Iran's police chief says the Islamic Republic is developing new software to control social networking sites.

Gen. Esmail Ahmadi Moghadam was quoted in Iranian newspapers Saturday as saying the new software will prevent Iranians from being exposed to malicious content online while allowing users to enjoy the benefits of the Internet. He did not say when the software would be introduced.

Iranian state TV says the country has inaugurated its first natural gas storage facility.

The Saturday report says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad opened the facility at Sarajeh outside the central Iranian holy city of Qom. It said that the site can now store 1.5 billion cubic meters (2 billion cubic yards)but will increase the capacity to 3.3 billion cubic meters (4.3 billion cubic yards) in a second phase of development.

Iran aims to set up the country's first dark sky area on an island in the Persian Gulf to promote astronomical research and tourism.

Iran's English-language state Press TV quotes the director of Iran Sky Party, Hooman Najafi, as saying Wednesday the so-called dark sky park — an area kept free of artificial light pollution to promote astronomy and stargazing — will be established on Qeshem, the biggest Iranian island in the Gulf.

Iranian forces have carried out what they called cyber warfare tactics for the first time as the Islamic republic's naval units staged manoeuvres in the key Strait of Hormuz, media reports said on Monday.

The navy "launched a cyber attack against the computer network of the defensive forces in order to infiltrate the network and hack information or spread virus," the English-language Iran daily reported, quoting Rear Admiral Amir Rastegari.

A car bomb attack on buses carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims to Iran killed 19 people and injured 25 in Pakistan's insurgency-hit southwest on Sunday, officials said.

The remotely-triggered bomb hit a convoy of three buses in Mastung district and set one of them ablaze, said Tufail Baluch, a senior government official in the district.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has sacked Health Minister Marizeh Vahid Dastjerdi, the sole woman in his cabinet, state television reported on Thursday.

The minister had proposed price hikes for a number of medicines due to the plunge of the Iranian rial against the U.S. dollar and Western sanctions imposed on the country over its disputed nuclear program.

Iran has ordered domestic airlines to take off half an hour after pre-dawn Muslim prayers, the website of country's civil aviation organisation quoted its chief as saying on Wednesday.

"According to a directive we issued to the domestic airlines, from now on the airlines will be authorized to take off at least 30 minutes after the morning Azan (the pre-dawn call to prayer)," civil aviation chief Hamid Reza Pahlevani said.

Iran and Russia are holding consultations to defuse tension in Lebanon over the crisis in the neighboring country Syria.

A diplomatic source told al-Liwaa newspaper on Thursday that the two countries want to end the disputes in Lebanon between the political foes to maintain stability in it.

Iran on Wednesday denied statements by a lawmaker that is it paying Russian women working as technicians at its sole nuclear power plant to adhere to the Islamic dress code, the Fars news agency reported.

"Based on the reports we got from our local office and the governor's office in Bushehr, hijab payment for Russian women is absolutely not true," Hassan Ghashghavi, deputy foreign minister in charge of consular affairs, was quoted as saying.

Iran has repelled a fresh cyber attack on its industrial units in a southern province, a local civil defense official said on Tuesday, accusing "enemies" of nonstop attacks against its infrastructure.

"A virus had penetrated some manufacturing industries in Hormuzgan province, but its progress was halted with ... the cooperation of skilled hackers," Ali Akbar Akhavan said, quoted by the ISNA news agency.