Iran Focus – Editorial: The memorial held last week for the founder of Iran’s theocratic state, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, offered a glimpse into the fractured state of a regime overcome by a year of popular protests.
Fatal fissures within Iran leadership aggravate
Iran Revolutionary Guards ready to escort Gaza ships
Reuters: Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards are ready to provide a military escort to cargo ships trying to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday.
Iran using Dubai to smuggle nuclear components
Sunday Telegraph: Iran is using the Gulf port of Dubai to smuggle sophisticated electronic and computer equipment for its controversial uranium enrichment programme that are banned under United Nations sanctions.
Iran c.bank head denies report on selling reserves
Reuters: Iran’s central bank chief denied reports over the country planning to sell 45 billion euros from the country’s reserves to buy dollars and gold ingots, the Arman newspaper on Sunday quoted Mahmoud Bahmani as saying.
Iran plans to cut fuel subsidies from Sept 23 – agency
Reuters: Iran plans to cut rationed subsidised gasoline after the implementation of the country’s subsidy reform plan, the official IRNA news agency quoted a senior official as saying on Sunday.
2 candidates from Iraq’s Sunni-backed party killed
AP: Gunmen killed two candidates from the Sunni-backed coalition that won the most seats in Iraq’s March parliamentary election, slayings that the alliance said Saturday were part of a politically motivated campaign of assassinations.
Iran to approve Pakistan gas pipeline deal this week
Reuters: Iran hopes to finalise a deal this week for a much-delayed pipeline to export natural gas to Pakistan by 2015, an energy official said on Sunday.
In Brief: In the Iranian capital and elsewhere
Iran Focus: Tehran, Jun. 06 – From the Grapevine… Iran’s Telecommunications Ministry is unable to pay for cheques it has issued to its creditors that are more than $30,000.
Interior Minister hospitalised after fistfight with Khomeini grandson
Iran Focus: Tehran, Jun. 06 – Iran’s Interior Minister was hospitalised following a fistfight with a grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and another top official, a website close to the Revolutionary Guards reported on Saturday.
Activist arrested in Tehran
Iran Focus: Tehran, Jun. 05 – Iran Focus has learnt that Alireza Akhavan, an activist worker and member of the Centre for Defending the Rights of Workers, was arrested at 4:00 am this morning at his home by security forces and taken to Ward 209 of Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison.
