AFP: Seventy-six US senators have urged President Barack Obama to impose tougher sanctions on Iran, saying Washington must stress its military option even as new President Hassan Rowhani urges dialogue.
US senators urge Obama to toughen Iran sanctions
Iran’s Rouhani pulls off cabinet balancing act
Reuters: Mostafa Pourmohammadi, Rouhani’s nomination for justice minister, is accused by Human Rights Watch of being one of a three-man committee that ordered prisoners in Tehran’s notorious Evin jail to their summary executions in 1988.
Ahmadinejad gets post-presidency seat on top Iran council
AFP: Iran’s supreme leader on Monday appointed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Expediency Council, the country’s top political arbitration body headed by an avid critic of the outgoing president.
Iran arrests man on charges of spying for Israel
AP: Iranian authorities have arrested a man on charges of spying for Israel. The semiofficial Mehr news agency says the unidentified man had allegedly passed on intelligence to a security officer at the Israeli embassy in Thailand.
Iran seen trying new path to a bomb
Wall Street Journal: Iran could begin producing weapons-grade plutonium by next summer, U.S. and European officials believe, using a different nuclear technology that would be easier for foreign countries to attack.
Iran, U.S. signal will to engage as new president sworn in
Reuters: Iran and the United States signaled a fresh will on Sunday to seek to end the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program after Hassan Rouhani was sworn in as president and called for dialogue to reduce “antagonism and aggression”.
Iran’s terror cells in Syria exposed
Clarion Project: The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an Iranian opposition group that has previously exposed top-secret Iranian nuclear sites, has provided the Clarion Project with precise details of Iran’s operations to assist Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.
Iran’s Rouhani tells Syria PM alliance will stay strong
Daily Star: New Iranian President Hassan Rouhani promised Syrian Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi on Sunday that there would be no change in the two countries’ close alliance, Syrian state media reported.
Senate urges Barack Obama to step up Iran sanctions
The Telegraph: America must step up sanctions and bring “a renewed sense of urgency” to halting Iran’s nuclear programme even as it hopes the inauguration of a new president in Tehran will lead to détente, the US Senate will say next week.
Iranians may have abducted Briton in Dubai: UK government source
Reuters: Britain is taking seriously allegations that a British-Iranian citizen who went missing in Dubai in June may have been kidnapped by “elements in Iran”, a government source in London said on Saturday.
