeting an army convoy killed three people on Friday in Afghanistan, witnesses said.

AUSTIN, Texas – Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said on Thursday a lasting peace accord with Israel was unlikely in 2008 despite renewed diplomatic efforts to resolve the long-running conflict.

WASHINGTON – British police have concluded that Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed by the force of a suicide bomb and not by an assassin’s bullet, The New York Times reported in its Friday editions.

TEHRAN (FNA) – Tehran’s interim Friday Prayers leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami stressed that the Israeli regime could never thwart Palestinian Intifada through continued siege on Gaza and massacre of Palestinians

TEHRAN (FNA) – Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki here Friday assigned new heads for his European, Asian and Economic affairs departments.

TEHRAN (FNA) – Iraq’s electricity ministry delegation is discussing further cooperation with counterparts in Iran, though Baghdad wants projects implemented soon.

TEHRAN (FNA) – Four consecutive earthquakes have hit the southern Iranian province of Fars, the strongest of them measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale.

TEHRAN (FNA) – Iran is waiting for Egypt’s approval to send relief aid to Gaza.