Wall Street Journal: After suffering three decades of international isolation and unremitting Islamic revolution, millions of pro-democracy voters in Iran were supposed to have the opportunity in this Friday's presidential election to express their disenchantment with religious dictatorship. It is not to be. The guardians of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's revolution will remain deeply entrenched.
Iran’s Potemkin election
Taliban chief, 16 militants killed: US military
AFP: The US-led coalition said Wednesday it used a precision air strike to kill a Taliban commander with reported links to Iran's Revolutionary Guards and up to 16 militants with him in western Afghanistan.
US increasingly concerned about Iranian threat: Gates
AFP: The United States is increasingly concerned about recent advances in Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday.
Man behind Iran policy faces big task
Washington Post: Diplomatic troubleshooter Dennis Ross is a legendary talker, a specialist in developing peace processes — long ones. For 12 years, in the first Bush presidency and both terms of the Clinton presidency, he was at the center of the seemingly endless effort to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
As Iran gets ready to vote, the economy dominates
New York Times: In the West, Iran’s coming presidential election is viewed largely through the lens of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s crackdown on social freedoms and his combative approach to Israel, the United States, and Iran’s nuclear program.
Past Iran president warns top leader before vote
AP: A powerful former Iranian president urged the country's top leader Tuesday to take "serious action" against hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for accusing current and former top government officials of corruption in a televised election debate.
Iran shuts down reformist daily illegally: lawyer
AFP: Iran shut down again on Tuesday a reformist daily that backs incumbent presidential challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi after allowing it to resume publishing, the paper's lawyer told the ISNA news agency.
Argentina orders detention of Colombian in bombing
AP: A federal judge on Tuesday requested the international capture of a Colombian national suspected of involvement in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Argentina that killed 85 people.
Rafsanjani asks Iran leader to secure ‘clean’ poll
AFP: Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani pleaded for a clean election after he and his family were attacked in an electoral debate, the official IRNA news agency reported on Tuesday.
Zahedan Prosecutor: 88 people arrested in recent unrest
Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Jun. 09 – The Prosecutor of Zahedan, south-eastern Iran, announced that 58 Iranians and 30 Afghans were arrested during the recent unrest in the city.
