Free Republic

Iran has shrugged off the threat of sanctions, saying such a move would push already high oil prices higher still, hurting economies in industrialized countries more than Iran. International crude prices remain in sight of record highs partly because of market fears that supply from Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, could be disrupted if the nuclear dispute escalates.

LONDON, August 28 (IranMania) - Iran warned it would prosecute any individual or business inside the country from working with foreign-based Persian language satellite channels, the student ISNA news agency reported. "Any cooperation, participation in programs, placing advertisements, interviews and joint production of programs is prohibited and will be prosecuted," Iran's conservative culture ministry said in a statement carried by ISNA. The ministry said the ban was issued because of the "illegal activity and the irreverent content of foreign based Persian-language TV channels". The reception of satellite programs is prohibited in Iran but media reports say about three to four...

LONDON, August 28 (IranMania) - Secretary of Iran-Italy Chambers of Commerce said that investing in Iranian projects implies concurrent investment in all regional countries given that Iran is the pivotal country in the Persian Gulf and Central Asia-Caucasus regions. Speaking to ILNA, Jamshid Haqgou added that the volume of trade between Iran and Italy in 2006 has increased. This is while in 2005 bilateral trade amounted to over five billion dollars, he said noting, “The figure is rapidly increasing and we predict that by the end of this year it will exceed $5.5 billion.“ He added, “Iranian investments in Italy...

Tehran, Iran, Aug. 27 – A man was hanged in public on Saturday in the south-eastern province of Sistan-va-Baluchestan, the official news agency IRNA reported. The man, identified as Ali-Jan Moradi, was hanged in public in the town of Iran-Shahr. He was accused of drug smuggling. Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on the bogus charge of drug smuggling. Sistan-va-Baluchistan Province is home to Baluchis, a predominantly Sunni Muslim ethnic minority. Iran has witnessed escalating unrest since 2006 in areas populated by Baluchis, who complain of discriminatory and repressive policies by the theocratic regime. In recent months, Iranian authorities have stepped...

Illegal migrants 'dumped on city streets' in Spain By Fiona Govan, Spain Correspondent (Filed: 28/08/2006) A political row is raging in Spain over the fate of the hundreds of illegal immigrants allegedly being "dumped" across the mainland after arriving by boat in the Canary Islands. With more than 18,000 immigrants arriving from west Africa this year, immigrant holding centres on the holiday islands are at bursting point. Many of the exhausted Africans deliberately ''lose" their identity papers during their journey, making it impossible for Spain to deport them or easily assess asylum requests. Under Spanish law, after an initial 40...

PARIS (Reuters) - Iran has built at least 15 advanced P-2 centrifuges, which could dramatically speed up its production of nuclear fuel, and will have hundreds more ready next year, an exiled opposition group said on Thursday. Iran faces possible sanctions over its refusal to stop enriching uranium by an Aug. 31 U.N. Security Council deadline set because of suspicions Tehran's professed civilian nuclear energy project is a front for making atom bombs. The France-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, which has reported accurately on hidden Iranian nuclear activity in the past, said Tehran was making P-2 centrifuges at...

Rome, 10 August (AKI) - Italy will have to rely on its relationship with Iran to play a role in the Middle East, says Abolfazl Zohrevand, Tehran's new ambassador to Rome. In an interview to Tehran's radical Kayhan paper, the ambassador said that "Italy, as one of the eight major world powers, is looking for a more relevant role in the Middle East - a role it won't be able to play if it doesn't exploit its relations with Iran." Ambassador Zohrevand also called for "stronger support to the Islamic Republic from the new government" of centre-left premier Romano Prodi,...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - International concerns over Iran's nuclear programme do not warrant any discussion at the moment of sanctions against Tehran, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Friday. "I know of no instances in world practice and previous experience in which sanctions have achieved their aim and proved effective," Ivanov, shown on NTV television, told reporters in Russia's far east. "Moreover, I believe that the question is not so serious at the moment for the U.N. Security Council or the group of six to consider any introduction of sanctions. Russia stands for further political and diplomatic efforts to settle...

