Dubai: Iran's best known political grandee, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, looms large in the history of the Islamic Republic - now registered to run in Iran's presidential election June 2013 he may also get the chance to carve out its future.
Few have wielded such influence in modern Iran as the 78-year-old but since 2009 he and his family have faced political isolation over their support for the opposition movement which lost the disputed election to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Ahmadinejad prevailed thanks to the unwavering support of Iran's most powerful authority, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a move that left gaping divisions in the religious and political elite.
Four years on and the leader is under pressure from political divisions at home and sanctions over Iran's nuclear programme which are biting deep into the economy and Rafsanjani's practical outlook may be the tonic Iran now needs....
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06:29 AM, May 12, 2013
Dubai: Iran said on Tuesday operations had begun at two uranium mines and a milling plant and that Western opposition would not slow its nuclear work, days after talks with world powers made no breakthrough. Marking its annual National Nuclear Technology Day, Iran also said it would continue to need higher-grade enriched uranium - the part of its atomic activity that most worries the West - to fuel additional research...
07:35 AM, Apr 10, 2013
Senior Iranian clerics have criticized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for consoling Hugo Chavez's mother with a hug. ...
04:43 PM, Mar 12, 2013
The US has warned Pakistan that if it goes ahead with the construction of a USD 7.5 billion gas pipeline with Iran, sanctions would be triggered, even as a section of the project was inaugurated on Monday. "We have serious concerns, if this project actually goes forward, that the Iran Sanctions Act would be triggered. We've been straight up with the Pakistanis about these concerns. As I said at some...
12:30 AM, Mar 12, 2013
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Pakistani counterpart Asif Ali Zardari on Monday will officially inaugurate the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline project, Press TV reported on Sunday. ...
06:45 AM, Mar 11, 2013
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko are travelling to Caracas to attend the funeral of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, state television reported. ...
02:20 AM, Mar 08, 2013
Iran's president on Wednesday offered to help rescue Egypt's failing economy with a "big credit line," another sign of improving relations between two regional powers after a freeze of more than three decades. ...
03:45 AM, Feb 07, 2013
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to Cairo on Tuesday, the first by an Iranian leader in more than three decades, highlights efforts by Egypt's Islamist leader to thaw long frigid ties between the two regional heavyweights. ...
06:51 AM, Feb 06, 2013
Iran recently sent a monkey into space and if he has his way President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would be next. The Iranian President triggered quite a few cheeky quips on the Internet by announcing he would be glad to become the Islamic nation's first astronaut. ...
11:45 AM, Feb 05, 2013
Iran on Saturday unveiled its newest combat jet, a domestically manufactured fighter-bomber that military officials claim can evade radar. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a ceremony broadcast on state TV that building the Qaher F-313, or Dominant F-313, shows Iran's will to "conquer scientific peaks." ...
12:20 AM, Feb 04, 2013
Steve Jobs had the genius to turn a product launch-even an upgrade-into an occasion that sent Apple fans into fits of ecstasy. If there's one product that they have been looking forward to more than any other, it's Apple TV. No one knows if or how it will be disruptive. But the launch is likely to happen in 2013. It will also be the first product in a new category...
03:56 PM, Jan 05, 2013
Bali: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday ridiculed the expense of the US election a day after voters kept President Barack Obama for another four years, mocking the American process as a "battleground for capitalists" while speaking at a democracy forum. Ahmadinejad, whose government has been criticised for human rights abuses and is subject to sanctions for its nuclear programs, told the forum in Indonesia that democracy has become a...
12:20 AM, Nov 09, 2012
United Nations: Iran's president called Israel a nuclear-armed "fake regime" shielded by the United States, prompting Israel's UN ambassador to walk out of a high-level UN meeting Monday promoting the rule of law. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also accused the US and others of misusing freedom of speech and failing to speak out against the defamation of people's beliefs and "divine prophets," an apparent reference to the recently circulated amateur...
01:23 PM, Sep 25, 2012
New York: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday dismissed threats of military action against Iran's nuclear program, arguing that his country's project to enrich uranium is only for peaceful purposes and saying that Iran has no worries about a possible Israeli attack. Ahmadinejad spoke before a group of editors and news executives after his arrival in New York for the annual UN General Assembly. He told the group that it...
12:56 PM, Sep 25, 2012
Dubai: The United States has denied visas to about 20 Iranian government officials hoping to attend next week's UN General Assembly, including two ministers, Iran's Fars news agency reported on Saturday. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a regular at the assembly since he took office in 2005, will give his final speech there on Wednesday and will address a meeting on the "rule of law" on Monday. But of the 160-or-so...
01:28 AM, Sep 23, 2012
Tehran: India and Iran should address their trade imbalance, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in Tehran on Wednesday even as the two sides stressed increasing bilateral and trilateral cooperation to develop the Chahbahar port as the gateway to Afghanistan and Central Asia. During his talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Manmohan Singh, who is in Tehran for the Non-Aligned Movement Summit, referred to trade imbalance and spoke of the...
12:32 AM, Aug 30, 2012
Tehran: In a rare meeting with a non-Muslim dignitary, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday held discussions in Tehran with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a variety of subjects, including bilateral matters and the tense situation in the region. Prior to the meeting with 73-year-old Khamenei, who holds near-absolute power, Singh held talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who later accompanied him to the meeting with the supreme...
10:49 PM, Aug 29, 2012
Tehran: Highly-tilted trade relations in favour of Iran, supply of oil and gas and other key strategic bilateral and international issues, including Syria, are expected to dominate the meetings of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here. Though there are no "irritants" in particular between India and Iran, Singh will be raising the issue of trade imbalance in favour of Tehran...
03:20 PM, Aug 29, 2012
Dubai: Iran's government faced criticism on Monday over its response to two earthquakes that killed 306 people, with complaints of a lack of tents and about President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's decision to go ahead with an overseas trip. Although officials announced on Sunday, less than 24 hours after disaster struck, that search and rescue operations had finished and all survivors had been freed from the rubble, some locals expressed disbelief that...
10:18 AM, Aug 14, 2012
Berlin: A German newspaper is reporting that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says he will end his political career when his second term ends next year. Ahmadinejad was quoted on Saturday as saying in an interview with Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that he plans to return to academia. He said that, though he might engage in political activity at a university, "I will not found any political party or group." Ahmadinejad...
07:40 AM, Jun 17, 2012
