DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 25--Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the time has come for the UN Security Council to revise its policies and let the IAEA inform the world of its technical views free from certain powers’ pressure.
“With clarification of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear activities, the time has come for the UN Security Council to correct its past policies and give a chance to the IAEA to announce its technical views to the world, free from the pressures of certain powers,“ Mottaki told his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, IRNA reported.
Kouchner hoped that Iran-IAEA cooperation will continue and Iran would enjoy its legal rights after removing all concerns.
The two ministers also exchanged views on consolidation of mutual ties.
They surveyed recent Lebanese developments, hoping that after careful investigation of the country’s conditions and assessment of the abortive efforts in the past, Tehran and Paris would continue consultations to help adopt decisions within a logical and fair framework.
Mottaki and Kouichner also discussed Israeli attacks on Gaza and underlined the need for finding ways to assist the Palestinian nation.
Also on Thursday, Iran’s former President Mohammad Khatami said Iran is the most democratic state in the Middle East.
Addressing the 38th World Economic Forum in Davos, Khatami said, “Obviously, opposition against Iran is politically motivated. Extremists in any religion always consider everything in black and white and have no tool but violence.“
Noting that love is at the core of Islam and Christianity, he said, “Extremists in both the religions want to turn love into hatred.“
Elsewhere in his address, Khatami pointed to the West’s concern about religion and said, “In the West, which had nothing to do with religion, we witnessed world wars I and II.“
More than 2,500 people, mostly senior economic and political figures, from 88 countries have taken part in the World Economic Forum in Davos, which started on Wednesday.
Twenty-seven presidents and prime ministers and 113 ministers are taking part in the forum.
Sixty percent of the participants are representatives of economic sectors and more than 1,370 are heads of the world’s top companies.

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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 25--Iran’s Ambassador to the Organization of Islamic Conference(OIC) Mostafa Boroujerdi declared that OIC’s extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers will be held in Jeddah on February 3, 2008.
Speaking to IRNA on Friday, Boroujerdi added that the meeting is held upon Iran’s proposal to consider the pitiful situation in Gaza Strip.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki sent a message to OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu early this week.
In the message, Mottaki urged the OIC chief to pay attention to the situation in the Gaza Strip and the atrocities of the Zionist regime there and called for holding an extraordinary meeting of OIC member-states’ foreign ministers.

TEHRAN, Jan. 25--Majlis Speaker Gholamali Haddad Adel expressed optimism about the resumption of diplomatic ties between Iran and Egypt.
“My optimism stems from the positive developments that have taken place between the two states in the past couple of years,“ Haddad told Presstv in Tehran on Thursday.
He added that the Iranian and Egyptian nations have ancient and rich civilizations, noting that although Iran and Egypt don’t have diplomatic ties, they have had economic and cultural cooperation.
“I think that the ground is being prepared increasingly for more cooperation every day,“ he said.
Concerns about the problems of Muslim world, particularly the issue of Palestine, could strengthen bonds between the two Muslim nations.
Haddad underlined that promotion of Iran-Egypt ties is in the interest of the Muslim world.Ê

Lebanese firefighters spray a blazing car with water at the scene of a blast in Beirut, Jan. 25.

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Jan 25--An explosion rocked a mainly Christian suburb of Beirut on Friday which killed at least ten people, including a senior police officer, witnesses said.
The Lebanese private Future TV also reported the ten deaths, saying that Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) Capt. Wissam Eid was among the victims, adding Wissam Eid is a senior officer with the ISF’s Intelligence Bureau, Alalam.ir reported.
Charred bodies could be seen at the site of the blast on the outskirts of Beirut, said the report.
The blast occurred in the Hazmiyeh area, home to several diplomatic missions and residences. Ambulances and security vehicles raced to the scene.
It came just 10 days after a car bomb damaged a US diplomatic car in the Lebanese capital, killing three people and wounding 16.
Witnesses said several cars were set on fire by the blast.
During the latest three years, Lebanon has been rocked by a series of blasts, starting with the Oct 1, 2004, assassination attempt against Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamade.
Interior Minister Hassan Sabei said there were two previous attempts to kill Eid.
Eid’s bodyguard also was killed, Rifi said, in addition to three or four civilians. The Lebanese Red Cross said four people were killed and 20 wounded, the state-run National News Agency said.
Friday’s blast came a day after a labor strike that was largely peaceful, and 10 days after a car bomb aimed at a US Embassy car killed three bystanders. In December, a car bombing killed a top general in the army.
It was the second attack against the police intelligence department in less than two years.
On Sept. 5, 2006, Lt. Col. Samir Shehade, deputy head of the intelligence department in Lebanon’s national police force, was wounded when his convoy was targeted by an explosion in the town of Rmeileh, just north of the southern city of Sidon. The explosion killed four people in his convoy.

