AFP: European Union nations agreed Thursday to ban financial transfers such as SWIFT payments to hundreds of Iranian firms and individuals blacklisted by the bloc over Tehran’s contested nuclear drive.

Bloomberg: India has failed to reduce its purchases of Iranian oil, and if it doesn’t do so, President Barack Obama may be forced to impose sanctions on one of Asia’s most important nations, Obama administration officials said yesterday.

UPI: Iranian military forces are shipping light weapons to rebel groups in Yemen, a senior U.S. official claimed.

Reuters: Bashar al-Assad has taken advice from Iran on countering a revolt against his rule and joked about his promises of reform, according to a trove of e-mails taken from the personal accounts of the Syrian president and his wife, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday.

UPI: Azerbaijani authorities have detained 22 individuals suspected of spying for Iran and other crimes, government officials said Wednesday.

AFP: Iran condemned on Wednesday what it said was the use of oil as a political tool against producers, referring to Western sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear programme, as Saudi Arabia promised to cover any shortage in supplies.

AP: Iran’s parliament began Wednesday to question President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over a long list of accusations, including that he mismanaged the nation’s economy and challenged the country’s supreme leader.

AP: A state-owned Chinese bank that had agreed to finance the Pakistani section of a gas pipeline from Iran that is opposed by the United States is no longer interested in the project, a Pakistani finance ministry spokesman said Wednesday.