Iran Focus

Bloomberg: Taiwan resumed oil imports from Iran in March after ceasing purchases a month earlier, according to data from Ministry of Economic Affairs.

Reuters: Facing an imminent toughening of sanctions, Iran is hinting at a readiness to give some ground in its long nuclear stand-off with world powers, but any flexibility could split their ranks and lead to protracted uncertainty about how to respond.

AP: The negotiating stance from Iranian officials never varies: The Islamic Republic will not give up its capabilities to make nuclear fuel. But embedded in the messages are meanings that reach beyond Tehran's talks with world powers.

AFP: Iran warned on Tuesday that Riyadh's plans to form a union with Manama would deepen the crisis in Bahrain, a day after Saudi Arabia told Tehran to keep out of its relations with the tiny Gulf kingdom.

UPI: Negotiations are under way to choose contractors for the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Iran to Iraq, Iranian officials said.

Reuters: Iran and the U.N. nuclear watchdog ended two days of talks on Tuesday by agreeing to meet again next week, just two days before Tehran resumes negotiations with world powers concerned it may be seeking to develop atomic bomb capability.

Reuters: Britain and France are studying a proposed European Union ban on insuring tankers carrying Iranian oil to see how severe an impact it would have on trade with non-EU countries, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Tuesday.

CNN: An Iranian rapper is facing death threats and has a $100,000 bounty on his head for a song that some say insults an Islamic Shiite imam.

Bloomberg: Iran Khodro Co., the country’s largest carmaker, said it plans to manufacture 30,000 cars, mostly the Samand sedan, at a production site in neighboring Iraq this year.

AFP: India said Tuesday it would cut purchases of Iranian oil by 11 percent following pressure from the United States to join a drive to isolate the Islamic republic over its disputed nuclear programme.

AP: Iran has hanged a man who was sentenced to death for the 2010 killing of a nuclear physicist, state TV reported Tuesday.

Reuters: The United States is not impressed with India's efforts to cut its oil imports from Iran, a top U.S. diplomat said on Tuesday, throwing into doubt whether New Delhi would be given a waiver from U.S. financial sanctions before a June deadline.

UPI: Outlandish is probably the polite way to describe a claim made by the U.S. State Department during a recent court hearing on the People's Mujahedin of Iran.

New York Times: To the untrained eye it could be an industrial boiler or a storage tank. But an unidentified official says the picture above shows an explosives chamber used by Iran to conduct nuclear weapons-related tests.

CNN: An Iranian delegation met with officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, on Monday as diplomatic wrangling continues over Tehran's controversial nuclear program.

Bloomberg:‎ A United Nations visit to Iran’s Parchin military complex may top the agenda of a two-day meeting between Iranian diplomats and UN nuclear inspectors.

Reuters: The U.N. atomic watchdog will press its demand for access to an Iranian military site in talks starting on Monday that could influence the prospects for a broader diplomatic push to settle the decade-old stand-off over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

AFP: In a bid to circumvent crippling international sanctions, Iran has been routinely switching off satellite tracking systems on its sea-bound oil tankers, The Washington Post reported.

Independent: Iran spurned a previously undisclosed American offer from President George W Bush of talks aimed at reaching a "grand bargain" over long-standing differences between Washington and Tehran, a leading figure in the country's theocratic regime has revealed.

Wall Street Journal: New research reveals that Iranian society has a pro-liberal value structure deeply at odds with the fundamentalist regime.

AP: A drawing based on information from inside an Iranian military site shows an explosives containment chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests that U.N. inspectors suspect Tehran has conducted there.

Bloomberg: Former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard went to Iran for a private visit, not at the request of President-elect Francois Hollande, according to a Socialist lawmaker.

AFP: Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said on Sunday that Tehran will not yield to pressure ahead of talks with the UN atomic watchdog and the world powers over its controversial nuclear drive.

CNN: Ahead of upcoming nuclear talks, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad downplayed the threat Israel poses to Iran, comparing it to an annoying bug.