Iran Focus

AFP: France on Wednesday urged the international community to stop the progression of Syrian troops, backed by Hezbollah fighters and Iran, towards the strategic northern town of Aleppo.

Amnesty International: Iran’s authorities have intensified the clampdown on dissidents ahead of the country’s presidential election on 14 June, Amnesty International said in a new briefing published today.

Reuters: An Iranian deputy foreign ministry said his country had been invited to a planned international peace conference in Geneva aimed at ending the war in Syria, Iranian state television reported on Wednesday.

Reuters: Friday's presidential election in Iran is unlikely to bring significant change to the Islamic republic, whose supreme leader has ensured hardline candidates dominate the field. But the sole moderate could yet upset the race.

Reuters: With the ear of Iran's supreme leader as the "real foreign minister" behind the scenes, Ali Akbar Velayati has long tended to the Islamic Republic's prickly relations with the West and now hopes to put his diplomacy to use as president.

Wall Street Journal: Economic sanctions have been working to strangle the Iranian economy, and now, the country's diplomats and overseas businesses are being cut off from Costco.

AFP: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Iran had a right to a peaceful nuclear programme but slammed as "unacceptable" its threats against its regional nemesis Israel.

AFP: Iranian ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani backed Hassan Rowhani for Friday's presidential election, saying the former nuclear negotiator who champions better international ties is "more suitable" for the post.

AFP: Sole reformist candidate Mohammad Reza Aref pulled out of Iran's presidential race on Tuesday as the reformist camp including ex-president Mohammad Khatami urged voters to rally around Hassan Rowhani, a moderate.

AFP: Iran's foreign ministry on Tuesday denied its Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant had suffered a malfunction, saying the process of its start-up was going ahead without a hitch.

AP: Iran says it has launched a 50-year-old destroyer on the Persian Gulf after overhauling it and rearming with modern missiles. Since 1992, Iran has been pursuing a self-sufficiency military program, reportedly producing its own jet fighters, tanks, missiles and light submarines as well as torpedoes.

Reuters: A conservative former parliament speaker dropped out of the June 14 Iranian presidential election on Monday in a move to consolidate the hardline vote and lessen the chances of an upset favoring a moderate candidate.

Reuters: A senior Iranian diplomat linked to Iran's reformists, who has been detained at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison for three months, has been denied access to his attorney for the entire time, sources familiar with the case told Reuters on Monday.

AP: Iranian media are reporting that a centrist presidential candidate may be disqualified from the June 14 election. The report late Sunday by the semi-official Mehr news agency says the country's electoral watchdog may review Hasan Rowhani's qualifications.

AFP: A leading Iranian conservative clerical group has endorsed veteran diplomat Ali Akbar Velayati to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 14 presidential election, a media report said on Sunday.

Reuters: A Lebanese protester was killed outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut on Sunday after gunmen from the Iranian-backed Shi'ite militia Hezbollah opened fire when anti-Hezbollah Shi'ite demonstrators approached, witnesses and officials said.

AP: Iran says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has visited a planned nuclear reactor that's part of a growing dispute between Tehran and the U.N.'s atomic agency.

The Telegraph: To many voters casting a ballot in this week's Iranian presidential elections, there will be little real difference between the boxes marked "Saeed Jalili" and "Mohamed Qalibaf".

AFP: Iran's media on Saturday hailed the latest televised debate of presidential candidates, highlighting sharp exchanges among them on topics such as the nuclear issue and political freedom.

Wall Street Journal: Presidential debates are fairly new phenomena in Iranian politics. As such, Iranians and Iran-watchers follow them closely for a rare chance to hear an uncensored view of what politicians really think about various issues, ranging from the economy to social freedom and nuclear policy.

PolicyMic: The Iranian presidential elections in 2009 remain a landmark event, with an unprecedented uprising shaking the theocracy in Tehran to its core and capturing the world’s attention for weeks.

AFP: Candidates vying for Iran's presidency clashed on Friday in a heated televised exchange over nuclear talks with world powers, with pointed criticism aimed at top nuclear negotiator and hardline candidate Saeed Jalili.

AP: Suicide attackers rammed car bombs on Friday into a bus carrying Iranian pilgrims and a police checkpoint west of Baghdad, killing 19 people in all, in the latest bout of violence to rattle Iraq.

AFP: Press cartoonists say they are dodging "moving red lines" in the run-up to a June 14 presidential election in Iran, a country where a satirical image can get a newspaper banned or an editor jailed.