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
Cairo: Egypt's prosecution on Wednesday ordered that former president Hosni Mubarak be sent back back to Tora Prison Hospital, Xinhua reported quoting official Al-Ahram news website. Prosecution spokesman Mahmoud al-Hifnawi said Prosecutor-General Talaat Ibrahim Abdullah decided to discharge Mubarak from Maadi Military Hospital and send him back to the prison hospital "according to today's reports of the forensic medical commission that examined the ex-president in the military hospital". Also on...
06:33 AM, Apr 18, 2013
Ramallah: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad on Saturday, the official Palestinian news agency said. Fayyad had offered his resignation in a letter to Abbas following weeks of sparring over Fayyad's handling of the government and an economic crisis afflicting the Israeli-occupied West Bank. "The president told Dr Salam Fayyad he accepted his resignation, and asked him to conduct the work of the government...
06:41 AM, Apr 14, 2013
Ramallah: Palestinian officials say Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad has resigned. Fayyad offered his resignation on Thursday, and was waiting for President Mahmoud Abbas' reply. Officials said Fayyad submitted his resignation to Abbas in person on Saturday, and Abbas accepted it. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the official announcement has not yet been made. ...
11:19 PM, Apr 13, 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
Insisting "peace is possible," President Barack Obama on Thursday prodded both Israelis and Palestinians to return to long-stalled negotiations with few, if any, pre-conditions, softening his earlier demands that Israel stop building settlements in disputed territory. ...
05:38 AM, Mar 22, 2013
US President Barack Obama faces a stony reception when he travels to the West Bank on Thursday for talks with Palestinian leaders who accuse him of letting Israel ride rough-shod over their dream of statehood. ...
07:05 AM, Mar 21, 2013
Senior Iranian clerics have criticized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for consoling Hugo Chavez's mother with a hug. ...
04:43 PM, Mar 12, 2013
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinajad on Monday inaugurated the much-delayed section of a $ 7.5 billion gas pipeline, this despite US pressure on Islamabad to back out of the project. ...
11:13 AM, 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 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
Libya has said that Saif al-Islam, the son of late leader Muammar Gaddafi whose regime was overthrown in 2011 by opposition forces with NATO's assistance, will go on trial in February. ...
06:03 PM, Jan 05, 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
The Fatah party of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas staged a massive rally on January 4 in the Gaza Strip, the first such gathering in the territory since the Islamist Hamas group took control there in 2007 and a reflection of the warming ties between the two rival factions. Throngs camped out overnight in a downtown Gaza square to ensure themselves a spot for the anniversary commemoration of Fatah's 1959...
06:04 PM, Jan 04, 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
Doha: Australia scored twice late on to beat Iraq 2-1 and revive their 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign on Tuesday, while Uzbekistan and Oman also earned much-needed victories. Uzbekistan downed 2022 World Cup host Qatar 1-0 and Oman beat Jordan 2-1. In Doha, Iraq scored against the run of the play from a counterattack when Younis Mahmoud crossed for substitute Ala'a Abdulzehra to slot the ball past goalkeeper Mark Schwarzer...
10:40 PM, Oct 16, 2012