A senior official in Teheran said Wednesday that in the next few days, a "surprise" was expected regarding Iran's nuclear program, Al-Jazeera reported. Teheran's apparent refusal to suspend uranium enrichment set the stage for a showdown at the UN Security Council later this month. The United States said Wednesday that a proposal by Iran for nuclear negotiations falls short of UN demands for a halt to enrichment, and began plotting "next moves" with other governments. Diplomats from Europe, the US, Russia and China pored over details of Iran's counterproposal Wednesday, a day after Teheran presented it. Initial comments from Russia...

Iran 'the victor in war on terror' By David Blair (Filed: 24/08/2006) Iran has replaced America as the most influential foreign power inside Iraq, seizing an opportunity created by the war against terrorism, a report says. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad The turmoil unleashed by the invasion of Iraq gave Teheran the chance to fill the void left by Saddam Hussein's downfall, says the survey from the Royal Institute of International Affairs, in London. It says that Iran has bought influence by sponsoring parties representing the Shia majority, about 60 per cent of the population. By manipulating these allies, it has...

LONG BEACH, Ca., Aug. 21 /Christian Newswire/ -- His Nesting Place, a pro-life home for unwed mothers will be featured on FX Networks "30 Days" program this Wednesday, August 24th at 10:00PM. Morgan Spurlock, producer of Super Size Me, sent his video crew along with pro-choice activist, Jennifer from Atlanta Georgia, to His Nesting Place for 30 days. During these 30 days Jennifer lived in the home under the same guidelines as any pregnant woman in a crisis pregnancy situation would live. Jennifer was required to help out around the home as well as volunteer at the crisis pregnancy center...

Iran has fired tactical missiles during army wargames, as part of its preparations to face up to any outside threat. State television said surface-to-surface missiles with a range of up to 250 kilometres were tested and that surface-to-sea missiles were also being fired. It comes a day after the military exercises were launched. Tehran says they are taking place in over a dozen provinces and could last as long as five weeks. The Islamic Republic is troubled by the US military presence in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan. It has also expressed concern about any Israeli attempt to destroy its nuclear...

For half a century, the Cold War and the fight against communism had us in its grip. But despite the persistent threat of nuclear war with the Soviet bloc, the sense of fear wasn't nearly as pervasive and relentless as it is now with the war on terrorism. Even as children performed "duck and cover" drills at school and the world was catching its breath after the Cuban Missile Crisis, people sat in movie theatres laughing at actor Slim Pickens' character riding the H-bomb down to global destruction in Stanley Kubrick's movie, Dr. Strangelove. Our enemy today isn't big on...

An Islamic militant jailed in connection with the 2002 Bali bombings was released from prison Thursday while 11 others linked to the blasts received sentence reductions. The militants had their sentences cut by four months to mark Indonesia's independence day. The reduction allowed one of the men to walk free after completing his jail term. Officials say the 12 militants carried out robberies, financed the attacks and sheltered key figures in the nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists. Indonesia often reduces prison terms on holidays, but the move is likely to draw protests from Australia...

On the Presence of Non-Chinese at Anyang by Kim Hayes It has now become clear that finds of chariot remains, metal knives and axes of northern provenance, and bronze mirrors of western provenance in the tombs of Anyang indicate that the Shang had at least indirect contact with people who were familiar with these things. Who were these people? Where did they live? When did they arrive? Following the discovery of the Tarim Mummies, we now know that the population of the earliest attested cultures of what is present-day Xinjiang were of northwestern or western derivation. According to the craniometric...

TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that his country would not accept a UN Security Council resolution asking Tehran to suspend uranium enrichment work before August 31, the state television reported. "They cannot use a resolution to oppose us, and they should understand that Iranian people do not give in to language of force," Ahmadinejad was quoted as telling a huge crowd in Iran's northwest province of Ardebil. He said that he had received a phone call from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan who urged Iran to respond to the six-nation package. "I told him Iran would be...

Around 10,000 bags checked in by British Airways passengers have gone missing at airports since the UK security alert began, the airline says. It said half of them were still piled up at airports waiting to be delivered back to their owners. A war of words has erupted between BA and airport operator BAA over who is to blame for the misplaced luggage. Twenty-four are now in custody after another person was held under terror laws over the alleged plot on Tuesday. 'Unprecedented circumstance' And CCTV footage has emerged of one of the men being held, Tayib Rauf, at his...

