Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Aug. 13 – Last-minute horse trading and political deals over ministerial appointments continued on Saturday among political factions within the ultra-conservative camp, as the newly-installed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad put the final touches on his cabinet list. Aides to the president said he would formally present the list to the country’s hard-line parliament (Majlis) in the next 48 hours.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Aug. 13 – In two public moves in less than 24 hours, Iran’s new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad snubbed former president Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and highlighted the simmering tensions between the two rivals in the recent presidential elections.

Reuters: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder rejected the threat
of military force against Iran on Saturday, hours after U.S. President George Bush said he would consider it as a last resort to press Tehran to give up its nuclear programme.
Schroeder, one of the most prominent European opponents of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, told an election rally in his home city of Hanover that the threat of force was not acceptable.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Aug. 13 – New research has found that there are presently over 100,000 individuals infected by the AIDS virus in Iran, a ten-fold increase over previous estimates, a member of the National Committee for Combating AIDS said on Saturday.

Iran Focus: London, Aug. 13 – Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, Iran’s former police chief and defeated presidential contender, has been handpicked by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to head the Islamic Republic’s largest economic conglomerate, according to a close associate of the ultra-conservative general.