New Delhi, Oct 31: The Government has approved the signing of a new and more liberalized Air Services Agreement (ASA) between India and Iran.

The existing one was initialed on June 10, 1980.

A new agreement was initialed between India and Iran after bilateral talks on April 29-30 2008 in New Delhi, which is based on the International Civil Aviation Organization 
(ICAO) template and is in line with India''s liberalization in the air transport sector.

An memorandum of understanding (MoU) was also signed during these bilateral air services consultations.

Kiev - A senior Ukrainian aviation official said Iran intends to purchase and later produce a licensed version of a Ukraine's Antonov 148 mid-range passenger jet, the Interfax news agency reported on Wendesday.

Dmitro Kiva, chairman of the Kiev-headquartered Antonov aerospace factory, said Iran "will fully participate" in the subsequent production of the aircraft.

The An-148 is a twin-engine high-wing passenger plane designed for operation at rough airfields. Ukraine developed the aircraft during the 1990s and certified the single flying prototype in February 2007.

Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday again blamed the United States for the global market crisis.

"This is not a global crisis but your (US) crisis," Ahmadinejad said in Khorramabad, western Iran.

"After the political failures (in Iraq and Afghanistan), the wrong US policies also affected their own economy," the president said in a speech carried live by the news network Khabar.

Ahmadinejad said US and Western desire for hegemony had led to the current market crisis.

"You (US) are the roots for all the corruption in the world and there is no way out of this dilemma than to return to the path of spirituality, ethics and justice," he said.

Tehran - The Iranian parliament motion Sunday demanded that Interior Minister Ali Kordan be impeached for having presented it with a faked honorary doctorate from Oxford University, ISNA news agency reported.

Parliament will debate on November 4 whether the impeachment would be accepted or not, ISNA said.

In a letter to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month, Kordan admitted that the certificate from the prestigious British university which he presented to parliament was a fake.

But he also claimed that he was victim of a swindle by a man who allegedly posed as a representative in Tehran of the university.

Presentation of false documents, especially in government service, is a crime punishable by a imprisonment in Iran.

Washington - The United States has imposed sanctions on 13 companies accused of aiding the weapons programmes of North Korea, Iran or Syria, the State Department said Friday.

Beirut - Iranian speaker of parliament Ali Larijani is to travel to Iraq and Lebanon in the next few days, according to a report published by the Saudi Arabian daily Al-Watan on Wednesday.

Larijani will convey messages from Iraqi Ayatollah Ali Sistani to Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the daily quoted unnamed sources from Iran as saying.

The sources said that the letter carried by Larijani, who is currently visiting Manama, revealed Sistani's position on the security agreement between Iraq and the United States.