Iran could face tightened sanctions within months after a US congressional panel Wednesday adopted a measure targeting the nation's auto and mining industries as well as its foreign currency reserves. The House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed the Nuclear Iran Prevention Act, which would extend existing sanctions to the auto and mining sectors and allow the US president to subject other Iranian industries, such as engineering, to similar restrictions.

WASHINGTON - A new push to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions by crippling the country's economy gathered momentum on Capitol Hill Wednesday with approval of legislation by the House Foreign Affairs Committee that would impose even tougher economic sanctions against Tehran. And the Senate resolved that the United States should support Israel if it is forced to take military action to defend itself from an Iranian nuclear threat.

The UN nuclear watchdog's latest report on Iran's nuclear program marks the "unfortunate milestone" of a decade of Iranian defiance of the body, the US State Department said Wednesday. The International Atomic Energy Agency's director general issued the report Sunday, ten years after the IAEA's first on the Iranian program in June 2003. "And in the past 10 years, Iran has brazenly ignored multiple Board of Governors' resolutions while advancing its enrichment program in blatant violation of its international obligations," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said.

What's happening around the world on Wednesday: -- TOP STORIES -- + New round of talks on Iran's nuclear programme + Dozens of Rohingya missing in Myanmar as cyclone looms + Cannes film festival opens + US attorney general before Congress on AP phone records