Iran Focus: London, Aug. 04 – Iran continued its nuclear brinkmanship on Thursday with a new threat to restart uranium enrichment at its massive nuclear enrichment site in Natanz, central Iran. Hossein Moussavian, a leading nuclear negotiator for the Islamic Republic, told the state television, “If the Europeans call an extraordinary meeting [of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency”>, that will be a violation of all international rules and they should not expect us to continue the suspension of our activities at
the Natanz enrichment plant”.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Aug. 04 – A political prisoner who has launched a one-week-long hunger strike in solidarity for jailed journalist Akbar Ganji has been refused visitation rights for a week, a rights group in defence of political prisoners said on Thursday.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Aug. 4 – A series of changes expected at the top echelons of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards command will have far-reaching consequences for the country’s military strategy and posture, according to an informed official in the Iranian capital. Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, the Commandant General of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), has presented his plans to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for the reshuffle in the IRGC high command, and most of the changes are expected to be announced this month, the official, who requested anonymity, said.

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Aug. 04 – A number of journalists and human rights defenders have been arrested in towns and cities in western Iran, according to human rights activists in the Iranian capital. Mahmoud Salehi, the spokesman for the Organisational Committee to Establish Trade Unions, was arrested in the early hours of Thursday.

Iran Focus: Paris, Aug. 4 – The Iranian opposition group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK), denied that it had any role in the assassination of a hard-line judge in Tehran.
“The People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran categorically
denies this false allegation”, a spokesman for the MeK told
the Persian-language satellite television channel, Simaye
Azadi.