PRESIDENT Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced new advances in Iran’s uranium enrichment drive yesterday, as government supporters rallied en masse and the opposition reported clashes on the 31st anniversary of the revolution that brought the clerical establishment to power.

TWO prominent defeated Iranian presidential candidates said they would maintain their campaign against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election, which has sparked Iran’s worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran’s supreme leader crushed the fading hopes of election demonstrators today with a declaration that the government would not yield to them.