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Brief On Iran
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Wednesday, 29 March 2006 |
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By Tsotne Bakuria The Washington Times - In 1995, former Iranian president Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani made a little-noticed trip to the neighboring country of Georgia. He spent several hours in Tbilisi, the capital, and then instead of returning to Iran, he made a secret side trip to the breakaway region of Adjara to visit President Aslan Abashidze.
The purpose of the detour was not to visit the balmy, palm-treed tourist sea port resort of Batumi on the Black Sea. His purpose was more sinister.
The Iranian president was looking for black market sources of chemicals to enrich uranium for building a nuclear bomb. He found a willing partner in the small-time warlord, who promised to help for an undisclosed sum of money. In fact, Mr. Abashidze -- who was later ousted from power in 2004 -- offered his important contacts in Russia, as well as private Adjaran planes to secretly fly the needed components to Iran. The deal went through.
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Rice to visit Europe for talks on Iran |
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Tuesday, 28 March 2006 |
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Agence France Presse - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Germany, France and Britain this week for talks on the UN deadlock over Iran's nuclear program, a State Department official said Monday. Word of her trip came as London announced that the foreign ministers of the UN Security Council's five permanent members -- the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain -- plus Germany would meet Thursday in Berlin to discuss Iran. Rice will confer with officials of the so-called EU-3 at a time when talks have bogged down within the Security Council on a statement seeking to call Iran to account for its suspected efforts to develop a nuclear bomb. more |
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Iran: first stop to establish democracy in the Middle East |
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Tuesday, 28 March 2006 |
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By Nima Sharif The American Chronicle - In the past few weeks, many European and American officials have acknowledged that the path to a free Middle East passes through Tehran. In another words, the only way to see peace and freedom prevail in the Middle East and especially in Iraq, is to see a democratic government taking power in Iran. Although the Iranian people have been saying this for the past 3 years while being pretty much ignored by the Westerners but coming to this conclusion is by itself a sign of reaching a new and deeper understanding of the region by Western leaders. Before the war in Iraq, Americans believed that they could some how get along with the Iranians as the biggest neighbor to that country. To be sure, the US, through diplomatic channels, officially asked the Iranians not to meddle in the war and for the duration of the operations and they did actually succeed to keep them out. Later on, it turned out that the Americans had actually met with the Iranians a few times in Europe to discuss the matter. more |
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Rice: U.S., Russia Discussing Iran Nukes |
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Monday, 27 March 2006 |
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Associated Press - WASHINGTON — U.S. and Russian officials worked over the weekend on how best to oppose Iran's nuclear program as the Bush administration's efforts for U.N. action against Tehran have bogged down.
"The Iranians are defying the world's will, and the international community needs to speak and speak with one voice," Rice told "Fox News Sunday." "There are some tactical issues about how best to express that."
Tehran has been referred to the Security Council over fears it may want to use its nuclear program to produce weapons. more |
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Iranian hawk swoops on universities to crush dissent |
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Monday, 27 March 2006 |
Robert Tait in Tehran
The Guardian - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is cracking down on Iran's universities in an effort to crush a student pro-democracy movement and strengthen the hardliners' grip on power.
Leading student activists have been jailed or expelled from their studies, and lecturers have been sacked, while the government has proposed subjecting academics to strict religious testing.
The authorities have also begun a programme of burying the bodies of unknown soldiers on campus grounds in what student leaders say is a thinly disguised attempt to bring religious extremists into the universities on the pretext of holding "martyrs' ceremonies". Students fear that such a presence will be used to violently suppress their activities.
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Ahmadinejad vows to pursue nuclear program in Iran |
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Monday, 27 March 2006 |
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BOI – The mullahs' President Ahmadinejad vowed once again on Monday to press forward with the regime's highly controversial nuclear program despite international concerns. Speaking to a gathering in the southern province of Kohgilouyeh-Bouyer-Ahmad, he said: "Today the Iranian nation is standing firm against the world's bullies and oppressors, and the people will not back down even one step from its right in seeking nuclear technology." more |
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Reid: ‘the world will take action if Iran develops nuclear weapons’ |
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Sunday, 26 March 2006 |
By James Cusick, Westminster Editor and Peter Ross
Sunday Herald - The Secretary of State for Defence, John Reid, has said the “world community” will not allow Iran to continue developing a nuclear weapon “without seriously taking some form of action”. In the clearest statement yet of the government’s determination to prevent Iran’s nuclear industry from growing to the point where it can produce weapons, Reid claimed the problem of Iran was “one that had to be countered”.