KARBALA, Iraq, Jan. 25--Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki declared a major offensive against Al-Qaeda on Friday, promising a “decisive battle“ after dozens of people, including a police chief, were killed in bomb attacks in Mosul.
Iraqi forces were moving toward Mosul, 370 kilometers (225 miles) north of Baghdad, for a major assault that would become a “decisive battle“, Maliki told an economic conference in the central shrine city of Karbala, AFP reported.
At least 35 people were killed and 217 wounded in a massive bomb attack on Wednesday that obliterated a building and destroyed houses in Mosul, Iraq’s third main city and capital of Nineveh province.
A suicide bomber killed provincial police chief Brigadier General Salah Al-Juburi and two other officers on Thursday when they went to inspect the previous day’s carnage.
“We have formed an operations center in Nineveh (province) for a final war against Al-Qaeda and the remnants of the former (Saddam Hussein) regime,“ Maliki said.
“Today our forces are moving towards Mosul. What we have planned in Nineveh will be final. It will be a decisive battle,“ he said.
“The crime committed by Al-Qaeda on Wednesday in Nineveh is just the last of their resources. We have defeated Al-Qaeda in Iraq and only Nineveh remains.“
He warned that the Iraqi Army was now a powerful force.
“We have a real Iraqi Army. I want to say that to all those people who think they can do things in front of the Iraqi security forces that those days have gone.“
US intelligence experts warn that Mosul remains a dangerous “strategic center of gravity for Al-Qaeda“ due to its road links to the Syrian border, which most foreign fighters coming into Iraq use as their springboard.
The jihadists can easily blend in with the local population, they say.
Three weeks ago, US and Iraqi forces launched a fresh assault against Al-Qaeda operatives, blamed for much of the violence in Iraq.
On Thursday, Maliki issued an angry statement saying that those behind the Mosul attacks would be hunted down and brought to justice.
“This crime exposes the moral bankruptcy of the terrorists after a string of defeats at the hands of our armed forces,“ he said.

PARIS, Jan. 25--The rogue futures trader who cost French bank Societe Generale $7.14 billion had been betting on a much larger scale--with tens of billions in fraudulent deals, the bank said on Friday.
France’s No. 2 bank apologized to shareholders after discovering what appears to be the biggest-ever trading fraud carried out by a single person. The news on Thursday rattled an already jittery banking sector at a time of global economic uncertainty, AP reported.
The scale of the alleged fraud grew clearer on Friday, when a bank official said 31-year-old trader Jerome Kerviel’s positions had reached “several tens of billions of euros“--a staggering sum for a bank whose market capitalization is 35.9 billion euros ($52.6 billion). The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with bank policy on such matters.
The bank said Kerviel appears to have netted no personal financial gain from the alleged schemes.
The bank’s CEO took out newspaper ads on Friday begging shareholders to accept his “apologies and deep regrets“.
“I understand your disappointment, your anger,“ Chief Executive Daniel Bouton wrote in the full-page advertisements. “This situation is perfectly unacceptable.“
Societe Generale’s shares, which have lost nearly half their value over the past six months, were suspended on the Paris bourse Thursday morning. When trading resumed, shares fell 4.13 percent to close at 75.81 euros ($111.16). Friday morning, shares were trading up 0.15 percent at 75.93 euros ($111.34).
Undetected by the bank’s multilayered security systems, Kerviel had for over a year been fraudulently using the company’s funds to bet on European stock markets, Societe Generale said.

MOSCOW, Jan. 25--Russian President Vladimir Putin demonstrated on Friday his support for Serbia’s position on Kosovo at a Kremlin meeting with Serbian counterpart Boris Tadic where they also signed a major energy accord.
Tadic thanked Putin for backing Belgrade’s opposition to independence for the province of Kosovo, where prime minister Hashim Thaci says a unilateral declaration of independence could be made in days, AFP reported.
“Serbia very much respects Russia’s position as regards Kosovo. Without this position, Serbia would have more difficulty defending its interests in Kosovo,“ Tadic said.
“Serbia has consistently defended its interests in Kosovo, relying on international law, and will never do otherwise,“ said Tadic, who was accompanied by Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica.
The issue of Kosovo’s future pits Russia against the West in a political confrontation with echoes of the diplomatic wrangling over NATO’s 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia and before that the Cold War.
Russia, with historical ties to Serbia, has stressed its opposition to any unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo, while the United States and several European countries have signaled they are ready to accept such a move.
In a statement on Thursday, the Kremlin said it saw no “reasonable alternative“ to a negotiated resolution with a leading role played by the United Nations--a reminder of Russia’s ability to veto any UN recognition of Kosovan independence.
Russian newspaper Kommersant said Belgrade had effectively secured Moscow’s support on Kosovo by agreeing a clutch of deals that give Russia control of Serbian energy assets on relatively easy terms.
“The senior Serbian guests will not only give their blessing to the conclusion of a large bilateral oil and gas deal, but will agree with Moscow on actions in case of a declaration of independence,“ the paper said in an article titled “Gas in Exchange for Kosovo.“
The two sides signed an energy accord described by the Kremlin as a “strategic partnership“.