Iranian Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who is facing the death penalty, again refused to convert to Islam to save his life.

Nadarkhani was arrested in 2009 for the crime of apostasy because he allegedly abandoned Islam for Christianity. As a pastor, Iranian clerics believe that Nadarkhani was preaching in order to convert Muslims.

A U.S. drone was shot down while flying over a nuclear facility in Iran, according to reports in the Iranian media.

Iran's Fars news agency reported that lawmaker Ali Aqazadeh Dafsari, a member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, had confirmed the unmanned spy plane was flying near the Fordo nuclear enrichment plant in Qom province when it was brought down by Revolutionary Guard soldiers.

It did not say when the alleged incident happened.

Dafsari told Fars that the drone was trying to gather information about the nuclear facility for the CIA.

Fars also said Iranian military officials had claimed to have shot down "several enemy drones" in January.

Iran's elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has transferred lethal new munitions to its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent months, according to senior U.S. officials, in a bid to accelerate the U.S. withdrawals from these countries.

The Revolutionary Guard has smuggled rocket-assisted exploding projectiles to its militia allies in Iraq, weapons that have already resulted in the deaths of American troops, defense officials said. They said Iranians have also given long-range rockets to the Taliban in Afghanistan, increasing the insurgents' ability to hit U.S. and other coalition positions from a safer distance.

Such arms shipments would escalate the shadow competition for influence playing out between Tehran and Washington across the Middle East and North Africa, fueled by U.S. preparations to draw down forces from two wars and the political rebellions that are sweeping the region.

A senior Saudi Arabian diplomat and member of the ruling royal family has raised the spectre of nuclear conflict in the Middle East if Iran comes close to developing a nuclear weapon.

Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington, warned senior Nato military officials that the existence of such a device "would compel Saudi Arabia … to pursue policies which could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences".

He did not state explicitly what these policies would be, but a senior official in Riyadh who is close to the prince said yesterday his message was clear.

"We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don't. It's as simple as that," the official said. "If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, that will be unacceptable to us and we will have to follow suit."

Iran has carried out secret tests of ballistic missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload in breach of UN resolutions, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Wednesday.

Hague's comments came a day after Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said they had fired 14 missiles in an exercise, one of them a medium-range weapon capable of striking Israel or US targets in the Gulf.

In a statement to lawmakers, Hague said: "Iran has also been carrying out covert ballistic missile tests and rocket launches, including testing missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload in contravention of UN resolution 1929."

He said Iran had also announced plans to triple its capacity to produce 20 percent enriched uranium, adding: "These are enrichment levels far greater than is needed for peaceful nuclear energy.

"We will maintain and continue to increase pressure on Iran to negotiate an agreement on their nuclear programme," including sanctions, he said.

Iran's president says his country isn't afraid of making a nuclear weapon but doesn't intend to do so.
Iranian state television on Thursday quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying: "If we do want to make a bomb, we are not afraid of anybody."

Iran has long insisted that its nuclear programs are peaceful and meant only to generate power for a future nuclear reactor network.

But the U.N. Security Council has passed four sets of sanctions against Iran for refusing to freeze activities that could be used in a weapons program.

The U.N. says Iran also blocked an IAEA probe into allegations of secret experiments that could reflect attempts to develop an arms program.

Shortly after Jon Huntsman began his tour as President Barack Obama’s ambassador to China, an unwelcome letter from an anti-Iran nuclear watchdog group arrived at Huntsman Corp., the chemical company founded by his father.

The bluntly worded missive singled out a Tehran-based subsidiary — purchased when Huntsman worked for the company — for selling polyurethane that could be used in solid fuel for Iranian missiles, among other things.

“How can it be that Ambassador Huntsman could persuade the Chinese government to impose further economic sanctions on Iran when his namesake former company continues to do business in Iran?” read the letter from United Against a Nuclear Iran, a nonpartisan group founded by the late diplomat Richard Holbrooke and veteran Mideast envoy Dennis Ross.

Criticality is the stage in a nuclear reaction when the fissile material is self-sustaining.

"This stage lasts for two months. We hope the plant will gain some 40 percent of its power within the next one or two months," Salehi added.

Criticality is the stage in a nuclear reaction when the fissile material is self-sustaining.
"This stage lasts for two months. We hope the plant will gain some 40 percent of its power within the next one or two months," Salehi added.

The Iranian government is moving forward with the construction of rocket launch bases in Venezuela, the German daily Die Welt wrote in its Friday edition.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is Teheran’s most important South American ally.

Iran is building intermediate- range missile launch pads on the Paraguaná Peninsula, and engineers from a construction firm – Khatam al-Anbia – owned by the Revolutionary Guards visited Paraguaná in February. Amir al-Hadschisadeh, the head of the Guard’s Air Force, participated in the visit, according to the report. Die Welt cited information from “Western security insiders.”

The rocket bases are to include measures to prevent air attacks on Venezuela as well as commando and control stations.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he has temporarily assumed the duties of the oil ministry, as the oil cartel OPEC prepares for a biannual meeting in Vienna.
"For now, I myself am the caretaker of the oil ministry," Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech late Sunday, without elaborating.

On Saturday, Ahmadinejad dismissed oil minister Masoud Mirkazemi, alongside two other ministers, whose portfolios are expected to be merged with other departments as part of a cabinet streamlining.

Then on Sunday, he appointed caretakers for the industry and social affairs ministries, but did not name anyone for the oil ministry which is to be integrated with the energy portfolio.