Iran Shuts Office of Nobel Winner's Rights Group

TEHRAN, Iran - Iranian authorities shut down the office of a human rights group led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi on Sunday as the group was preparing to honor a political activist who spent 17 years in prison in the Islamic republic.

Iranian authorities banned Ebadi's Center for Protecting Human Rights last year, but it had continued to operate from an office in the north of the capital, Tehran.

Analysts Urge Obama Not to Delay Action on Talks With Iran

TEHRAN - In light of the Iranian presidential election coming in mid-2009 and the U.S. distaste for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President-elect Barack Obama is being advised to avoid any communication with Tehran until after Iranians vote next June.

But Iranian political analysts who are familiar with the thinking of both Ahmadinejad and Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, believe it would be a serious mistake for Obama to take no action until after the election.

US Task Force Found Few Iranian Arms in Iraq

WASHINGTON - Last April, top George W. Bush administration officials, desperate to exploit any possible crack in the close relationship between the Nouri al-Maliki government and Iran, launched a new round of charges that Iran had stepped up covert arms assistance to Shi'a militias.

Documents Linking Iran to Nuclear Weapons Push May Have Been Fabricated

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has obtained evidence suggesting that documents which have been described as technical studies for a secret Iranian nuclear weapons-related research program may have been fabricated.

The documents in question were acquired by U.S. intelligence in 2004 from a still unknown source -- most of them in the form of electronic files allegedly stolen from a laptop computer belonging to an Iranian researcher. The US has based much of its push for sanctions against Iran on these documents.

Pundits Debate the Inevitability of a Nuclear Iran

WASHINGTON - It wasn't U.S. relations with an Arab country on the tips of many tongues at this year's National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations meeting in the last week of October. Rather, much of the focus was on the Arab Middle East's ethnic Persian neighbour to the east: Iran.

The question and answer session of a panel on Iraq and Iran was a microcosm of the chatter around Washington all year long about the ebbing and flowing likelihood of a potential U.S. bombing run against alleged secret Iranian nuclear sites.