AFP: An Indian business group said Saturday a delegation was visiting Iran to boost trade with the Islamic republic, which is under strain from Western sanctions over its alleged nuclear weapons programme.
India business group visits Iran for ‘win-win’ trade
Iranian Red Crescent workers freed in Libya: ministry
AFP: A group of seven Iranian Red Crescent workers who were kidnapped in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi more than two months ago were freed on Sunday, an interior ministry official told AFP.
Iran ‘confidence’ bid shifts uranium to fuel stock
AP: In a bid to ease international concerns over its nuclear program, Iran has converted more than a third of Tehran’s most highly enriched uranium into a powder for a medical research reactor that is difficult to reprocess for weapons production, experts and U.N. monitors say.
Iran imposes currency cap to combat rial’s plunge
AFP: Iran sought on Saturday to reverse a collapse of its currency by imposing a fixed dollar rate, days after protests erupted over the rial’s plunge on the open market, said money changers who were refusing to comply.
Scorsese teams up with Iranian director
UPI: Kurdish-Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi said Martin Scorsese will team up as executive producer for his next film, “60 Seconds of Us.”
Amid protests in Iran, a new tone in Israel
Washington Post: As unrest over rising prices flares in Tehran, Israeli officials are urging additional sanctions against Iran and tempering for now suggestions of a possible Israeli military strike on Iranian nuclear sites this fall.
Syria rebels threaten to execute Iranians
AFP: Rebel fighters will execute dozens of Iranians they kidnapped in August unless Syria’s army withdraws from the embattled Eastern Ghuta area of Damascus province, a rebel commander said on Friday.
As rial plunges, Congress looks at expanding Iran sanctions
Reuters: Lawmakers in the Congress are looking at ways to expand economic sanctions on Iran, measures that have helped push the country’s currency into free fall but have not yet pressured Tehran to abandon its nuclear program.
EU questions “taboo” against broad trade embargo on Iran
Reuters: The European Union has begun discussing the possibility of a broad trade embargo against Iran, moving beyond the web of energy, business and financial restrictions imposed so far, in an effort to pressure Tehran not to build nuclear weapons.
Chavez’s Havana-to-Tehran alliance at stake as Venezuelans vote
Bloomberg: Venezuelans voting whether to re- elect Hugo Chavez on Oct. 7 will also decide the fate of a regime that forms the linchpin of an alliance from Iran to Cuba against U.S. policies.
