AFP:Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Thursday urged Middle East nations to promote a solution for Syria’s conflict that excludes “foreign intervention,” after talks in Cairo with Egyptian leaders.

AP: Australia has expanded sanctions against Iran amid growing concerns over the country’s suspected nuclear weapons program. Foreign Minister Bob Carr said in a statement Thursday that the new sanctions affect the financial, trade, energy and transport sectors.

AFP: US financial institutions are being pounded with high-powered cyber attacks that some suspect are being orchestrated by Iran as payback for political sanctions.

AP: Rebels freed 48 Iranians on Wednesday in exchange for more than 2,000 prisoners, including women and children, held by Syrian authorities — a deal struck after rare negotiations involving regional powers Turkey, Qatar and Iran.

AFP: A British businessman was sentenced to 33 months in a US prison Wednesday for trying to smuggle a key missile component to Iran, officials said.

AP: President Barack Obama’s pick for defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, is meeting with senior Pentagon staff to try to set the record straight about his stand on Iran, saying he backs strong international sanctions against Tehran and believes all options, including military action, should be on the table.

AFP: Turkey has for several days been holding a cargo plane en route from the United Arab Emirates to Iran after its crew refused to document its load, a customs ministry official told AFP on Wednesday.

AP: Two years after a hostage video and photographs of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson raised the possibility that the missing American was being held by terrorists, U.S. officials now see the government of Iran behind the images, intelligence officials told The Associated Press.