Tens of thousands of mourners joined the funeral procession for Iran’s most senior dissident cleric today.

The family of Iran’s most senior dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, say he has died at the age of 87.

GOVERNMENT supporters rallied across Iran yesterday to protest against an opposition “insult” to the Islamic Republic’s revered founder, with some calling for pro-reform leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to be executed.

Iranian Police surrounded the campus of Tehran University today, trapping hundreds of students protesting what they said were fabricated government images showing the burning of a photo of the revered founder of the Islamic republic.

As the protests continue, however, Mousavi might be propelled into a position he never sought: the Mikhail Gorbachev or FW de Klerk of Iran, a member of the ruling establishment who surprises even himself by deviating from the line to the point where the system falls apart

The controversial author Salman Rushdie was knighted by the Queen yesterday.

A high-level Iranian hard-line cleric today said the religious edict calling for the killing of Salman Rushdie remained in place and can not be revoked.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that Iran would not give up uranium enrichment but otherwise steered clear of making fiery statements during celebrations on the 28th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

Iranians poured into the streets today to mark the 28th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution as part of an event that also is widely seen as a national referendum on Iran’s disputed nuclear program.

Under a banner showing coffins draped with US, British and Israeli flags, more than 100 Iranian men and women today pledged to become suicide bombers to defend their country and Islam.

IRAN is to examine the scientific evidence supporting the Holocaust, an apparent next step in hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's campaign against Israel and a move likely to deepen Tehran's international isolation.

Thousands of Iranians burned flags and chanted slogans against Israel and the US today in the largest demonstration in years outside the former US Embassy in Tehran, held as the new hard-line president has stepped up rhetoric against Israel.

Iran’s ultra-conservative new president yesterday broke his silence on Israel and declared the Jewish state was a “disgraceful blot” that should be ”wiped off the map”.

Iran, accused by the US of using a nuclear energy program as a front to produce weapons, has repeatedly said its program is for peaceful purposes only, and that it needs nuclear power to generate enough electricity to remain self-sufficient.

Author Salman Rushdie was today named the new president of the International Writers’ Organisation, also know as PEN.

A liberal critic of the hard-line clerics who rule Iran was detained on Sunday after several hours of interrogation, his wife said.

THE deputy governor of a largely Islamic state in northern Nigeria has called on Muslims to kill the Nigerian writer of a newspaper article about the Miss World beauty pageant that sparked deadly religious riots.

Islamic groups in Iran have renewed calls for the killing of Salman Rushdie, saying it will be easier to kill him in the US where he now lives.