At least 40 people are feared dead after small passenger plane crashed while taking off from an airport near the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said that the country is ready to assist Iraq in its battle against extremist Sunni Islamists.

A billionaire businessman that was responsible for the biggest bank fraud Iran has ever seen has been executed, Iranian state media has said.

China carries out more executions than any other country, a new report has estimated.

The Lockerbie bombing was ordered by Iran and carried out by Syrian-based extremists, a former Iranian intelligence officer has admitted.

An Iranian man should be sentenced to having his eyes gouged out after pouring acid over a young girl's face leaving her blind, an Iranian court has ruled.

Iran hopes to use a meeting of Opec oil ministers today as a launch pad for its return as a dominant force in global crude markets after months of sanctions.

Iran nuclear talks entered a delicate phase as negotiators tried to fine-tune a draft agreement that would limit Tehran's atomic program in return for easing some sanctions.

Iran's supreme leader has voiced support for the negotiations over his country's nuclear program, but insisted there are limits to the concessions Iran will make in exchange for an easing of the sanctions choking its economy.

An attempt by Iran's reformist President, Hassan Rouhani, to abolish the chant "Death to America" as part of his drive to improve relations with the West has angered hardliners.

With PowerPoint slides and feel-good phrases, Iranian negotiators presented world powers with what they said was a plan to break a decade of deadlock over Tehran's nuclear program.

Britain and Iran are to take a first step towards re-opening their respective embassies, Foreign Secretary William Hague says, adding that Tehran's new leadership is presenting itself "in a much more positive way than in the recent past."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu played the spoiler to Iran's attempts to ease relations with the West, calling the Iranian leader "a wolf in sheep's clothing".

On Sept 18, 1980, two airmen entered Launch Complex 374-7, an underground silo outside Damascus, Arkansas, to service a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile.

The United States and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council said they were pleased by a new tone and attitude from Iran.

Word of the opening of Iran's blocked social media sites was spread, of course, by social media itself: in celebratory tweets and breathless Facebook posts.

Hassan Rouhani reached out to the West and the Iranian people with a welcome plea for dialogue and moderation as he was sworn in as Iranian President.

The resounding victory by moderate cleric Hassan Rowhani in the Iranian presidential election was a welcome surprise.

The surprise victory of reformist candidate Hassan Rowhani in the Iranian presidential elections triggered a predictably harsh reaction yesterday.

Iran's feared Revolutionary Guards have set up a network of secret prisons after the leadership issued a set of orders to prepare for a security crisis following yesterday's presidential election, according to Western diplomatic sources.

Iran's clerical authorities are taking no chances in this week's election for a successor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A New Zealander's dramatic account of a daring secret mission to rescue American hostages has emerged after being left out of the Hollywood hit film Argo.