Tehran, Apr. 22 : Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi has written a public love letter to his fiancée Roxana Saberi, the American-Iranian journalist sentenced by Iran on spying charges.

Ghobadi, whose love letter proclaims Saberi’s innocence and denounces her imprisonment, hopes his words can succeed where Barack Obama’s have failed.

In a move that has become the latest standoff between Tehran and Washington, Saberi was given an eight-year jail sentence.

Brasilia - Brazil condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's verbal attack on Israel at a UN racism conference as it prepares for a May 6 visit by the Iranian leader.

Ahmadinejad trivialized the meaning of tragic and historically established events like the Holocaust, Brazil's Foreign Relations Ministry said Tuesday in a statement.

Such comments damage the climate for dialogue and the understanding necessary for international efforts to end discrimination, it added.

Berlin  - Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi was awarded one of Germany's top prizes Tuesday for her human rights advocacy work, and vowed that she would continue her efforts despite threats posed by Tehran authorities.

Together with Paris-based organization Reporters without Borders, Ebadi was awarded the Roland Berger Human Dignity Award by German President Horst Koehler. The prize was established in Germany last year to promote peaceful cooperation in the world.

Washington  - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinjed's remarks against Israel at a UN racism conference were "appalling and objectionable," and damaging to the prospects of better relations with the United States, President Barack Obama said Tuesday.

During a meeting with Jordanian King Abdullah, Obama responded to Ahmadinejad's comments a day after the Iranian president called Israel a "racist regime" created "under the pretext of Jewish suffering."

Cairo  - The Egyptian Foreign Ministry on Tuesday summoned Iran's chief diplomat in Cairo to deliver a formal protest at an Iranian officials' mockery of Egyptian claims to have uncovered a Hezbollah cell in the country.

Zarqani Mohammed, Egypt's assistant foreign minister for Asian affairs, summoned the head of the Iranian interests section in Cairo to deliver a letter conveying Egypt's "strong and total rejection" of Iranian "intervention in Egypt's internal affairs," the Foreign Ministry said in statement released Tuesday.