Washington/Tel Aviv - The United States has transferred to Israel a high-powered radar system that will improve Israel's reaction time to a possible Iranian missile strike, the Defense News magazine reported over the weekend.

Quoting US and German sources, the magazine said that more than one dozen aircraft transferred the X-band radar system and some 120 supporting personnel and equipment to Israel on September 21.

The high-powered, high-frequency system is designed to detect and track ballistic missiles soon after launch and can track an object the size of a baseball from 4,700 kilometres away.

Tehran  - The head of the Iranian Atomic Organization will go to Vienna to attend the General Assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), official news agency IRNA reported Saturday.

Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh, who is also vice-president, is scheduled to address the assembly Monday and is also expected to meet with IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei, IRNA said.

Aqazadeh is in charge of the technical aspects of Iran's nuclear programmes while Saeid Jalili, as chief nuclear negotiator, is in charge of political talks with the world powers through European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

Berlin- Germany has recalled its ambassador to Iran because a German diplomat attended a military parade in Tehran, a foreign ministry spokeswoman said Saturday.

The spokeswoman confirmed a report in the news magazine Der Spiegel that Ambassador Herbert Honsowitz had been told to report to Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday morning.

The magazine said the foreign minister was "very angry" that the embassy's defence attache attended the parade after ambassadors from EU member states had agreed to boycott it.

A banner reading "Israel should re erased from the world" was displayed at the event, which was addressed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the report said.

New York - After a day of sharp exchanges over the Middle East peace process and Iran's role in the region, world powers on Friday urged Israeli and Palestinian leaders to reach a final peace deal by the end of the year.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she still believed a comprehensive agreement on a two-state solution was possible by the end of 2008, a goal first set in November 2007 at a US-hosted summit in Annapolis, Maryland.

Rice said the fact there was a process represented a change from the seven years of silence before Annapolis. Both sides had "come quite a long way from those dark days."

New York - The world's major powers agreed on Friday on a new Security Council resolution calling on Iran to halt its nuclear activities, but did not seek additional sanctions against the Tehran regime.

The council's five permanent members - the United States, China, Russia, France and Britain - plus Germany touted the new resolution as a show of unity after the UN-backed International Atomic Energy Agency last week said that Iran was expanding its uranium enrichment programme and not cooperating fully with the agency's investigators.

New York - The Middle East quartet charged with overseeing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process voiced confidence in the ongoing talks between the two sides toward a final resolution to the long conflict.

The quartet, made up of the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia, said that a "meaningful and results- oriented" process was underway and again called for both sides to reach a deal by the end of this year, in a statement following talks at the United Nations in New York.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she still believed a comprehensive agreement on a two-state solution was possible by the end of 2008, a goal first set in November 2007 at a US-hosted summit in Annapolis, Maryland.