Iran Focus

Bloomberg: U.K. lawmaker Richard Ottaway who chairs Parliament’s cross-party Foreign Affairs Committee wrote to Foreign Secretary William Hague asking him to clarify whether he agrees with U.S. policy to “do whatever is necessary” to prevent Iran from accessing nuclear weapons.

Bloomberg: Iran pressed Hezbollah fighters to join the civil war in Syria to bolster President Bashar al- Assad’s armed struggle, according to Sobhi al-Tofaili, a disaffected former leader of the militant group.

Reuters: Maritime police in Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland seized five Iranian ships and detained 78 Iranians in a rare crackdown on illegal fishing in Somalia.

U.S. News & World Report: Iran is the Syrian regime's biggest supporter, even more so than Russia. Tehran's ties with Damascus have historically been based on shared strategic interests, including thwarting U.S. and Israeli power in the Middle East.

AP: Iranian users of Samsung mobile applications said Thursday that the company had notified them that they will no longer have access to the company's online store as of May 22.

UPI: Fixing the Iranian economy is moving to the top of the political agenda as presidential hopefuls develop campaign platforms, candidates said.

AFP: Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement came under increasing pressure over accusations it is backing regime troops in Syria, as a rebel leader warned of the risk of sparking a sectarian war.

Bloomberg: Iran’s state-owned Press TV website said on April 19th that the country finalized an export deal, citing Javad Owji, deputy oil minister and head of the National Iranian Gas Co. The reports are “nonsense,” Conradin Rasi, a spokesman for the Swiss Federal Office of Energy, said today by telephone.

Reuters: Syria hopes to clinch more financial aid from its allies Russia and Iran soon, but still has enough foreign reserves to pursue its war on rebels trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad, the central bank governor said.

AFP: The 1981 novel won the coveted Booker Prize and launched the Anglo-Indian writer's career -- but seven years later the glamorous literary life came to an abrupt stop when Iran slapped a death sentence on him for "The Satanic Verses."

Bloomberg: Iranian meat and cooking oil prices surged after the government stopped providing foreign currencies at a preferential exchange rate to importers of essential goods, the Tehran-based Shargh newspaper and other local media reported.

Reuters: Iran is storing millions of barrels of oil on tankers in its territorial waters as Tehran struggles with tougher Western sanctions on its vital seaborne export trade, ship industry sources say.

Bloomberg: Iran’s finance minister says his country’s economy is adapting to Western sanctions by finding new markets for agriculture and mining products after oil exports plunged by almost half.

New York Times: Iranians rushed to supermarkets to buy cooking oil, red meat and other staples on Tuesday, stockpiling the goods over new fears of price spikes from a change in the official exchange rate that could severely reduce the already weakened purchasing power of the rial, the national currency.

AP: An Iranian man using a fake Israeli passport is being questioned in Nepal after being arrested outside the Israeli embassy, police said. The man identified only as Mohsin Khosravian is being held in a detention center in Katmandu.

Washington Post: One of the Obama administration talking points is that it has weakened and isolated the Iranian regime. Aside from the economic beating Iran has taken, there really isn’t any evidence that has come about.

AFP: Iran's Finance Minister Shamseddin Hosseini said Tuesday that international sanctions had pushed inflation above 30% and were causing "a lot of trouble" but that Iran's nuclear drive would not be halted.

AP: The case against an Iranian-American man accused of helping Iran launch its first satellite may sound like a James Bond movie but it's a real life drama, a prosecutor said Tuesday as trial opened.

AP: Iran's armed forces joint chief of staff is accusing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of trying to manipulate public opinion. It is the latest exchange of harsh rhetoric between outgoing Ahmadinejad and his conservative opponents ahead of the June election.

AP: Iraqi security forces backed by helicopters raided a Sunni protest camp before dawn Tuesday, prompting clashes that killed at least 36 people in the area and significantly intensified Sunni anger against the Shiite-led government.

Reuters: Iran said on Tuesday that it would be a "reliable partner" in the Middle East if Western countries would take a more cooperative approach in talks on its nuclear program.

AFP: Iran criticised on Tuesday a US deal to sell advanced missiles and aircraft to Israel, saying the move will only destabilise the region.

Reuters: Before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad started a visit to Niger last week, there was talk that the poor West African state might add Iran to its list of buyers for the uranium mined in its remote desert north.

AP: Iran is denying any link with two suspects charged with plotting a terrorist attack against a Canadian passenger train.