In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Herald, Reid, in what will be interpreted as a coded political warning, said his favourite definition of diplomacy was “the art of saying, good dog , good dog, until you find a big enough rock” to bash the animal with.
On Iran, Reid claimed “up to this point we have engaged in diplomacy, we still are, it will go on that way.”
Reid’s overt warning to the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, comes in the week when the United States confirmed it was ready to open a dialogue with Iran.
The offer of talks made last November by the USA had been ignored by Tehran. But last week the US ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said it was ready to hold talks with Iran that are expected to focus on accusations that Iran is helping in the destabilisation of Iraq.
Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, last week said she believed the talks would begin shortly and were “at an appropriate time”.
Reid’s comments on almost a conditional diplomacy backed by the threat of action from the world’s community over the nuclear issue, is proof that the US and the UK want to see a unified stance against Ahmadinejad.
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Iran only week or two away from pilot uranium enrichment - diplomats |
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Sunday, 26 March 2006 |
Agence France Presse - Iran could be running a 164-centrifuge pilot cascade to enrich uranium by the end of March or beginning of April, diplomats close to the UN nuclear watchdog told AFP.
This comes as the United Nations Security Council is stalled over issuing a statement that would call on Iran to suspend enrichment, which Tehran says is to produce nuclear reactor fuel but can make atom bomb material.
At the pilot cascade in the Iranian city of Natanz, "there is just piping to be finished, then they do vacuum tests, then they would test with inert gas and finally they would put in uranium gas to begin the process," said a diplomat close to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The diplomat, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, said the cascade might be ready to begin enrichment as quickly as "within a week, maybe a week or two longer."
While the cascade at Natanz is too small to produce weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU), the reported progress "has really raised the anxiety level" about Tehran's nuclear program, a Western diplomat said.
"Iran is closer to mastering centrifuge cascade operations than we expected," the diplomat said.
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Sale of 70,000 glow-in-the-dark lights okayed by nuclear agency |
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Sunday, 26 March 2006 |
Watchdog cleared tritium shipment to Iran
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT - ENVIRONMENT REPORTER
The Globe and Mail - The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission approved a shipment to Iran last year by a Canadian company of about 70,000 glow-in-the-dark lights containing tritium, a radioactive gas that can also be used as a component in hydrogen bombs.
The amount of tritium approved by the nuclear regulator for shipment to the volatile Middle Eastern country was about 10 per cent of the quantity considered necessary for making one nuclear weapon, although the company selling the lights, SRB Technologies (Canada) Inc., said it sent less than it was allowed.
The sale to Iran was confirmed by the CNSC after The Globe and Mail obtained heavily censored e-mails originating from the federal nuclear watchdog about the transaction. Another e-mail that discussed SRB indicated the federal bureaucracy didn't want any atomic sales that would lead to Canadian complicity in programs by either Iran or North Korea to develop weapons of mass destruction.
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Iran is ruled by a terror regime and we must support Iranian Resistance – French MP |
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Sunday, 26 March 2006 |
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BOI – Reporting the Iranian New Year celebration in north of Paris, the French daily Parisian, March 23, quoted the French MP, Gérard Charasse, addressing a crowed of over 1000 Iranians and supporters of the Iranian Resistance describing the clerical rule in Iran as a terror regime and a true dictatorship. He also urged support for the Iranian Resistance.
With Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance as a special guest to the event, Charasse said that he had joined the event to show Iranians and their resistance that French people and the French parliamentarians are behind them in their struggle.
