A top finance official in Dubai says the Emirates government  will not guarantee the debts of the heavily indebtED state-owned conglomerate Dubai world.Stock markets in Dubai and other parts of the United Arab Emirtes plunged Monday with investors concerned about Dubai's ability to pay back 59 billion dollars in debt.The Dubai market dropped 7.3% while Abu Dhabi's index tumbled 8.3%.

Somali pirates have highjacked an oil supper tanker  with 28 crew members on board. Maritime authorities said the Greek-flagged Maris and Toris was captured Sunday  in the Indian Ocean.The tanker which can transfer more than two million barrels of oil was selling from Kuwait to the United States. The European Union's Anti-pirates Force says the crew includes one Ukrainian ,one Romanian rather, two Ukrainians , nine Greeks and 16 Filipinos.

Iran's speaker of  Parliment says hope remains for diplomatic solution to the international dispute over its country nuclear program. The comment comes a day after the government said it will build ten new nuclear facilities into defyings of international demands. VOA's Elithbeth Therat reports.

Parliament's speaker Ali L J outreached Monday seemed to temperate announcement of plans to build the new urainium enrichment plans.L J said parliament expectes the nuclear issue currently being negotiated by   six major world  powers   can be resolved by diplomatic means.

The parliament speaker also repeated Iran's position that it's abiding by the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and rebuttal to western suspicions that Teheran is seeking nuclear weapons.Also Monday the head of the Iran's Nuclear Program Ali A S said Iran had no intention of building the new enrichment plants until the International Atomic Agency sanctioned Teheran last week.The IAEA board overwhelmingly chose to critize Iran for failing to coorperate on nuclear issues and called   阅读全文>>