AFP: Indian oil ministry officials will travel to Islamabad next week to discuss constructing a long-awaited multi-billion dollar gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan, an official said Saturday.
Indian officials to visit Islamabad for Iran pipeline talks
New deadly chopper crash in Iran
AFP: Two people were killed Saturday when their helicopter crashed into a lake in southern Iran while attempting to recover the wreckage of a chopper from a crash two days earlier at the same location.
Nuclear energy Iran’s ‘future and destiny’: Khamenei
AFP: Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave his unequivocal backing to Iran’s nuclear programme Saturday, saying it was the “future and destiny” for a country whose fossil fuels would one day run out.
Rice says Iran responsible for Iraq weapons smuggle
AFP: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice insisted anew Saturday that the Iranian government be held responsible for the use of Iranian made weapons against US forces in neighboring Iraq, even if no direct link can be proven.
Syria’s Assad holds talks in Iran over Iraq
Reuters: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad discussed instability in Iraq and the crisis in Lebanon with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the start of a two-day visit to Iran on Saturday, the official IRNA news agency said.
Iraq says borders with Iran and Syria to re-open
Reuters: Iraq will re-open its borders with Iran and Syria, closed earlier this week in the initial stages of a security crackdown, a spokesman for the officer overseeing the plan said on Saturday.
U.S., developing nations accept Iran aid cut plan
Reuters: Western and developing nations broadly accept a U.N. nuclear agency plan to cut almost half its aid projects in Iran, diplomats say, easing fears of a row over how strictly to apply U.N. sanctions against Tehran.
Report: Austria approves export of 30,000 handguns to Iran
AP: Austrian authorities have approved the export of 30,000 handguns to Iran, local media reported Friday, days after a report that sophisticated Austrian rifles were finding their way into the hands of Iraqi insurgents.
Iran’s smoking guns
Wall Street Journal – REVIEW & OUTLOOK: Following the weekend intelligence disclosures about Iranian-supplied weapons killing GIs in Iraq, we predicted Tuesday that “a large part of Washington will pretend the evidence doesn’t exist, or suggest the intelligence isn’t proven, or claim that it’s all the Bush Administration’s fault for ‘bullying’ Iran.”
US Treasury names Iran firms weapons proliferators
Reuters: Stepping up U.S. financial pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, the Treasury Department labeled three Iranian companies on Friday as proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and banned Americans from transactions with them.
