International and Bilateral Issues:

A 1,000-year-old manuscript, “ Nahjul Balagha ”, said to be a collection of letters, speeches and aphorisms of the fourth Caliphate of Islam Hazrat Ali, was released for publication at Aligarh Muslim University
The Urdu, Hindi and English versions of this rare manuscript will be published by the AMU with financial support of the Iran Government.
Another book, “ Bahr-e-Zakhkhar ”, said to contain a rare collection of Tazkira (a sort of biography mostly in the form of poetry) in Persian was also released.

The U.S. has slapped sanctions against ten companies linked to the Iranian shipping industry; with many of them linked to Irano Hind, a joint venture with India's premier public sector undertaking Shipping Corporation of India (SCI).
The action was being taken as Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) and its subsidiaries have increasingly relied upon multiple front companies and agents to overcome the impact of U.S. and international sanctions and increased scrutiny of their behaviour
As IRISL and its subsidiaries continue their deceptive efforts to escape the grasp of U.S. and international sanctions, we will continue to take action — as we are today — to expose the front companies, agents and managers working with IRISL and work to stop this illicit business

Russia has won the right to veto the establishment of new foreign military bases in the member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO).
In order to deploy military bases of a third country in the territory of the CSTO member-states, it is necessary to obtain the official consent of all its members
Kazakhstan took over the rotating presidency of the CSTO from Belarus.
The defence bloc of former Soviet states also includes Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The tightening of rules for opening extra-regional military bases apparently does not apply to existing facilities, such as the U.S. transit centre in Kyrgyzstan, a German air transit facility in Uzbekistan and French military aircraft based in Tajikistan.
However, the decision gains importance in the light of reported plans by the Pentagon to redeploy to Central Asia some of the forces that will be pulled out of Afghanistan in 2014.

A week-long siege of a Chinese village, whose 20,000 residents were protesting land acquisition and had driven out local officials, appeared to end on Wednesday after the Chinese government conceded to their demands in a rare climb-down.
For more than a week, the village of Wukan in southern Guangdong province has been under the control of rebelling villagers, who had earlier this month clashed with police and driven out local Communist Party officials after months of tension following the sale of their land to a private developer.
Recent protests were triggered by the death of a village leader, who had been representing farmers in talks with the government, while he was in police custody.

The 22 Indian fishermen rescued by the Sri Lankan Navy off the north-western coast here, in two separate instances, are now awaiting repatriation in a residential facility in Jaffna.
The Sri Lankan Navy said the fishermen illegally entered its waters. They were arrested and produced before the Kayts Magistrate, who ordered their release.
The gesture — of not remanding them to judicial custody as has been the case each time the fishermen cross over — has been welcomed by the Indian Mission and the fishermen.

The senior U.S. commander in Afghanistan has suggested U.S. forces could remain in the country beyond 2014 despite President Barack Obama's pledge to withdraw them by then.
But he said negotiations with the government of President Hamid Karzai on a strategic partnership agreement would “almost certainly” include “a discussion with Afghanistan of what a post-2014 force will look like