Tehran

SOFIA, Bulgaria -- On the eve of a United Nations deadline for Iran to halt uranium enrichment, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called yesterday for diplomatic action against Tehran, warning that the Security Council cannot permit the regime to "simply ignore its will and its word." Rice, appearing at a NATO meeting, said it was "pretty clear" that Iran will ignore the deadline set for today by the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency for a halt to enrichment. When the International Atomic Energy Agency reports this failure, she said, the Security Council must ask itself whether it will remain credible if it allows Iran to "simply flout the will of the international community" without penalty.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- U.S. defense and intelligence officials, seeking to lend credibility to allegations that Iran is providing weapons to Shiite militants in Iraq, displayed munitions and fragments of weapons yesterday that they said constituted solid evidence that Tehran was contributing to Iraq's violence. They also alleged that a group under the command of Iran's supreme leader was behind the smuggling of the weaponry across the Iran-Iraq border. The briefing, held under unusually secretive circumstances, featured three U.S. officials, none of whom would be identified by name, and two tables laden with what they said were uniquely Iranian military hardware and weapons fragments.

TEHRAN, Iran - -Huge swaths of the Iranian capital erupted in fiery riots that stretched into the early hours Sunday as hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in his quest for a second term amid allegations of widespread fraud and reports that his main challenger had been placed under house arrest. At the same moment the president was promising a "bright and glorious future" for Iran in a late-night televised address, supporters of reformist rival Mir Hossein Mousavi were battling with police and militiamen in riot gear throughout Tehran in the most serious clashes in the capital since a student uprising 10 years ago. In the streets and squares where young Iranians had danced and waved green banners in support of Mousavi days ago, baton-wielding police chased and beat mobs of hundreds of demonstrators who chanted, "Down with dictatorship!"

WASHINGTON - Defying European and U.S. threats, Iran resumed uranium processing yesterday, setting up a new confrontation with the West over its nuclear program. French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy called Tehran's decision to resume uranium conversion "grave and troubling" and a "clear violation" of a 2004 agreement reached in Paris under which Iran had pledged to freeze nuclear activities while it held negotiations with European nations. The board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, was to hold an emergency meeting today to discuss the issue.

MOSCOW -- Russia's foreign minister said yesterday that he doubted the usefulness of United Nations sanctions as a solution to the Iranian nuclear situation and affirmed Russia's reluctance to use Security Council intervention to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Russia and China have joined the Security Council's other permanent members - the United States, Britain and France - in calling on Iran to cease uranium enrichment. But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's remarks appeared to draw a line in the sand over the question of sanctions against Iran.

WASHINGTON - An emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency broke up yesterday with Iran vigorously defending its right to pursue nuclear energy programs and European diplomats saying they intended to offer Tehran one last chance to back down. But there was no sign that Iran's new hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intended to reverse his decision to restart the uranium conversion plant at Isfahan. Instead, Iran said it would break the seals on the mothballed areas of the plant now that IAEA cameras are in place to monitor the process.

TEHRAN, Iran - In the land where Islam is supposed to be the basis of all law and behavior, the 13 men and women meeting a few nights ago in one of the well-to-do neighborhoods of north Tehran created a secular democracy. In their country within a country, women enjoyed the same status as men. Everyone's opinion could be freely given, and Iran's Islamic clerics had no special powers. The inhabitants of that small republic, thriving in the living room of a comfortable apartment, easily dropped all the veils that the Iranian government imposes on dress, speech and actions.

Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran ... Or as Mitt Romney put it, playing the irresponsible-lunatic game convincingly enough to become the leading Republican presidential candidate: "If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. " The consensus congeals: Our next war must be with Iran. A report issued by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, which The New York Times called "chillingly comprehensive" (though this is debatable), stoked this long-simmering agenda.

Speculation in Israel about the possibility of a strike on Iran's nuclear program in the coming weeks has intensified, and not just because of Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney's tough talk in Jerusalem. Mr. Romney called for the U.S. and Israel to use "any and all measures" to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons - a position repeated virtually verbatim by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta when he visited Israel a few days later. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that "time to resolve this peacefully is running out," even as theU.S.

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iranian moderates swept toward a landslide victory in the parliament, edging out several leading hard-liners and opening a path for President Hashemi Rafsanjani's moves toward better relations with the West, the official Iranian news agency reported yesterday.Several of Mr. Rafsanjani's key allies captured seats in the 270-seat Majlis, while well-known radicals placed well down in the balloting and were likely to be shut out of the seatsthat they have used as a forum for maintaining the combative line set by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.