Imagine going to get your car repaired, paying for it, and then finding out that the work was never done. With the help of insiders, NBC4 uncovered an apparent scheme at several Los Angeles area Jiffy Lube stores. The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office has asked customers who have had problems at Jiffy Lube stores to contact the DA's Consumer Protection Division, by e-mail, at jiffylube@lacountyda.org

Casting the war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas as part of a wider struggle against terrorism, Bush also said that Iran must stop supporting armed groups trying to derail democracies in Iraq and Lebanon. Bush added Lebanon to Iraq and Afghanistan as a front in what his administration calls the global war on terror. "The conflict in Lebanon is part of a broader struggle between freedom and terror that is unfolding across the region," he said.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Sayeed Habibi considers himself a marked man. The reason: his Internet blog that challenges some of the policies of Iran's theocracy. He predicts that someday - perhaps soon - he'll be taken to prison and his site will be shut down. "And another voice will be silenced," said Habibi, a 34-year-old postgraduate and an unofficial elder statesman for student-led activist movements. "I fully expect to see the inside of a jail cell." He's not alone. Iranian authorities are stepping up arrests and pressure on popular bloggers as part of a wider Internet clampdown launched after hard-liner...

Israeli Troops Surge Into Lebanon, Engage in Some of the Heaviest Combat of the Monthlong War BEIRUT, Lebanon Aug 13, 2006 (AP)— More Israeli troops surged into southern Lebanon on Saturday, reaching the Litani River and engaging in some of the heaviest combat of the monthlong war just hours after the U.N. Security Council adopted a cease-fire plan. Israel lost 19 soldiers its highest one-day toll. The leader of the Islamic militant group Hezbollah grudgingly joined Lebanon's government in accepting the U.N. resolution but vowed to keep fighting until Israeli troops leave and hand over territory to a muscular U.N....

Many pundits in Washington, among them supporters of Israel, anticipated better results from the month-long war against Hizbullah. They were hoping for Israel to put Iran and Syria on the defensive by using IDF military might to eradicate Hizbullah much faster. Some have already concluded that this was an opportunity squandered. The truth is that the last month has not been "a walk in the park" for Israel. We have been fighting a ruthless, well-armed and well-trained, albeit small, army that has spent the last six years preparing for this war while we have been busy on many other fronts....

Peace deal on hold as 20 die in bitter fighting By Colin Freeman in Beirut and Harry De Quetteville on the Lebanon-Israel border (Filed: 13/08/2006) At least 20 people were killed in southern Lebanon yesterday as Israel made the deepest incursion of its month-long campaign into Hezbollah-controlled areas, even as both sides indicated a willingness to accept a freshly minted United Nations peace deal. Within hours of the UN Security Council's unanimous approval of a ceasefire resolution on Friday night, Israel launched fresh air strikes across Lebanon. More than 20,000 Israeli soldiers crossed the border in a race for the...

GENEVA -- The U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday condemned Israel for "massive bombardment of Lebanese civilian populations" and other "systematic" human rights violations, and decided to send a commission to investigate. European countries, Japan and Canada voted against the resolution, primarily because it lacked balance in failing to name the Hezbollah militia. The United States, which is an observer, has no vote on the 47-member council. Israeli Ambassador Itzhak Levanon said the discussions were one-sided, referring only to civilian losses in Lebanon while ignoring the deadly Hezbollah missile attacks on northern Israel. "It is painful and regrettable that the...

Just hours after the United Nations voted on a plan to stop the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel has begun broadening its ground offensive in southern Lebanon. Israeli Government spokesman Avi Pazner says the ground operation is "open-ended". "This operation is aimed at preventing Hezbollah from firing rockets into northern Israel and is not limited in time," Mr Pazner said. Several people have been killed in Israeli air attacks on the southern Lebanese cities of Sidon and Tyre. Four times during the night Israel struck at the main southern city of Sidon, destroying a power plant. Israel jets also...

