AP: Iran’s Administrative Justice Court has ordered that an Iranian vice president be barred from government service for four years.
Report: Iran VP sentenced for ‘violations’
U.S. revises visa policy in gesture to Iranians
Reuters: Some Iranian students may seek two-year, multiple-entry U.S. visas, the State Department said on Friday, giving them greater freedom to travel to the United States in a gesture to improve people-to-people ties.
Iran body rules Ahmadinejad can’t be oil caretaker
AP: In a fresh blow to the embattled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s constitutional watchdog body has ruled that the president can’t serve as the country’s caretaker oil minister.
Court filings assert Iran had link to 9/11 attacks
New York Times: Two defectors from Iran’s intelligence service have testified that Iranian officials had “foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks,” according to a court filing Thursday in a federal lawsuit in Manhattan that seeks damages for Iran’s “direct support for, and sponsorship of, the most deadly act of terrorism in American history.”
Ahmadinejad aide accused of seeking U.S. contacts, Shargh says
Bloomberg: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s closest political aide was accused by a group that backs Iran’s supreme leader of trying to establish contacts with the U.S. and its intelligence services, the Shargh newspaper reported.
West ‘causing drought’ in Iran: Ahmadinejad
AFP: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday accused Western countries of devising plans to “cause drought” in the Islamic republic, as he inaugurated a dam in a central province.
Iran lawyer asks to meet US hikers on ‘hunger strike’
AFP: The lawyer of detained US hikers in Iran told AFP Thursday that he has sought judiciary permission to meet his clients after their family raised concerns the two men could be on a hunger strike.
Hard-liners call for arrest of Ahmadinejad aide
AP: A hard-line publication called on security forces Wednesday to arrest President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s closest political aide amid a widening political power struggle over who will shape Iran’s next government.
US imposes sanctions on Assad, six other Syrian officials
AFP: US President Barack Obama imposed sanctions Wednesday on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and six top aides over their deadly crackdown on protests, telling Assad to move to democracy or step down.
Iran could play role in al-Qaida, post-bin Laden
AP: The death of Osama bin Laden has put a new focus on what role Iran might play in al-Qaida’s future, as intelligence officials around the world analyzed reports that Saif al-Adel had taken over as al-Qaida’s interim leader. Al-Adel was last known to be under house arrest outside Tehran.
