Women can not contest Iran's June 14 presidential election, a member of the Islamic state's electoral watchdog said in media reports on Friday, dashing the hopes of some 30 female candidates. "The law prohibits women from being president," said hardline cleric and former judiciary chief Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, quoted by the Mehr news agency. Yazdi is a prominent member of Iran's Guardians Council, an unelected watchdog controlled by religious conservatives and appointed by Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that is tasked mainly with vetting candidates.

By Marcus George DUBAI (Reuters) - A former Iranian nuclear negotiator announced on Thursday he would run for president, the most moderate contender so far to bid to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a June election dominated by conservatives. Hassan Rohani, 64, was head of the powerful Supreme National Security Council under presidents Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, considered a master of realpolitik rather than an ideologue, and Mohammad Khatami, who pushed for wide-ranging social and political reforms.

By Yeganeh Torbati and Fredrik Dahl DUBAI/VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran said on Tuesday operations had begun at two uranium mines and a milling plant and that Western opposition would not slow its nuclear work, days after talks with world powers made no breakthrough. Iran opened the Saghand 1 and 2 mines in the central province of Yazd and the Shahid Rezaeinejad yellowcake plant in the town of Ardakan in the same region to mark the country's National Nuclear Technology Day, state news agency IRNA said.

A pickup truck smuggling fuel crashed on Friday into a car carrying 15 Afghans in southeastern Iran, bursting into flames and killing all on board as well as three Iranians, media reported. "The crash and resulting fire claimed the lives of 15 Afghans who had entered the country illegally," the state IRNA news agency quoted local official Sadeq Dadollahpour as saying. He attributed the accident to the "excessive speed" of both vehicles.