WASHINGTON – One of the architects of the Reagan Revolution is calling on fellow conservatives to withhold support of the Republican Party establishment – including most GOP incumbents in Congress this year. In "Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause," Richard Viguerie, the man who invented the idea of using direct mail as a means of going over the heads of what he considered to be a biased establishment press, says it's time for radical action to save the Republican Party from itself. His plan includes the following actions, which would spell...

The problem with watching a situation like Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah develop in the news is that it is very much like watching how a sausage is made, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, the president of the Israel Project, told The Jewish Standard. Sometimes you see things that make you queasy.Even though Mizrahi’s Washington, D.C.- based organization is designed to get a pro-Israel P.R. message to the mainstream American and international press, media have been relaying every gory detail of Israel’s attacks against Lebanon, turning the international community decidedly against Israel. But despite international criticism over Israel’s actions in Lebanon over the...

Moscow, Aug. 6 (PTI): Moscow on Saturday slammed the US decision to impose sanctions on two state-owned Russian arms exporting companies for their alleged cooperation with Iran saying the decision was "vengeance" for major defence contracts with Venezuela. The US State Department on Friday announced sanctions against Russia's state arms exporter Rosoboronexport and State-owned aircraft manufacturer 'Sukhoi' among seven foreign companies, including an Indian company. "Our companies stand accused of violating the Iran Non-Proliferation Act of 2000, an internal US legislation. We consider these actions by the US State Department unacceptable," a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said. It said the...

Blair delays holiday as fighting goes on By George Jones, Political Editor (Filed: 05/08/2006) Tony Blair bowed to pressure yesterday and delayed his summer holiday to continue working with other world leaders in an "all-out effort" to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon. Downing Street said the Prime Minister, who was due to leave for Barbados, believed that the next few days would be "crucial''. An Israeli air attack hit farm workers in the Bekaa Valley The violence continued unabated as Israel launched more than 150 air strikes and continued its cross-border ground offensive. Hizbollah rained rockets on northern Israel, killing...

Islamists' grip tightens on Somalia By Mike Pflanz, East Africa Correspondent (Filed: 05/08/2006) The African front line in the West's war on terrorism has collapsed as mass resignations from Somalia's fragile government have all but handed power to hard-line Islamists. Twenty senior officials quit the United Nations-backed transitional administration this week. That brought to 39 - a third of the government - the number who have abandoned the struggle to stabilise the country and ward off the threat of an Islamist regime giving succour to al-Qa'eda in east Africa. Islamic militants control much of southern Somalia All have left office...

Tehran, Iran--Surrounded by yellow Hezbollah flags, more than 60 Iranian volunteers set off Wednesday to join what they called a holy war against Israeli forces in Lebanon. The group--ranging from teenagers to grandfathers--plans to join about 200 other volunteers on the way to the Turkish border, which they hope to cross Thursday. They plan to reach Lebanon via Syria over the weekend. Iran says it will not send regular forces to aid Hezbollah, but apparently it will not attempt to stop volunteer guerrillas. Iran and Syria are Hezbollah's main sponsors. Organizers said the volunteers were not carrying weapons, and it...

Excuse me for a moment while I vent about the mind-boggling stupidity of the autocratic, bureaucratic, right-wing, Neanderthal numskulls who keep pushing an insane, inane, and inhumane holy war against marijuana – which is, after all, a weed. The most embarrassing thing for these holy warriors is that the weed is winning! They've been at this war since 1937, spending billions and billions of our tax dollars, militarizing our borders, and stomping on our Bill of Rights. They've used phone taps, garbage searches, jackbooted raids, and draconian prison terms to ... well, to do what? To nab peaceful, mellow tokers...

LEBANON'S army is ready to defend the country against any land invasion by Israel, Lebanon's defence minister told Al Arabiya television yesterday. Asked if the army would fight alongside Hezbollah against any land incursion by Israel, Defence Minister Elias al-Murr said: "Our constitutional duty is to defend Lebanon as a Lebanese army. This is our role. "Any Lebanese citizens, Christians or Muslims, who want to defend their land are welcomed . . . "Defending one's land can be done in several ways, either helping the army with food or water, giving psychological or political support. Because this is a war...

