Reuters: Iran’s state-owned Bank Sepah on Wednesday denied U.S. charges it was helping the country to acquire nuclear weapons and threatened unspecified legal action, an Iranian news agency said.

Reuters: Israel’s prime minister, on the last leg of a lobbying mission among veto-wielding U.N. Security Council nations, met Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday to argue Iran’s nuclear plans could destabilise the Middle East.

AFP: Commerzbank, the second-biggest bank in Germany, is to join other European banks in curtailing its activities with Iran, a spokesman said on Wednesday, as the United States seeks to isolate Teheran economically.

AFP: Iran on Wednesday condemned a US air strike in southern Somalia as a violation of international law.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Jan. 11 – A small earthquake shook parts of the south-west town of Haftgol on Thursday, the official news agency IRNA reported.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Jan. 11 – Three explosions which rocked the restive province of Khuzestan, south-west Iran, on Thursday were due to a mine-removal operation underway, the state-run news agency Fars quoted the governor of the city of Khorramshahr as saying.