AP: Buddha statues have joined Barbie dolls and characters from “The Simpsons” TV cartoon as banned items in the conservative Muslim nation.
Iran confiscates Buddha statues from shops
Iran plans to establish new navy base
AP: Iran’s official news agency says the country’s navy plans to establish a new base near Pakistan’s border in the Sea of Oman.
Iran will never shut down Fordow enrichment plant: MP
Reuters: Iran will never shut down its Fordow uranium enrichment plant, a senior legislator was quoted as saying on Sunday, brushing off a demand from world powers who fear Tehran is working to develop an atomic weapons capability.
British housewife accused by the US of spying for Iran ‘to save her brother-in-law’s life’
Daily Mail: A British housewife and her husband have been accused of spying for Iran in a leaked US government report. Anne Singleton, 53, is alleged to have been blackmailed into training with the Iranian secret service during a visit to Tehran in 2002.
Khamenei says US couldn’t stop Iran getting bomb
AFP: Iran has no intention of developing nuclear weapons but if it wanted to, the United States could not thwart it, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday.
Iran’s Khamenei says irked by officials infighting
AFP: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday expressed disappointment at intense public infighting between senior officials, calling for “calm” amid Western economic sanctions.
Iran could use U.N. talks as cover to build bomb, Ban Ki-moon says
Washington Post: The United Nations must be decisive and swift in judging whether diplomacy can resolve world concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday, or invite the risk that Iran, like North Korea, will use talks as a cover to build a bomb.
Iranian leader: Iran not seeking nuclear weapons
AP: Iran’s Supreme Leader said Saturday that his country is not seeking nuclear weapons, but that no world power could stop Tehran’s access to an atomic bomb if it intended to build one.
Iran bans pistachio exports to control price hike
AP: Iran has ordered a six-month ban on pistachio exports to try to control the price of the nut, which doubled in the past month. Iran was long the world’s largest pistachio exporter, with over 200,000 tons a year, but was surpassed last year by the United States.
Turkey-Iran gold trade wiped out by new U.S. sanctions
Reuters: Tighter U.S. sanctions are killing off Turkey’s gold-for-gas trade with Iran and have stopped state-owned lender Halkbank from processing other nations’ energy payments to the OPEC oil producer, bankers said on Friday.
