Washington - The United States has moved to cut off all Iranian transactions routed through US banks to further tighten sanctions over the Islamic state's nuclear and other illicit activities, the US Treasury Department announced Thursday.

Iranian banks and other institutions could previously send transactions through US banks as long as they were initiated by a non-Iranian or American bank outside the US and ended in a non- Iranian or American bank outside the US.

Tehran - Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday, in a rare move, congratulated the US president-elect Barack Obama on his success in the recent US presidential race.

"Mr Barack Obama, the president-elect of the United States of America, I congratulate you for being able to attract the majority of votes in the elections," said Ahmadinejad at the start of the message address to to the next president of the country which happens to be Iran's arch-foe.

Tel Aviv - Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni warned US president-elect Barack Obama Thursday against holding a dialogue with Iran, saying Tehran could interpret such overtures as "weakness."

But she added she was not concerned that a US administration under Obama would greatly chance its attitude toward Israel.

Tehran - A senior advisor to Iran's supreme leader welc

Washington, Nov 5: The United States thwarted a suspect shipment from North Korea to Iran by persuading the Indian Government to deny clearance for the North Korean flight to travel through Indian airspace, US officials have said.

Nine weeks after the flight was diverted in August, the Bush Administration removed North Korea from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism in a bid to salvage an accord to end Pyongyang’s nuclear programs, the Washington Post reported.

US officials suspect that the North Korean plane, an Ilyushin-62 jet owned by the North Korean state airline, was carrying sophisticated technology -- such as ballistic missile parts -- that could be used in a program for weapons of mass destruction.

Tehran - The Iranian parliament on Tuesday dismissed the interior minister for presenting a false document and refusing to resign following his admission that his university certificate was a fake.

Ali Kordan had been under pressure since August, when he took office, to make the case clear but refused to resign when Oxford University in Britain denied awarding him an honorary doctorate through its representative in Tehran, as he had claimed.