BOI - AFP - A timeline of the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme:

2002: An exiled Iranian opposition group says the country is building secret underground nuclear facilities, notably at Natanz in central Iran.
US President George W. Bush labels Iran, along with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq, as part of an "axis of evil."

By Claude Salhani, UPI International

BOI - By mid-week the news concerning Iran's nuclear debacle was positive. Sounding somewhat optimistic, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy welcomed the United States' willingness in joining the negotiations over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
    
    For a brief moment the international community held its breath as Washington agreed to sit at the same table with representatives from the Islamic Republic of Iran -- something they have not done in more than 25 years -- since the Islamic revolution ousted the shah and revolutionary students took over the American Embassy in Tehran and held U.S. diplomats hostage for 444 days.

BOI - NCRI - The 2006 National Convention for Democratic Secular Republic of Iran was held Thursday, May 25, to support the third option proposed by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance.

Iranian communities from 40 different states attended this annual convention.

US Senators, House Representatives and their senior advisors as well as political and social dignitaries, former government officials and diplomatic missions in Washington took part at this annual event at Andrew Mellon Convention Center in Washington D.C.

BOI - Iran Focus - The international human rights organisation Amnesty International blasted human rights abuses in Iran in 2005 in its annual report on the state of the world's human rights.

“Scores of political prisoners, including prisoners of conscience, continued to serve prison sentences imposed following unfair trials in previous years”, Amnesty said, adding that hundreds more were arrested in 2005.

The report accused Iranian authorities of arbitrarily detaining internet journalists and human rights without access to family or legal representation, often initially in “secret detention centres”.

Tom Walker - The Sunday Times

BOI - INSPECTORS from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are asking Iranian officials for samples of machinery taken from a nuclear site bulldozed in 2004 to confirm whether it bears traces of bomb-grade uranium.

Diplomats close to the IAEA in Vienna said yesterday that they want to establish whether the Physics Research Centre at Lavizan, northeast of Tehran, could have been involved in an illicit weapons programme.

The IAEA request follows a preliminary finding that one piece of equipment from the site does have traces of highly enriched uranium.

The latest development is bound to intensify suspicions in America and other western countries that Iran may be closer to a nuclear bomb than the IAEA realises. But the traces of uranium could be the result of inadvertent contamination of hardware obtained by Iran from abroad.

By WILLIAM J. BROAD - The New York Times

BOI -  Atomic inspectors have found traces of highly enriched uranium on equipment linked to an Iranian military base, raising new questions about whether Iran harbors a clandestine program to make nuclear bombs, diplomats said yesterday.

It is the second such discovery in three years of United Nations inspections in Iran. As the Security Council debates how to handle the atomic impasse with Tehran, the finding is likely to deepen skepticism about Iran's claims that its program is entirely peaceful.