Farzad Kamangar, a teacher, trade unionist and rights activist from Iran's Kordistan province, sentenced to death on what his attorney calls "absolutely zero evidence," could be hanged today, his supporters say. Sources report that he has been taken from his cell at Tehran's Evin prison in preparation for execution. Security officers at the prison are reported to have informed him that he is to be executed imminently, taunted him and called him a martyr.

Iran's judiciary has sentenced a Sufi leader to five years in prison, flogging and exile on charges of spreading lies, the moderate Kargozaran newspaper reported Nov. 15. The report identified the man as Amir Ali Mohammad Labaf, of the Nematollahis or Gonabadi Dervishes order based in the northeastern province of Khorassan Razavi. Labaf was convicted by a court in Iran's clerical center of Qom, finding that his holding of traditional Sufi prayers constituted "a case of spreading lies," the report said, without elaborating. In addition to the five-year prison term, Labaf was sentenced to 74 lashes and internal exile to the southeastern town of Babak. (AFP, Nov. 15)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a letter congratulating US president-elect Barack Obama, said his nation and the world expect "fundamental" changes to US policy, and "welcomed" the prospect for "justice, respect for human rights, friendship, and non-interference in other countries' internal affairs."

In response to Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz in the event of a military attack, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is planing to build an inland canal to bring Persian Gulf oil to world markets. "Our oil revenues will be jeopardized if we don't find an alternative to using the Hormuz Strait for exporting oil," Dubai Chief of Police Lt.-Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim told the UAE daily Gulf News. The canal, passing through the northern emirate of Ras Al-Kheima, would be big enough to accommodate super-tankers.

The International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran (IASWI) has called for an international campaign on behalf of several labor activists in Iran who have been sentenced to public whipping, prison terms and even death—mostly for participating in a May Day march in Sanandaj, and protests against the march's repression. The sentences were announced earlier this month. IASWI provides the following list of persecuted activists:

From AP, July 23:

Republican John McCain on Wednesday credited the recent $10-a-barrel drop in the price of oil to President Bush's lifting of a presidential ban on offshore drilling, an action he has been advocating in his presidential campaign.

In the most significant sign of de-escalation we've yet seen, Iranian diplomats are to meet in Geneva this weekend to discuss the Islamic Republic's nuclear program with representatives of six world powers—including US Undersecretary of State William Burns. The establishment of a US diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time since 1980 has even been broached. (AFP, July 18) Wasting no time, the once-admirable Benny Morris places an op-ed in the New York Times July 18, with the cheerfully Orwellian title "Using Bombs to Stave Off War," making the case for Israeli air-strikes—and even nuclear strikes—against Iran.

Thousands of workers at the Iran Khodro Car Manufacturing Company are reported to be on strike. The protest began in the form of hunger strike on June 28, and expanded across the company, with thousands of workers joining protests and strike actions since then. Workers' demands include: