Iran, where a woman convicted of adultery has been sentenced to death by stoning, is poised to become a board member of the new United Nations agency to promote equality for women.

IRANIAN authorities have suspended the sentence of death by stoning for a woman convicted of adultery, the foreign ministry said yesterday, after weeks of condemnation from around the world.

FOREIGN countries should not interfere in Iran’s legal system and stop trying to turn the case of a woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery into a human rights issue, Tehran said yesterday.

IN his first State of the Union address to the European parliament, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso yesterday spoke for the great, great majority of Europeans when he described the sentence imposed on an Iranian woman convicted of adultery as “barbaric beyond words”.

AN Iranian woman who was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery is now facing a new punishment of 99 lashes because a British newspaper ran a picture of an unveiled woman mistakenly identified as her, the woman’s son said yesterday.

The son of an Iranian woman who faces death by stoning for adultery said authorities have imposed a new sentence of 99 lashes.

The Vatican hinted that it may use behind-the-scenes diplomacy in a bid to save the life of an Iranian widow sentenced to be stoned for adultery.

THE Vatican raised the possibility yesterday of using behind-the-scenes diplomacy to try to save the life of an Iranian widow sentenced to be stoned for adultery.

AN Iranian newspaper said yesterday that Carla Bruni, the wife of France’s president, deserved to die after she expressed solidarity with a woman sentenced to be stoned for adultery.

IRAN’S hardline media have called French first lady Carla Bruni a “prostitute” after she expressed strong support for an Iranian woman facing death by stoning for adultery.

France’s first lady Carla Bruni was labelled a “prostitute” by Iranian state-run media today over her support for a woman who faced death by stoning for adultery.

Iran will not send a woman who had faced death by stoning on an adultery conviction to Brazil, which has offered her asylum, the president said.

The lawyer of a woman at the centre of an international outcry after she was sentenced to death by stoning in Iran is in Turkey and has the option of applying for asylum, the UN’s refugee agency said today.

Iran is likely to reject Brazil’s offer to give refuge to a woman convicted of adultery and initially sentenced to death by stoning, officials said today.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva offered to provide refuge to a woman who was sentenced to death in Iran following her conviction for committing adultery.

THE lawyer for an Iranian widow sentenced to be stoned to death for an adultery conviction expressed cautious optimism over the weekend after Iran said it will review the decision, which has drawn international condemnation.

The death by stoning sentence for a 43-year-old woman convicted of adultery is under review, Iran’s top human rights official said today.