AP: A billionaire businessman at the heart of a $2.6 billion state bank scam, the largest fraud case since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, was executed Saturday, state television reported. Authorities put Mahafarid Amir Khosravi to death at Evin prison.
Report: Iran billionaire executed over $2.6B fraud
Iran cuts nuclear stockpile, engages with bomb probe – IAEA
Reuters: Iran has cut its most sensitive nuclear stockpile by around 80 percent under an interim pact with world powers and has begun engaging with a long-stalled IAEA investigation into suspected weapons research, the U.N. atomic watchdog said on Friday.
Iran’s nuclear deception
Washington Times: The clerics who hold a tyrannical grip over Iran have done it again – hoodwinked the West while buying more time to develop nuclear weapons. The United States must put the Islamic republic back on the front burner before it’s too late.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards train a new group to fight in Syria
Al Arabiya: Hassan Rowhani’s government and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) do not appear to have difficulties in acquiring new approaches and methods when it comes to supporting Tehran’s staunchest ally, the Assad government.
Afghans condemn Iran over recruiting refugees to fight in Syria
Wall Street Journal: Some Afghan lawmakers condemned what they said was Iran’s exploitation of Afghan refugees by sending them to fight for the regime in Syria and called on the government to investigate.
Oil companies returning to Iran face obstacle in form of Revolutionary Guards
Wall Street Journal: Iran is hoping to lure major oil companies back to invest in its all-important energy sector, but any oil firms that return to Iran will find a new force to be reckoned with: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps.
France’s Iran negotiator switches roles at delicate stage in talks
Reuters: France’s main negotiator in talks between six world powers and Iran is leaving his post at a crucial moment, less than two months before the deadline for a final agreement over Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Iran’s hardliners fall into line backing Zarif in nuclear talks
Bloomberg: Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif got the backing of one of the biggest critics of his government’s stance in nuclear talks, as the country’s hardliners fall into line with the search for detente.
End of mandate for EU’s Ashton raises questions over Iran talks
Reuters: As Iran and international negotiators work towards a July deadline to complete an accord with Tehran on its nuclear program, a practical issue may be on their minds: the looming changeover of the European Union’s foreign policy chief.
More than a million alcohol drinkers in Iran: report
AFP – More than a million Iranians drink alcohol, a participant in the country’s First World Congress on Alcohol Abuse was quoted Tuesday as saying. The ISNA news agency attributed the comments to the president of the Asia Pacific Association of Medical Toxicology.
