May 17 - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Thursday he hopes to attend this summer's Olympic Games in London but that the British authorities were reluctant to allow him, state media reported.

"I would like to be beside the Iranian athletes at the Olympic Games in London to support them, but (the British) have issues with my presence," Ahmadinejad said, without offering further explanation.

"The enemies do not want our athletes to win medals, but our young people shall be present at the Olympic Games and, like Arash, give new reasons to take pride in Islamic Iran," he said, quoted by the official news agency IRNA.

Arash is a mythical hero of ancient Persia.

According to legend, he was instructed to shoot an arrow that would determine the country's border. He exerted all his strength to shoot the arrow a great distance, but was destroyed in the process.

Relations between Tehran and London are at an all-time low. London closed its embassy in Tehran after a rampage of the building by Islamist students in November 2011./-

May 17 - U.S. plans for a possible military strike on Iran are ready and the option is "fully available", the U.S. ambassador to Israel said, days before Tehran resumes talks with world powers which suspect it of seeking to develop nuclear arms.

Like Israel, the United States has said it considers military force a last resort to prevent Iran using its uranium enrichment to make a bomb. Iran insists its nuclear programme is for purely civilian purposes.

"It would be preferable to resolve this diplomatically and through the use of pressure than to use military force," Ambassador Dan Shapiro said in remarks about Iran aired by Israel's Army Radio on Thursday.

"But that doesn't mean that option is not fully available - not just available, but it's ready. The necessary planning has been done to ensure that it's ready," said Shapiro, who the radio station said had spoken on Tuesday./-

May 15 – Iranian government prepares for the second phase of the cut in subsidies which firstwas launched in November 2010, Iranian media reported Tuesday.

The news agency ILNA reported that the parliament in its open session has approved the revenue of $53.8 bn to be achieved by the government through cut in subsidies paid on energy carriers.

Based on the budget law every Iranian will receive IRR 55100, equivalent to $33 at free market exchange rate which will be $12 less the amount paid in the first phase of the economic reform.

ILNA also adds that the amount of the revenue could be hypothetical since the revenue from the first phase was predicted at $54 bn but only $22 bn was materialized, thus the government was forced to cover the cash compensation on the people from other sources such as loans from the Central Bank and revenues from crude sale.