Press Roundup provides a selected summary of news from the Iranian press, and excerpts where the source is in English. Click on the link to the story to read it in full. Tehran Bureau has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. Please refer to the Media Guide to help put the stories in perspective. You can follow other news stories through our Twitter feed.

Iran ready for talks with Washington, says Khamenei aide

AFP | Aug 9, 2010

Iran is ready to discuss its nuclear programme with the United States, the adviser to the Islamic republic's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Monday during a visit to Syria. (Update: He now denies it.)

"While we do not have any faith in the American government... Iran is ready for talks on its nuclear programme," Ali Akbar Velayati (pictured) told reporters at a news conference in the Iranian embassy in Damascus.

Archive photo.

Ahmadinejad under fire from Iran judiciary chief

AFP | Aug 9, 2010

Iran's judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani has hit out at President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for criticising a court verdict against the former head of state news agency IRNA, media reports said Monday.

"A strange incident happened recently. Although the jury with an absolute vote said the writer of this article was not guilty, the judge, going against the jury, suspended him for seven months," Ahmadinejad said.

The justice chief dismissed Ahmadinejad's statement.

"The main issue is should we allow anyone to talk any way he wants to? Why do we have laws then? The laws are written so that the people abide by them. So that nobody can insult or accuse others," Larijani said.

Lawyer of woman facing stoning in Iran flees to Norway

AFP | Aug 9, 2010

The lawyer for a woman sentenced to death by stoning in Iran for adultery has fled to Norway where he is considering seeking asylum, he said in Oslo Sunday.

"In a way you can say that I have asked for asylum," Mohammad Mostafaie told AFP on the sidelines of a press conference in Oslo shortly after arriving in Norway after fleeing his country by way of Turkey.

He added, "I do not think she will be hurt ... The Iranian authorities have already paid a huge price for the case (and) the international reputation of Iran has already been negatively affected because of the way it has been handled."

Sharp drop in volume of trade relations between Iran and Iraq

MidEastWire.com>Jomhuri-ye Eslami | Aug 9, 2010

Deputy-Trade Minister Babak Afqahi said the present state of trade relations between Iran and Iraq was "shameful" and warned that if the trend continues Iran's volume of trade relations with that country would drop in the near future, Mehr agency reported.

"At one time Iraq was Iran's first trading partner. But in the first four months of this year, we only had 2.1 billion's worth of dollars to that country, which is not a notable part of that country's market," he said. He said "in a secret meeting held with certain Iraqi officials, there was reference to Iranians' inattention to developing ties and that they believe in trading relations through peddling with Iraq ." Afqahi said that Turkey, as the Islamic Republic's rival and Iraq's chief trading partner, had made very great investments in various Iraqi provinces.

Unemployment rate hits 14.6% in Iran

Mehr | Aug 9, 2010

The deputy labor minister said that unemployment in Iran has risen to 14.6 percent.

ISNA news agency quoted Hamid Abd ol-Vahab as saying that the unemployment figure last winter was 14.1 percent.

Last spring it was 11.1 percent and last summer and fall 11.3 percent.

Iran denies Kuwait's claim on espionage

Press TV | Aug 9, 2010

Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi has denied reports over the arrest of seven people in Kuwait on charges of espionage for the Islamic Republic.

"This is a sheer lie because they [Kuwaiti officials] have not managed to prove the case," ISNA quoted Moslehi as saying on Sunday.

feature

After the Crackdown

New Yorker | Aug 16, 2010

One man struck up a conversation; in excellent English, he made it clear that he was a reformist. Three other men who were sitting together nearby looked over appraisingly, then raised their voices enough to be overheard. Quoting the late Iranian poet Ahmad Shamlou, one of them recited:

They smell your breath,
lest you might have said I love you.
They smell your heart.
These are strange times, my darling.
The butchers are stationed at each
crossroads with bloody clubs and cleavers.

Gesturing toward Tehran in the distance, he said, "There are the new butchers. They sniff out everything, not only in public but in private life, too." His friends nodded. One of them said, "The people's frustrations will find an outlet once the cracks in the monolith begin to appear."