"The ship is sinking and all of us, the Lebanese, should stick together and work together to stop the Israeli aggression," Amin Gemayel, a Maronite Christian who served as president from 1982 to 1988, told the Arabic-language TV station Al-Jazeera . . . Michel Aoun, a one-time commander in Lebanon's 15-year civil war who now serves in parliament, said . . . "I don't think that Israel has the capability to destroy Hezbollah militarily because Hezbollah is not a group of armed men," Aoun said. "Hezbollah is a major part of the Lebanese social fabric."

LAS VEGAS (AP) - Israel's general consul to the Southwest told a sympathetic audience Wednesday that his country has the moral high ground in its war against Hezbollah, and vowed Israel won't stop fighting until it has destroyed the group. "We will win because we are good and they are evil," Ehod Danoch said to applause from a crowd of about 200 people at a Jewish synagogue in Las Vegas. "We will win because we always came in peace and they came with a call for the destruction of the state of Israel." Israel launched its military campaign against Hezbollah...

BEIRUT -- Israeli troops punched into South Lebanon yesterday as planes flattened houses and buildings -- including one thought to hold Hezbollah's top leaders -- intensifying an offensive, despite mounting international pressure and a Lebanese appeal to spare the country further death and devastation. The attempt to wipe out the Hezbollah leadership was the most dramatic action on a day that saw Israelis clash with the guerrillas and the Lebanese prime minister say about 300 people in his country had died in the eight-day offensive. Reports of the death toll in yesterday's violence ranged as high at 70, which would...

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks during the opening ceremony for an underground tunnel in Tehran July 15, 2006. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday his country had every right to produce atomic fuel, showing no sign of backing down on nuclear work before a U.N. Security Council meeting. Diplomats have said the world body will meet this week to draft a resolution demanding Iran end sensitive nuclear work which the West fears could be used to make bombs. "Having a nuclear fuel cycle is the Iranian nation's obvious right," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying...

Russia and China, crossing a major diplomatic threshold in the international effort to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions, joined the United States and Europe on Wednesday by agreeing to seek a United Nations Security Council resolution ordering Iran to freeze its nuclear activities or face sanctions. The movement toward a resolution represents increased anger over Iran's refusal to respond to an international offer of economic and energy incentives in exchange for suspension of the country's uranium enrichment program. Agreeing to start down a road that could lead to punitive sanctions is a huge step for Moscow and Beijing, both commercial partners...

The United States Wednesday demanded the immediate release of two Israeli soldiers captured by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, and said it holds Iran and Syria responsible for the new outburst of Middle East violence. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is telephoning leaders in the region to try to ease the crisis. Smoke rises from an Israeli air raid as Lebanese motorists speed away - AP photo The Bush administration is trying to orchestrate pressure on Hezbollah to release the two Israeli soldiers, while also ascribing blame for the latest crisis to Iran and Syria, which have supported the radical Shiite militia...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Iran kept a frustrated world guessing about its response to proposals aimed at defusing a standoff over its nuclear program on Thursday when Tehran's chief negotiator met the European Union's foreign policy chief. Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, told reporters he would give a preliminary response next week to a package of economic, technological and political incentives designed to entice Iran to halt uranium enrichment. "We are serious about continuing negotiations and will start next Tuesday with talks," he told reporters on meeting EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Brussels. The two...

ROME (Reuters) - Police arrested two officials from Italy's military intelligence agency on Wednesday and a judge issued arrest warrants for four Americans over the alleged CIA kidnapping of a terrorism suspect in 2003, officials said. Three of the Americans were alleged CIA agents and the fourth worked at the U.S. military air base in Aviano, northern Italy, a statement from the Milan prosecutor's office said. It said Marco Mancini, director of a division of the Sismi military intelligence agency, and another Sismi official, had been arrested. The new arrests and the warrants relate to the abduction of Hassan Mustafa...

In this photo released by Xinhua news agency, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, front left, and Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, front right, walk to the assembly room of the 7th ordinary session of the Assembly of the African Union (AU) in Banjul, capital of Gambia, Saturday, July 1, 2006. African leaders opened a summit addressing their continent's many woes Saturday while offering a special welcome to the firebrand presidents of Iran and Venezuela, each seeking support for anti-American agendas. (AP Photo/Xinhua, Wang Ying) VIENNA, Austria Jul 3, 2006 (AP)— Western powers will reactivate efforts to punish Iran through possible U.N. Security...

