Iran has reportedly stopped oil exports to Spain.

Iran has halted its limited oil sales to France and Britain in retaliation for a phased EU ban on Iranian oil that is yet to take full effect, the oil ministry said yesterday.

More than 30 million people in Iran have lost access to foreign email services such as Gmail, Yahoo mail and Hotmail.

Iran said it was very optimistic over a visit by UN nuclear inspectors aimed at shedding light on suspected military aspects of Tehran’s atomic work, but suggested Tehran would curb cooperation if the experts became a “tool” for outside powers.

A senior commander of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard has said the country will target Nato’s missile defence shield in Turkey if the US or Israel attacks the Islamic Republic.

IRAN yesterday denied accusations by two freed US hikers who said Tehran had used them as “hostages” in its power struggle with the West, local media reported.

A pair of gunmen firing from motorcycles killed an Iranian physicist involved in the country's disputed nuclear programme today in an attack similar to other recent assassinations of scientists which Tehran has blamed on the US and Israel.

AT least 77 people were killed in Sunday’s passenger plane crash in north-western Iran, the official IRNA news agency reported yesterday.

The crew of an IranAir jet which crashed in a snowstorm, killing up to as 77 people, reported a technical failure before the disaster, it emerged today.

An Iranian pathologist found that the son of a prominent conservative politician’s adviser died from beatings and poor prison conditions, it was reported.

TEHRAN’S police chief said that few arrests were made in opposition protests that erupted a day earlier in the Iranian capital in an opposition attempt to revive street demonstrations over the country’s disputed election.

Iran today rolled back on a pledge to soon free a British woman sailor, delaying her release because of Britain’s threat to freeze relations and refer the issue to the UN Security Council.

OTHER developments yesterday in the Middle East crisis

A top Iranian envoy was in Syria today for talks on the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict in a meeting that brought together the guerrilla organisation’s two key sponsors, according to Iranian news reports.