The Telegraph: When the aircraft carrier USS John C Stennis returns to the placid blue waters of the Gulf with her strike force of 70 jets in the next few days, she will be ready for action off the coast of Iran.

AFP: Iran’s President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has congratulated Gaza’s Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya in a telephone call on a “great victory” over Israel, the two sides said on Saturday.

AP: State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement released Friday that the U.S. will continue to work to create conditions that could result in a successful conference. But she cited political turmoil in the region and Iran’s defiant stance on nonproliferation.

AP: In identical letters to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council, Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee said the Navy repeatedly violated the country’s airspace.

Reuters: Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar showed how fragile the ceasefire remained, with defiant remarks to reporters of how the Islamists would go on smuggling in weapons “by all possible means”, including via Israel’s arch-foe Iran.

AFP: The announcement reflected the strain on the Navy’s fleet since President Barack Obama decided to maintain two aircraft carrier groups at all times in the Gulf, a policy driven by concerns over tensions with Iran.

Wall Street Journal: Turkey on Friday acknowledged that a surge in its gold exports this year is related to payments for imports of Iranian natural gas, shedding light on Ankara’s role in breaching U.S.-led sanctions against Tehran.

AP: Iran lashed out Friday at Turkey for requesting that NATO supply it with Patriot surface-to-air missiles to deploy along the border with Syria, denouncing the step by Ankara as counterproductive.