The Communists of Russia party has asked the FSB security service and top prosecutors to investigate the possible involvement of Western intelligence services in the death of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, RIA news agency reported on Tuesday."The party appealed to the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation and the FSB with a request to check the possible involvement of Western intelligence services in the death of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin," RIA cited the chairman of the party, Sergei Malinkovich as saying."Many testimonies from Stalin's contemporaries speak of the possible poisoning of the leader of the Soviet nations by agents of Western influence," Malinkovich said, according to the report.It was not immediately clear whether the FSB or the Prosecutor General's Office had replied to the party's request.Tuesday marks the 71st anniversary of the death of Stalin, who was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 until the day he died. The cause of his death was a haemorrhagic stroke, according to the government

An earthquake measuring 5.5 magnitude struck the Southern Iran region on Tuesday, the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) said.The quake was at a depth of 10 km (6.21 miles), GFZ said.