Iran

California lawmakers took a step closer Tuesday toward ordering the state’s two giant public pension funds to unload more than $2 billion in retirement money invested in foreign companies doing business in Iran.

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters) — Republican candidates for US president agreed on Tuesday that Iran must not develop nuclear weapons, even if a tactical nuclear strike is needed to stop Tehran, and accused Democrats of being soft on the issue.

TEHRAN (AFP) — Cyclone Gonu, the worst tropical storm to hit the Gulf in decades, made landfall in Iran on Wednesday afternoon, packing winds of 200 kilometres an hour and   forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people, officials said.

TEHRAN (Reuters) — Iran’s judiciary confirmed on Tuesday the detention of an Iranian-American social scientist on charges of spying, one of a number that US officials and think tanks had reported held.

TEHRAN (AFP) — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned on Tuesday that it was too late to stop Iran’s nuclear programme despite new efforts by Western powers to impose more UN sanctions against the Islamic republic.

MUSCAT (AP) — Thousands of people fled low-lying areas Tuesday as the strongest cyclone to threaten the Arabian Peninsula in 60 years barrelled towards the oil-rich Persian Gulf — with southern Iran next in its path.

TEHRAN (AFP) — Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Monday warned that Iran was prepared “to pay a price” and “resist” to realise the aims of its contested nuclear programme amid an intensifying standoff with the West.

Egypt and Iran are considering restoring diplomatic relations and are expected to engage in negotiations in the next few days.

HELSINKI, Finland — The European Commission (EC) will resume Stabilisation and Association Agreement negotiations with Serbia, EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told Serbian President Boris Tadic in Helsinki on Saturday (June 2nd).

WASHINGTON — US President George W.  Bush on Friday strongly condemned Iran’s detention of American citizens and called for them to be freed “immediately and unconditionally.” Tehran has accused dual US-Iranian citizens Haleh Esfandiari, an academic, Kian Tajbakhsh, a social scientist, and Parnaz Azima, a journalist, of spying. The State …