Election News

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iranian Nobel Peace Prize recipient Shirin Ebadi called on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Thursday to appoint a personal envoy to investigate human rights abuses in Iran. In a letter also signed by the rights groups International Federation for Human Rights and the Iranian League for the Defense of Human Rights, Ebadi asked Ban to appoint the envoy to look into abuses in Iran following June's disputed presidential election.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Responding to Iran's political crackdown and nuclear program will be "at front and center" of President Barack Obama's visit to Russia and the G8 summit in Italy next week, a US official said. Denis McDonough, one of Obama's top foreign policy aides, said that the president's visits would build upon a Group of Eight foreign ministers' statement deploring post election violence in Iran issued last week.

Reporting from Beirut -- A senior Iranian cleric said today that several employees of the British Embassy in Tehran arrested in recent days would be put on trial for unspecified charges of acting against Iran's national security, potentially escalating a confrontation with the West over last month's disputed presidential election.