Ledeen, author of the book, The Terror Masters, said the appeasement policy is being implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has gone so far as to undermine the effort of Senate conservatives, led by Senator Rick Santorum, to put some financial resources into a pro-democracy movement in Iran that could threaten the power of the ruling Mullahs. In order to derail Santorum's amendment, Ledeen said, Rice appealed to Senator Joseph Biden, ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, and told him that such a move might undermine negotiations with Tehran.

At 6:00am this morning, Tuesday, the terrorist-imposed ultimatum on hostage soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit expired. There has been no official word since the deadline ran out, but statements released from Gaza indicate there would be no more talk regarding the soldier’s condition and fate. Terrorists demanded the release of over 1,000 prisoners held by Israel, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and cabinet ministers rejected any form of negotiations with terrorists towards Shalit’s release. Olmert stated Israel would not capitulate to blackmail and extortion, with Interior Minister Ronnie Bar-On warning terrorists that they will pay an unprecedented...

LE BOURGET, France Thousands of Iranians from across Europe gathered here in support of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and its leader, Maryam Rajavi, who was recently freed from French judicial restrictions that had limited her movement . . . Rajavi's message Saturday to the crowd of 10,000 or more just outside Paris was that Iran needed neither nuclear weapons nor nuclear power but rather secular democracy . . . The national council, which Maryam Rajavi heads, has been declared a terrorist organization by the United States because of the violent tactics of its military arm . ....

Tragedy on the Araxes June 30, 2006 by Sarah Pickman A place of memory is wiped off the face of the Earth. Khachkars of the Djulfa cemetery, c.1987 (Courtesy of Research on Armenian Architecture) On the banks of the River Araxes, in the remote, windswept region of Nakhichevan, is a small area of land known as Djulfa, named for the ethnic Armenian town that flourished there centuries ago. Today, Nakhichevan is an enclave of Azerbaijan. Surrounding it on three sides is Armenia, and on the fourth, across the Araxes, is Iran. Hundreds of years ago, almost all of Djulfa's residents...

Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Tehran will continue its uranium enrichment programme, despite international calls to halt the sensitive project, reported state television on Saturday. "The Iranian government and the people have decided, and without any doubt with dignity and glory we will pass this phase," said Ahmadinejad, after explaining Iran's fuel cycle programme to Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo in Gambia. Ahmadinejad is in Gambia to address the African Union summit. Tehran is under mounting pressure to respond to an international offer that would defuse the nuclear standoff. World powers gave Iran one more week on...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States reaffirmed on Friday it expected Iran to give a formal reply to a package of incentives to curb its nuclear activities at a meeting between its chief negotiator and European officials on July 5. "We expect and hope that (Ali) Larijani will give us the answer," UnderSecretary of State Nicholas Burns told a news briefing, referring to Iran's chief nuclear negotiator. "We always said that this is a process of weeks not months," he said, adding that the offer put to Iran was "quite straightforward". He said the five permanent members of the U.N....

LONDON, June 28 (IranMania) - Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najar said that Iran has become self-sufficient in producing a new generation of anti-armor missiles, MNA reported. “We are among the top six countries of the world in designing and manufacturing new generation of anti-armor missiles,” the minister said while visiting the facility. He said the move is in line with establishing a secure, independent and powerful Iran based on the Twenty-Year Outlook Plan. “Missile defense as a deterrent has a determining role (in defending the country),” Najar added.

Iran should be allowed to enrich uranium for power generation provided there is close monitoring by U.N. inspectors to ensure that it is not trying to develop atomic weapons, Germany's defence minister said. The minister's comments could suggest that after years of failed negotiations with Iran, Germany and some Western powers are willing to compromise with Iran over enrichment in order to resolve peacefully the nuclear stand-off with Tehran. But it is unclear if this view has been agreed among all Western powers and if it would be acceptable to hardline camps in Washington and London, Western diplomats say. In...