The President of Iran is the highest popularly elected official in, and the head of government of the Islamic Republic of Iran; although subordinate to the Supreme Leader of Iran, who functions as the country's head of state. According to the constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran the president is responsible for the "functions of the executive", such as signing treaties, agreements etc. with other countries and international organizations; the national planning and budget and state employment affairs; appointing ministers, governors, and ambassadors subject to the approval of the parliament.

Unlike some other countries, for example the United States, in Iran the office of president does not bestow full control over foreign policy, the armed forces, or the nuclear policy of the Iranian state, which are ultimately under the control of the Supreme Leader.

The President of Iran is elected for a four-year term by the direct vote of the people and may not serve for more than two consecutive terms.

Coordinates: 32°N 53°E / 32°N 53°E / 32; 53

Iran (ⁱ/ɪˈrɑːn/ or /aɪˈræn/;Persian: ایران‎ [ʔiˈɾɒn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی ایران‎ Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān), is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran", which in Persian means "Land of the Aryans", has been in use natively since the Sassanian era. It came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia ( /ˈpɜrʒə/ or /ˈpɜrʃə/). Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, "Iran" is the name used officially in political contexts.

The 18th-largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km² (636,372 sq mi), Iran has a population of around 79 million. It is a country of particular geopolitical significance owing to its location in the Middle East and central Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which is an inland sea, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct neighbors to the north. Iran is bordered on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by Iraq and on the northwest by Turkey. Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a regional power, and holds an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Iran has the second largest proven natural gas reserves in the world and the fourth largest proven petroleum reserves.

Ann Curry (born November 19, 1956) is an American television news journalist, photojournalist, and co-anchor on NBC's morning television program Today. She is the former news anchor on Today, a role she began in March 1997, and was the host of Dateline NBC from 2005–2011.

Curry is a Board Member at the International Women's Media Foundation.

Curry was born in Guam to Bob Curry, of Cherokee, French, German, Scottish and Irish descent from Pueblo, Colorado, and Hiroe Nagase, originally from Japan. Her American father, a career Navy man, met her mother during the U.S. occupation of Japan following the Second World War. The U.S. military initially did not allow the marriage, but her father returned to Japan two years later to marry Nagase.

Curry lived in Japan for several years as a child, attending the Ernest J. King School on the military base in Sasebo. Later she moved to Ashland, Oregon, where she graduated from Ashland High School. She graduated with a BA in Journalism from the University of Oregon in 1978.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Persian: محمود احمدی‌نژاد‎, Mahmūd Ahmadinezhād [mæhˈmuːd(-e) æhmædiːneˈʒɒːd] ( listen),English: /ɑːkməˈdɪnɨʒɒd/; born 28 October 1956) is the sixth and current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the main political leader of the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, a coalition of conservative political groups in the country. An engineer and teacher from a poor background, Ahmadinejad joined the Office for Strengthening Unity after the Islamic Revolution. Appointed a provincial governor, he was removed after the election of President Mohammad Khatami and returned to teaching. Tehran's council elected him mayor in 2003. He took a religious hard line, reversing reforms of previous moderate mayors. His 2005 presidential campaign, supported by the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, garnered 62% of the runoff election votes, and he became President on 3 August 2005. His second presidency term ends on August 3, 2013. He is not eligible to run for another term under the current Iranian constitution.

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden ( /oʊˈsɑːmə bɪn moʊˈhɑːmɨd bɪn əˈwɑːd bɪn ˈlɑːdən/; Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن‎, ʾUsāmah bin Muḥammad bin ʿAwaḍ bin Lādin; March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), was the founder of Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. He was a member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.

Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the War on Terror, with a US$25 million bounty by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by U.S. Navy SEALs and CIA operatives in a covert operation ordered by United States President Barack Obama.