A group of some 30 French local residents went on the stage to demonstrate their support to the Iranian Resistance and its President-elect and some addressed the event in Farsi. more |
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Muslim women raise voices worldwide |
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Sunday, 26 March 2006 |
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By RAHEEL RAZA
Toronto Star - During the height of the Danish cartoon controversy, Canadian media interviewed male Muslim leaders exclusively, without bothering to seek out leaders among Muslim women. It's a given that Muslim leaders are men, preferably with beards.
Haideh Moghissi, a sociology professor at York University, says that rigid, unforgiving and sexist voices are considered valid voices by Western media. When a Muslim woman speaks out or assumes a leadership role, she's called militant.
...The conference, titled "Women's leadership: Indispensable to the struggle against fundamentalism," was supported by 15 European organizations.
...In her opening remarks, Dame Elizabeth Sydney, chair of the International Federation Against Fundamentalism and for Equality, said, "Gender equality brings great many benefits ... it introduces an enormous amount of talent and energy into society. Under the fundamentalist regime, women are violently prevented from using their abilities. But the release of 50 per cent of human talent will raise standards for all of us."
In a video message, Maryam Rajavi of the Iranian Resistance said that Islamic fundamentalism is the biggest threat to the equality movement and therefore finding a way to confront the imminent danger of religious fascism ruling Iran is an urgent imperative.
Asked how to defeat Islamic fundamentalism and misogyny, Rajavi responded: "You have to eliminate the male-dominated culture as an inhumane culture, through women leadership. Accordingly, the establishment of democracy without the active role of women in society's leadership is impossible or at best retractable." more |
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Iran's Nuclear Steps Quicken, Diplomats Say |
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Sunday, 26 March 2006 |
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Tehran reportedly is gearing up for uranium enrichment. A split in the Security Council may impede efforts to halt the program.
By Alissa J. Rubin and Maggie Farley, Times Staff Writers
The Los Angeles Times - VIENNA — With efforts to halt its nuclear program at an impasse, Iran is moving faster than expected and is just days from making the first steps toward enriching uranium, said diplomats who have been briefed on the program.
If engineers encounter no major technical problems, Iran could manufacture enough highly enriched uranium to build a bomb within three years, much more quickly than the common estimate of five to 10 years, the diplomats said. more |
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Iran speeds up nuclear programme as crisis talks bog down |
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Saturday, 25 March 2006 |
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By Ian Traynor
The Guardian - Iran is racing ahead with preparations to enrich uranium as the big powers struggle to decide on their next moves aimed at resolving the nuclear crisis surrounding the country.
Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, charged with investigating Iran's nuclear programme, say that the Iranians are assembling and making operational dozens of centrifuge machines for enriching uranium at their vast complex in Natanz south of Tehran.
According to diplomats, the Iranians are in the process of achieving a "technological leap" by making operational a cascade of 164 centrifuges to enrich uranium for power plants or warheads. A fortnight ago they were known to have assembled only 34 centrifuges. They are believed to be rushing to assemble dozens more at a time when western negotiations with Tehran have collapsed and big power attempts to develop a coherent policy are deadlocked. more |
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DEATH PENALTY: Sanctions on Iran May Trigger Executions |
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Saturday, 25 March 2006 |
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By Alison Langley
FRANKFURT, (IPS) - A United Nations Security Council (UNSC)vote imposing sanctions on the Tehran government for its nuclear programme could result in retaliatory executions of some seven condemned prisoners, the rights watchdog Amnesty International (AI) believes.
Iranian prison officials reportedly have told the men -- all of whom claim to be political prisoners -- they soon will die in retaliation for possible UNSC sanctions, said Kate Willingham, a staff member for AI with the Iranian portfolio. more |
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Japan urged to halt oil development in Iran |
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Thursday, 23 March 2006 |
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BOI - Sankei Shimbun, a Japanese daily reported on Thursday that senior US officials have called on Japan to halt development of a massive oil field in Iran amid concern that revenue from the project could fuel Iranian regime's nuclear drive. Qouting anonymous sources close to the US government Sankei Shimbun reported that Washington had asked Japan to halt the two-billion-dollar Azadegan project. more |
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Brief On Iran 
