Iran parliament approves Ahmadinejad cabinet

Iran's parliament has approved President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nominations for the final three posts in his 21-member cabinet after rejecting his initial candidates as being unqualified.

MP Hamid Reza Hajibabai, former interior minister Sadeq Mahsouli and Majid Namjou, a former deputy energy minister, were voted in to head the education, welfare and energy portfolios respectively.

It had been expected that Ali Zabihi would be the new energy minister.

Parliament approved 18 members of the new Ahmadinejad cabinet on 3 September.

They included the country's woman minister Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi, a doctor who holds the health portfolio.

At the time parliament rejected the nominations for education, welfare and energy ministers on the grounds that they were unqualified.

Mr Ahmadinejad's June election to a second four-year term triggered the worst political crisis in the Islamic republic's 30-year history.

Opposition candidates and their supporters claimed that the vote had been rigged.

'Time running out on nuclear talks'

Elsewhere, US President Barack Obama has said the world was running out of time in efforts to use diplomacy to resolve a crisis over Iran's nuclear programme.

'We are running out of time with respect to that approach,' Mr Obama said after talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in Singapore.

Mr Medvedev said Russia was also unhappy about the pace of talks with Iran and said that other means could be used if discussions did not yield results.

He said: 'Thanks to joint efforts the process of (the Iran talks) has not stopped but we are not completely happy about its pace.

If something does not work there are other means to move the process further.'