Iran News

Sunni Muslim computer hackers have attacked hundreds of Shiite websites including Shia Islam's most popular site linked to the community's leader in Iraq, Iran's Fars news agency reported, according to AFP.

Iran softening on Israel? Yeah, right. Fri, 09/19/2008 - 5:50pm ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images I doubt Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent warm fuzzies across Israel yesterday when he said that it's not Israelis Iran has a ...

It's the fasting month of Ramadan, and fear of God keeps taxi driver Abdel Karim Romaneh from reaching for the pack of cigarettes next to his gearshift during the day, despite his pounding head and frazzled nerves.

But once the sun sets and the call of 'Allahu Akbar' from Ramallah's mosques ends the daytime ban on food, drink and cigarettes, Romaneh indulges in his favorite vice.

'I don't want to quit smoking,' said Romaneh, 42, who lights one Gauloise Light with another, inhaling deeply in between sips from a glass of thick Arabic coffee. 'Smoking is a joy.'

"Thesis, voiced by editor-in-chief of Tehran-based Armenian-language Alik newspaper Derenik Melikyan, is a truth, but not officially voiced position of official Tehran on Azerbaijan and Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh", said famous political scientist Vafa Quluzade.

"All warm words of representatives of official Tehran are a diplomatic necessity, a lie and a game. In the reality, Iran's interests lie in support of Azerbaijan's enemies, in weakening our country. I am confident that Iran will always support Armenia in Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

But Iran's real face is well-known to official Baku. Therefore, no one in Azerbaijan should be surprised that there are two Hay Dat offices in Iran and that Iran does not want the lands, surrounding the so-called "Nagorno Karabakh Republic", to return to Azerbaijan", said Quluzade.

The recent merger of four Southern Azerbailani (Iranian) political parties as the Front for the National Independence of South Azerbaijan (FNISA) and subsequent remarks on it by the deposed President of Azerbaijan Elchibey have drawn attention to the unification of the two parts of Azerbaijan-Northern and Southern Azerbaijan, or the Azerbaijan Republican and Iranian Azerbaijan. The reports have failed to mention, however, that this Is the third time since the beginning of World War II that such a movement has emerged in Southern Azerbaijan, and that each time it has gained the support of Northern Azerbaijan's intellectual, creative, and political elite. The difference this time, according to a FNISA spokesperson, is that the appearance or the independent republic of Azerbaijan created a real base for the unification of Southern and Northern Azerbaijan and a single, independent state of Azerbaijan."

Head of the Iranian Assembly of Expert's Center for Strategic Research says he has not yet made a decision on running for president.

Intensified diplomacy and tougher economic sanctions aimed at Iran's oil and gas industries are more likely to be productive, said the forthcoming report by the Bipartisan Policy Center, prepared under the ...

Major powers meet in Washington on Friday to haggle over a fourth round of U.N. sanctions against Iran, but tensions with Russia and the U.S. political calendar hang over the timing of any new measures.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at Israel on Thursday, saying the Jewish state would not survive, even if it gave up land for a Palestinian state.

TEHRAN: Iranians are likely to endure further power cuts this winter despite their country's huge oil and gas reserves, Energy Minister Parviz Fattah warned in comments published on Wednesday.

By Jim Loney

MIAMI (Reuters) - The United States slapped sanctions on six Iranian military firms on Wednesday and charged 16 foreign companies and individuals with illegally obtaining U.S. military goods for Tehran, including microchips that can be used to trigger roadside bombs.

The U.S. Treasury Department said it would sanction six Iranian military firms owned or controlled by entities singled out before for their roles in Tehran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Washington suspects Iran of building a nuclear weapon and has imposed several rounds of sanctions against Iranian companies and state entities as a means of pressuring Tehran to give up sensitive atomic work. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful power purposes and not to build a bomb.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran's Seismological Center says a magnitude-5 earthquake has cut electricity and caused panic on Iran's Qeshm island in the Persian Gulf.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian rights groups and lawyers have stepped up a campaign against execution of juvenile offenders hoping to save about 120 people convicted as minors who are now on death row, a lawyer behind ...

The Iranian Parliament voted in favor of a bill Tuesday that would punish apostasy with the death penalty, a human rights group reported.

The Kazerun combined cycle power plant is going to come on stream in the presence of the Energy Minister Parviz Fatah, MNA reported.

This freewheeling boomtown has always been the place where Iranians go to escape US sanctions.

Iran s former president Mohammad Khatami criticized the government s confrontational foreign policy, saying it plays into the hands of the enemy, in comments reported on Sunday.

Five former U.S. secretaries of state said on Monday the next American administration should talk to Iran, a foe President George W. Bush has generally shunned as part of an "axis of evil." Engaging Iran is ...

Iran`s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reportedly has a secret plan to accelerate nuclear arms production by simulating a breakdown at the nuclear reactor of Bushehr.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert will discuss Iran's nuclear program at a special meeting of senior ministers on Wednesday, officials said.