Venezuela to export gasoline to Iran

Venezuela will begin exporting 20,000 gallons of gasoline to Iran next month as the nations strengthen bilateral cooperation, Iranian state media reported. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez announced the agreement on Sunday

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A month later, families of hikers held in Iran wait for news

Relatives of three American hikers detained in Iran are still waiting for news about their loved ones. More than a month has passed since Iranian authorities detained Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd and Josh Fattal after they strayed into Iran — by accident, a friend and relatives say — while hiking in northern Iraq. Their relatives in the United States have heard nothing about their fate, they said Tuesday on CNN’s “American Morning.” “We know they’re being detained in Iran.

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Iran prisoner beaten to death, coroner says

A coroner’s report says that a man arrested in the violent aftermath of Iran’s presidential elections died from beatings, Iranian media reported Monday in what appeared to be the first official confirmation of a detainee’s death from mistreatment. The death of Mohsen Rouhol-Amini was the result of “repeated blows and severe physical injuries” and other mistreatment at Tehran’s Kahrizak prison, the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported, citing an informed source.

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Holbrooke: Persian Gulf oil money fuels Taliban insurgencies

America’s top diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan says the deadly Taliban insurgency in those countries relies heavily on funding from the oil-rich Persian Gulf. Such money even outpaces the cash gathered from Afghanistan’s multibillion-dollar exports of opium and heroin, said Richard Holbrooke, the United States’ special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, in an interview Tuesday with CNN.

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Argentina protests Ahmadinejad cabinet choice

Jewish groups and the Argentine government condemned Friday the nomination of a man accused in the 1994 terrorist bombing of a Jewish center to serve as Iran’s defense minister. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nominated Ahmad Vahidi to fill the cabinet position on Wednesday, which drew a rebuke from Jewish leaders in Buenos Aires, including one from the Delegation of Israeli-Argentine Associations, or DAIA

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U.N. experts say Iran tortured to extract confessions

Three independent United Nations human rights experts have accused Iran of torturing confessions from detainees charged with fomenting political unrest, the international organization said Thursday. “No judicial system can consider as valid a confession obtained as a result of harsh interrogations or under torture,” said Manfred Nowak, who is the U.N

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