ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous region has agreed to withdraw troops from a neighboring Iraqi province and hand over security in the area to forces of the central government, a Kurdish official said.

MINGORA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani artillery and helicopter gunships killed nine pro-Taliban militants in an assault on their hideouts in the restive northwestern Swat valley on Saturday, army officials said.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran will launch its first satellite in the next few days, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The fire, which began at the National Golestan park in the Northern Khorasan province of Iran in the morning of 15 August, is still going on.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Unknown armed men kidnapped two Iranian businessmen in Afghanistan’s western Herat province and police have yet to locate them, police spokesman in western region Abdul Rauf Ahmadi said Saturday.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The impending arrival of new US warships in the Persian Gulf region will mark the largest build-up of US naval forces in the area since the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian stage director Siamak Ahsaei is slated to present his Terminal at Theater an der Ruhr’s Landscapes Festival this September.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said sanctions against the Islamic Republic will not impede the country’s nuclear progress.

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran increased its gas exports to Turkey after the Russia-Georgia conflict disrupted supplies from Azerbaijan.

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has signed the ceasefire agreement faxed to him by US diplomats, formally ending hostilities with Georgia. Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili put pen to paper yesterday on the deal, which had already been signed by separatist leaders in the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.