Iran Focus

AFP: Iran unveiled on Thursday a new drone, dubbed the Epic, capable of carrying out both surveillance and attack missions, the Mehr news agency reported.

Bloomberg: As more than 190 candidates signed up to stand in Iran’s presidential election for a successor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, media attention is focusing on a potential runner who hasn’t registered.

Reuters: The United States has blacklisted two companies it says helped Iran evade sanctions on oil sales and slapped penalties on four Tehran-based firms it says helped the Islamic Republic enrich uranium, the latest efforts to pressure Iran's nuclear program.

AFP: Syria will "give Hezbollah everything" in recognition of its support and will follow the militant group's model of "resistance" against Israel, a Lebanese newspaper on Thursday quoted President Bashar al-Assad as saying.

New York Times: Iran’s state television broadcast a live program in which passers-by were placed in a chair and asked what they would do if they were president. Suddenly, a young woman grabbed the microphone and said. “Those who really sit on this chair are only there to fill their own pockets.”

Reuters: Legislation introduced by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Wednesday would block Iran's access to billions of dollars worth of foreign currency reserves in the latest congressional effort to slow development of the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program.

Wall Street Journal: The Iranian government has launched a pre-emptive crackdown ahead of presidential elections next month, Iranians say, including disrupting the Internet, creating a cyber-surveillance unit for social media, arresting a prominent editor and canceling university classes.

AP: A bipartisan group of senators are pushing for a new round of penalties on Iran, determined to cripple the regime's economy and thwart any nuclear ambitions.

New York Times: When the hostages came home from Iran 32 years ago, after 444 days in captivity, they were heroes, and their release was unalloyed good news, a national triumph, observed with ticker-tape parades, speeches, awards and miles of yellow ribbons.

Wall Street Journal: If he thought about Iran strategically, he would have backed Iran's Green Revolution after the stolen 2009 parliamentary elections. He would also not have sabotaged chances for a U.S. military presence in Iraq by insisting on parliamentary approval of a status-of-forces agreement.

Reuters: Iran has condemned what it called a Syrian rebel attack on a shrine where remains of a 7th-century figure revered by Shi'ite Muslims were dug up and taken away, highlighting how Syria's civil war is inflaming sectarian anger.

Reuters: Sudan has granted an Iranian firm a licence to explore for gold in the African country, state-linked media said, a sign of strengthening business ties between Khartoum and Tehran.

Reuters: The Iranian property developer leant back in his chair, drew hard on a shisha pipe and looked down at photographs of a Tehran apartment block on his tablet computer.

Fox News: Religious freedom is in short supply in the Middle East, according to the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which has issued a report finding Iran chief among the nations where spiritual beliefs can bring prison sentences or worse.

Reuters: Foreign container shipping lines are giving up on Iranian business ahead of new U.S. sanctions in July, dealing a further blow to Tehran's vital seaborne trade.

Reuters: A senior Iranian diplomat linked to Iran's reformists has been detained for nearly two months and is in solitary confinement at Evin Prison, a facility rights advocates have criticized for prisoner abuse, sources told Reuters on Tuesday.

AFP: Five years after seven Bahai leaders were arrested in Iran, members of the faith are campaigning to increase attention to their plight in hopes that authorities will release them.

AP: An ex-Marine incarcerated in Iran for nearly two years says in the first letters written to family in Michigan that he is praying for his ailing father and that his grieving mother should not come visit him.

AFP: Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi held talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday and said it was time to dissuade Israel from carrying out attacks such as its air strikes on Syria over the past week.

AP: Iran has started registering candidates for next month's presidential election that will pick a successor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The hard-line Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog that supervises the elections, will vet the applicants before allowing them to run in the June 14 elections.

Wall Street Journal: Hezbollah fighters joined Syrian government forces in the siege of a rebel-held town inside the war-torn country on Monday, local residents said, deepening the Iran-backed group's involvement in Syria's civil war and raising alarm among U.S. officials.

AFP: A Kenyan court sentenced two Iranians to life in prison on Monday for terror-related charges, including possessing explosives allegedly to be used in bomb attacks.

AP: From Israel's perspective, its airstrikes near Damascus were more about Iran than Syria: Tehran's shipment of guided missiles destroyed in the weekend attacks would have posed a potent threat had the weapons reached Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.

AP: The fighter's body was collected at an Iraqi border crossing with Iran, then carried on Monday through the streets of this southern city as mourners hailed his sacrifice in protecting a revered shrine in Syria.