Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, on a visit to Iran as the G20 summit opens in London, denounced capitalism and announced the founding of a Iranian-Venezuelan binational bank. Chávez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad officially opened the Tehran-based commercial bank April 3, aimed at spurring trade and industrial projects between the two countries. The two leaders facetiously referred to their nations as the "G2."

Israel may attack Iran to prevent it from developing a nuclear bomb, the top US commander in the Middle East told Congress April 1. Gen. David Petraeus said "the Israeli government may ultimately see itself so threatened by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon that it would take preemptive military action to derail or delay it."

President Barack Obama broadcast a speech to the people and leaders of Iran early March 20, offering greetings for a Persian new year holiday of Nowruz, stressing the potential for peaceful cooperation. A video of the speech was distributed to news outlets in the region, subtitled in Farsi:

On March 8, Iranian intelligence agents raided the home of Ali Nejati, president of the Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Company Workers' Syndicate (Khuzestan province), and arrested him. This follows a Feb. 28 raid, in which agents searched his home and confiscated documents related to the Syndicate. Within recent weeks, seven other leaders of the Syndicate have been arrested on charges of violating "national security," and mostly released on bail.

On Feb. 18, judicial authorities in Iran carried out lashing sentences against labor leaders Shiva Kheirabadi and Sosuan Razani for their participation in May Day events last year. Razani received a 9-month suspended sentence and 70 lashes, while Kheirabadi received a 4-month suspended sentence and 15 lashes. On Feb. 21, similar sentences were handed down to two other labor activists in Sanandaj, Abdullah Khani and Qaleb Hosseini. Khani was sentenced 40 lashes and 91 days in prison, and Hosseini was sentenced to 50 lashes and six months in prison. The lashings were carried out immediately, and they were both transferred to Sanandaj Central Prison.

A Feb. 18 National Public Radio story on the crackdown on human rights activists in Iran makes the point that the US "regime change" campaign has prompted Tehran to turn up the heat on internal dissent—and makes it easier to tar activists as American agents. Iran's foremost rights activist Shirin Ebadi is quoted saying the recent closure of her office by the authorities came in response to "a resolution passed against Iran in the United Nations."

Seven members of the Baha'i faith will stand trial in Iran on charges of "spying for Israel" and "desecrating Islam and campaigning against the Islamic Republic," the official ISNA agency reported Feb. 11. Last May, Israel's Haaretz reported that Iran had detained six Baha'is on similar charges, but it was not clear whether the seven were the same leaders arrested in 2008. The European Union reiterated its deep concern over "the ongoing systematic discrimination and the persecution of the Iranian Baha'is." (Haartez, Feb. 11)

The US Treasury Department Feb. 4 branded the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), which is waging a low-level guerilla insurgency in the Kurdish regions of Iran, as a terrorist organization. The group is a front for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been fighting the Turkish government for 25 years, said Stuart Levey, US Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. Levey said PJAK's armed wing, the East Kurdistan Defense Forces, had recently been recalled to Iraqi territory on the orders of the PKK, in apparent move to bring them under greater control. (Reuters, Feb. 4)