Tag: Iran

TEHRAN - Iran has arrested a "network of spies" linked to Israel's Mossad intelligence service that it blames for the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist in 2010, its state television reported on Monday.
"The network of spies and terrorists linked to ... Mossad was destroyed," state television quoted a statement issued by the intelligence ministry as saying.
"The network was behind the assassination of Masoud Ali-Mohammadi." A remote-controlled bomb killed the

KABUL - Fuel prices rose by about 27.4 percent, with petrol about 12.3 percent, during the outgoing week as a result of shortages after Iran blocked shipments of oil into Afghanistan, Kabul-based dealers said. One litre diesel was sold for 65 afghanis and the same amount of petrol for 56 afghanis against their last week's rates of 51 afghanis and 48 afghanis respectively, a fuel seller in Taimani area of the city, Ahmad Khali said.
He said the prices could further increase if

YEREVAN - Armenia on Friday denied that a US woman reportedly detained in Iran for alleged spying after entering the country from Armenia had ever been to the former Soviet republic.
The woman, identified as Hal Talayan, was initially reported by Iranian media to have been detained after entering Iran with espionage equipment hidden in her teeth.
But later reports contradicted this, saying that she had not been allowed to cross the border between Armenia and Iran because she

TEHRAN - Iranian officials have arrested an American woman on spying charges after she tried to enter the country from Armenia "with spying equipment in her teeth," Fars news agency reported on Thursday.
"About a week ago an American spy woman whose name is said to be Hal Talayan was arrested by customs officials at Nordouz" border area in East Azarbaijan province, Fars said, quoting an unnamed source. "The 55-year-old American woman was arrested while she had entered Iran from

TEHRAN - Iran is to open its atomic sites to some world powers, officials announced on Tuesday, as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted the West was wrong to confront Tehran over its nuclear programme.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in Tehran that invitations to visit Iran's nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak have been sent to ambassadors of some of the nations represented in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Diplomatic sources at

TEHRAN - Iran's Revolutionary Guards have shot down two "Western spy" drones in the Gulf, the Fars news agency quoted a top commander of the elite military force as saying on Sunday.
"Westerners have a series of capabilities which cannot be ignored, especially satellites, or for example they have spy planes which can take pictures in some places," Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the air force wing of the Guards said.
He said the drones were mainly being used in Iraq and

NEW DELHI - Iran's national oil company has refused to accept payments for oil sales to India without Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guarantees, sources said, prompting a meeting of their central banks over another obstacle to trade with Iran.
The Islamic Republic is under global pressure over its nuclear programme and although United Nations sanctions do not forbid buying Iranian oil, the United States has pressed hard for governments and companies to restrict dealings with Tehran.

TEHRAN - An Iranian court has ruled that a man must lose an eye and an ear after he blinded and burnt an ear of another man in an acid attack, newspapers reported on Wednesday.
Judge Aziz Mohammadi gave the order against the man, who was only identified as Hamid, after convicting him of the throwing acid on the victim, named as Davoud, said the hardline Kayhan newspaper.
The judge also ordered Hamid to pay blood-money for the burn injuries suffered by Davoud, in a ruling

TEHRAN - Iran is yet to agree on an exact date for the next round of nuclear talks with world powers due to be held next month in Istanbul, foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Tuesday.
"There is an agreement on the venue of the meeting but the date has not been finalised yet. Consultations are ongoing to organise talks in Istanbul somewhere around the end of January," Mehmanparast told reporters.
A senior Iranian official said in Damascus on Monday that next

KARACHI - Iran will raise the issue of "unofficial trade" with Pakistan, which has expanded for the last few years, in the forth coming session of Pak-Iran Joint Ministerial Commission (JTC).
Iranian Commerce Minister, with other concerned officials, businessmen and importers/exporters would reach Islamabad by the second week of next month to attend the JTC, scheduled to be held in Pakistan on January 12-13, 2011, sources told Pakistan Today.
To prepare the workings of the

KABUL: Iran is preventing hundreds of fuel tankers from crossing into Afghanistan and supplying US-led NATO troops fighting the Taliban, senior officials in Kabul said Wednesday.
Around 1,600 trucks have been prevented from crossing for three weeks and the situation threatens to push up fuel prices, which have already skyrocketed in recent days, at the start of winter.
Although Kabul says the tankers would be used to supply ordinary Afghans, deputy commerce minister Mohammad

BEIRUT - Lebanon's ruling camp on Tuesday brushed aside comments by Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who dismissed a UN probe into the murder of former premier Rafiq Hariri as "null".
"This is Iran's position," Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of the slain Sunni Muslim ex-premier, told a news conference. "We have nothing but respect for Ayatollah Khamenei, and we fully respect all of his opinions, which he is free to hold," he added. "We in Lebanon, as a government,

TEHRAN - A 6.5-magnitude earthquake struck southeastern Iran, wrecking villages, bringing down power lines, and killing up to seven people and injuring hundreds more, Iranian media reported on Tuesday.
The late Monday quake, with its epicentre near the town of Hosseinabad in Kerman province, was followed by more than 30 further tremors, including one of 5.0 magnitude, the Mehr news agency said, quoting the geophysics department of Tehran university. State media reported that mild

ISLAMABAD - Iran has asked Pakistan to help the country in its investigation of the Chabahar bombing that was claimed by the Jandullah outfit.
Iranian Ambassador Mashallah Shakri called on Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Saturday in Islamabad and handed him a letter from the Iranian government in which the country requested Pakistan to help into the investigation of Chabahar incident.
The interior minister assured the ambassador that Pakistan would provide full support in

TEHRAN: A suicide bomber blew himself up at a Shia religious procession in the Iranian city of Chabahar on Wednesday killing at least 39 people in the latest violence to rock the southeastern border region.
A pathologist cited by the official IRNA news agency said 38 bodies had been brought to the town's mortuary, among them women and children. A 39th casualty later succumbed to his wounds, the pathologist said.
The bomber struck in a central square where worshippers were

TEHRAN - Stars including Sting, Robert Redford and Robert De Niro have signed an open letter to Iran's government calling for the release of a woman sentenced to death by stoning.
Iranian woman Sakineh Ashtiani, a mum-of-two, made headlines around the world earlier this year when she was ordered to be stoned to death over alleged adultery. The execution was suspended following an international outcry.
Now stars and politicians have called for her release, signing a letter to

TEHRAN: Five students in Iran have been detained after one of several anti-government protests held earlier this week, opposition websites said on Thursday. The Kaleme site reported that around 1,000 students rallied at Tehran's Polytechnic University on Tuesday, an annual "students day" which was marked by several other small demonstrations at various campuses around Iran.
Authorities have cracked down on the opposition, which the government says are "seditionists" backed by