* India's Iran oil debt pool funds rice payments * Pakistan-Iran border rice trade shrinks * Dubai's role in Iran rice trade also less By Daniel Fineren DUBAI, March 7 (Reuters) - Iran's oil export revenues are helping Indian rice exporters to claw back some of the lucrative business lost to cross-border truckers in Pakistan as a result of Western sanctions.

France on Thursday confirmed that world powers will make a "substantial" new offer to Iran in a bid to resolve the dispute over its nuclear programme at talks next week in Kazakhstan. "We will make a new offer that will contain significant new elements," the French foreign ministry's deputy spokesman, Vincent Floreani, said. The next round of talks with Iran under the "P5+1" format -- UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany -- will be held on February 26 in Almaty after a long gap.

Yemen's national security chief on Saturday accused Iran of "damaging Yemen" as the interior ministry said it was pursuing a probe into an Iran-linked arms shipment which was seized last month. "Such a shipment cannot be made by traders or smugglers... Only an official power stands behind it," national security chief Ali Hassan al-Ahmadi told reporters in Sanaa. "We have repeatedly urged our brothers in Iran to reassess their stances towards Yemen. They had always denied any interference, but this shipment sadly affirms that they insist on damaging Yemen," Ahmadi said.

UN human rights experts on Tuesday urged Iran to stop arresting journalists after a wave of detentions that they said was a "flagrant" violation of international law. "The recent wave of arrests of journalists solely for carrying out their professional activities is a flagrant violation of Iran's obligations under international human rights law," four UN experts said in a joint press release.