Iranian Alert -- May 1, 2004 [EST]-- IRAN LIVE THREAD -- "Americans for Regime Change in Iran"

Iranian Leader: Iraqis Will Finally Triumph

May 01, 2004
Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting
IRIB Persian News

Tehran -- Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday highlighted the troubles facing the US-led occupation in Iraq, predicting that the Iraqis would ultimately triumph.

"The occupiers have got themselves like a wolf caught in a trap and like the Zionists are repressing the people, but the power of the oppressed Iraqi and Palestinian nations will ultimately prevail over the oppressive Americans and Zionists," said the Supreme Leader here Saturday.

The Supreme Leader touched on US President George W. Bush's plan for a 'greater Middle East', which has widely been opposed by regional leaders, saying Washington was taking its cue from Israel to dominate the riches of the region.

"The ruling gang in America, while the Zionists pull the strings, is intending to swallow this rich part of the world under the 'greater Middle East' plan, but contrary to their assumptions, the arrogant powers will choke on this mouthful," the Supreme Leader added.

Bush's recent statements about the significance of the Iraqi oil for the United States, Ayatollah Khamenei said, indicated his government's efforts to calm down the edgy American public opinion with regard to the cost of Iraq's invasion. "By this, the American president revealed his true objective, which is to dominate oil resources of Iraq and protect the interests of Zionist companies.

"Furthermore, the ongoing realities in Iraq indicate that American slogans in defense of human rights, freedom and democracy are false," the Supreme Leader added.

Ayatollah Khamenei denounced the US government's 'brazen' support for the targeted assassination of Hamas leaders, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin and Abdel-Aziz Al-Rantissi in the past two months by Israel, saying it was a 'blatant sign' that Americans were lying in their alleged anti-terror fight.

"The American government, in backing the criminal Sharon (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon), says that Israel is defending itself against the Palestinian terror."But this is the same unacceptable reasoning which all the dictators of the past used to justify their crimes in the name of defending themselves," the Supreme Leader said.

The world condemnation of the US support for the Israeli assassination of the Palestinians is a sign of real weakening and gradual fall of the American regime, said Ayatollah Khamenei.

"When a political establishment lacks a convincing reason for its actions and stances, it loses its political credibility and slips into collapse. "The American government is now moving on this track and the world people will witness the annihilation of this arrogant regime," Ayatollah Khamenei said.

http://www.iribnews.ir/Full_en.asp?news_id=203293

UFOs over Iran? An East Haven man offers proof

Abi Golbazi

(East Haven-WTNH, Apr. 30, 2004 7:20 PM) _

It's not often we report on UFOs, but lately there have been a number of sightings in Iran. And a Connecticut man has the pictures that he says prove something is out there.

Watch the story by News Channel 8's Matt Scott
"I really have no choice but to believe," says Abi Golbazi of East Haven. "I've never seen anything like this."

Golbazi is talking about something he believes he saw in the Iranian sky : a UFO.

"First is was just a shiny light, changing colors ... It seemed perfectly round, circular shaped, spaceship if you will.

"Window-looking spots all over it... It has an opening in the lower bottom of the circle."

While visiting family the East Haven engineer recorded over 20 minutes of footage of the object, and wondered if this phenomenon would become a regular visitor to the Middle East.

"Is this something that's going to happen every night, maybe something new in terms of UFO activities," Golbazi said.
"But it didn't come back?"
"No."

Golbazi wasn't alone. Since his encounter almost two weeks ago Iran has been abuzz with extraterrestrial sightings making headlines all around the world

But if it isn't a UFO, then what is it? The astronomical society of Iran speculates on it being a satellite, a spy plane, even the planet Venus. But Golbazi discredits all of that. He, who by the way never believed in UFO's, now believes that it was a visitor from outer space.

"I never did. Maybe this is going to change my mind."

Now back in Connecticut, he's sharing his story with friends and co-workers, some of whom are a bit skeptical.

"They're trying to believe. Even the ones who don't believe, they're trying to believe. I promise them that yes, you'll see the tape."

And maybe they'll become believers, just like Golbazi.

http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=1831026&nav=3YeXMklK

Khatami Admits Iran Imprisons People for Beliefs

Wed Apr 28, 2004 07:21 AM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran holds people in prison for their political beliefs, President Mohammad Khatami was quoted as saying Wednesday, breaking a series of Iranian denials on the subject of political prisoners.

Iran's prisoners include Hashem Aghajari, a history lecturer who urged Iranians to forge their own interpretation of Islam and not follow the nation's clerical hierarchy "like monkeys," and Ahmad Batebi, who was jailed for holding the blood-stained T-shirt of a friend wounded in 1999 student protests.

"Absolutely, we do have political prisoners. There are those who are in prison for their beliefs," the moderate president was quoted as saying in the Iran daily newspaper.

Taking questions from young people frustrated by the lack of progress in his reform agenda, Khatami told an unusually frank meeting Tuesday he intended to publish fresh grievances about his inability to temper hard-line power.

The mid-ranking cleric, who speaks English and German, fitted Iran's problems into the malaise of ineffective democratic reform in the region.

"We are living in the East and face despotic governments, humiliating societies and centuries of destroyed hopes," said the president, criticized by many reformists for his fudged political compromises.

"We must ask how hope can explode in our society and then die so suddenly," he added, referring to the political apathy among the young, so often the vanguard of the reform movement.

Khatami was swept to power in a landslide victory in 1997 but most reformist attempts to push through change have been thwarted by the constitutional supremacy of hard-line bodies.

Earlier this month Khatami criticized the Guardian Council, a hard-line watchdog, for banning more than 2,000 mainly reformist candidates from February's elections.

He also withdrew two bills from parliament that were intended to boost presidential powers and curb the power of the Guardian Council to bar election candidates.

He withdrew the bills fearing that the spirit of the legislation would be perverted when conservatives take control of parliament in late May.

Iran's next presidential elections are in mid-2005. Khatami, having served two terms, cannot stand again.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4969252

Mullah Rafsanjani: Iran Main Rival of U.S. in Region

May 1, 2004, 06:36

Tehran's substitute Friday Prayer Leader, Expediency Council Chairman mullah Rafsanjani, said on Friday that Iran is not a U.S. gendarme but rather Washington's main rival in the Middle East, adding that the Islamic Republic will not humiliate itself by serving the U.S. global arrogance.

Mullah Rafsanjani said that the Islamic Republic of Iran revealed the true picture of those who claim to be upholding democracy and seeking freedom, adding that Islam and the Islamic Revolution proved them wrong.

In reference to the current situation in Iraq, he raised the question of whether justice and reason allowed a military power to invade a country and use bombs weighing as much as one and a half tons to achieve its ends.

Turning to the disastrous situation in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, he said that if the objective was to defend the Iraqi people, the approach of foreign troops would have been different.

The Americans are at the gates of Najaf and they have already demonstrated that more often than not they use force, rather than their heads, thinking that by bulldozing a city people will give up.

"If the religious leadership of Najaf had not warned them, they would have done the same thing there that they did in Fallujah," he added, referring to the bloody three-week long U.S. Marine siege of a Sunni Muslim hotspot west of Baghdad in which hundreds of Iraqis and scores of Marines have been killed.

Mullah Rafsanjani said, "If we do not solve the Iraqi problem, it will become worse than the Palestinian problem and become a cancer in the region."

He praised the Spanish government for making the "reasonable" decision to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_2204.shtml

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.