Posted on 11/10/2004 10:25:23 PM PST by DoctorZIn
The US media still largely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” As a result, most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East. In fact they were one of the first countries to have spontaneous candlelight vigils after the 911 tragedy (see photo).
There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. I began these daily threads June 10th 2003. On that date Iranians once again began taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Today in Iran, most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy.
The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.
In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.
This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.
I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.
If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.
If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.
DoctorZin
ARIS, Nov. 10 - Iran and European negotiators have become deadlocked in their effort to reach a final agreement for Iran to suspend its production of enriched uranium in exchange for possible economic and political incentives, European officials said Wednesday.
After marathon negotiations in Paris last Friday and Saturday, Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, optimistically announced that his government had reached a "preliminary agreement" with senior negotiators of France, Germany, Britain and the European Union, but he emphasized that any suspension of uranium enrichment would be temporary.
The Europeans were more cautious, saying in public that progress had been made in the talks while acknowledging in private the existence of unresolved issues.
Those issues may mean the unraveling of an agreement intended to stave off a confrontation with Iran at a crucial meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog organization, in Vienna on Nov. 25.
"They came back to the Europeans for more and the Europeans frankly said, 'No, a deal is a deal and that is that,' " a Vienna-based diplomat said.
At the November meeting, the countries that make up the leadership of the agency could decide to let the United States proceed with a still vague but serious proposal to refer Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions. Iran has consistently denied the Americans' accusations that it has a secret program to build nuclear bombs under the cover of a civilian nuclear energy program.
One outstanding issue is highly technical but considered important by the Europeans. They have demanded that Iran stop its program to convert raw uranium into uranium tetrafluoride. Uranium tetrafluoride is a precursor to the form of uranium that is fed into centrifuges to enrich it for use as fuel that can be used either for peaceful purposes or to develop nuclear weapons, European officials said.
That demand goes beyond what the United Nations' watchdog agency requires, and the Iranians are arguing that they are being asked to do too much.
Another Iranian demand, so far rejected by the Europeans, is the timing of the delivery of some rewards for Iran, including the resumption of talks on a trade agreement between the European Union and Iran, the officials said.
Iran is also seeking precise assurances about a European offer to supply Iran with a light-water research reactor that would produce less fissionable material than could be used for making nuclear weapons, the Vienna-based diplomat added.
Iran wants the rewards up front as a "confidence-building measure," arguing that France, Germany and Britain failed to deliver the rewards it promised after Iran agreed in Tehran in October 2003 to suspend its production of enriched uranium.
A decision for Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium is an extremely delicate political matter in Iran. The October 2003 agreement was excoriated by hard-line politicians and newspapers as proof that Iran was caving in to the Western demands and forfeiting its sovereign right to develop a peaceful nuclear program.
Iranian presidential elections are scheduled for May, and the nuclear issue is likely to play a large role in what is expected to be a brutal political campaign.
Not to be contrary, but what happened to the revolution you said was a done deal several months back?
It is getting closer. Read the news and you will see why.
How about the SMCCDI? Are you part of that organization?
I work with Aryo their US director.
London, England, Nov. 10 (UPI) -- Iran has succeeded in developing and producing liquid-fuel engines for the Shihab-3 intermediate-range missiles, the Middle East Newsline reports. 
Quoting Western intelligence sources, the report said Iran achieved missile engine production capability last year.
The unidentified sources said the capability has paved the way for Iran to begin serial production of the Shihab-3, with a range of up to 1,055 miles (1,700 kilometers).
"Iran has obtained the expertise and equipment to produce variants of North Korean engines for the Shihab-3," a senior Western intelligence analyst said. "Teheran has sought this capability for a long time and we believe they have achieved it."
Until 2003, Iran relied on North Korea to supply engines for the Shihab-3, the report said.
Iran's Rafsanjani cautions EUs over nuke deal
 Wednesday, November 10, 2004 - ©2004 IranMania.com |
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LONDON, Nov 10 (IranMania) - A top Iranian regime official has warned Britain, France and Germany that the Islamic republic could harden its stance if they failed to show flexibility in a crucial stage of talks over a nuclear stand-off, press reports said Tuesday. "If the Europeans are rational, we can make some assurances... but if they put their foot down, then our attitude will change," powerful former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was quoted as saying by the Hamshahri newspaper. An Iranian negotiator, Hossein Moussavian, announced Sunday that Iran and the European Union have reached a "preliminary agreement" on easing concerns over the Islamic republic's nuclear programme following two days of crucial negotiations in Paris. The accord is centered on demands that Iran maintain and widen a suspension of its sensitive uranium enrichment activities or else risk being referred by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions. According to European diplomats, the tentative deal still contains several sticking points -- including the length and extent of any halt on fuel cycle work. "This technology has been achieved by our people by our own means, and others cannot put an end to it," said Rafsanjani, who now heads Iran's top political arbitration body the Expediency Council. The United States accuses Iran of secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons and wants the IAEA's board, which meets in Vienna on November 25, to send the matter to New York. Iran says it only wants to generate electricity. The 25-nation EU, led by Britain, France and Germany, has so far, in talks that started in October, said Iran must indefinitely and fully suspend uranium enrichment activities, but Iran insists its right to enrichment cannot be called into question. Enriched uranium, depending on its purity, can be used as fuel for a civilian power reactor or as the core of a nuclear weapon. Enrichment for peaceful purposes is allowed under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), of which Iran is a signatory. The IAEA is apparently holding up publication of a report on Iran until next week in order to have an eventual EU-Iranian agreement included in the text, a key document for the November 25 meeting, diplomats said. |
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Lecturer: Iran needs nukes
Professor says Tehran made huge mistake signing global treaty
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
An Iranian college lecturer has told a conference in Tehran the nation needs an atomic bomb and that leaders made a huge mistake by signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of NPT.
According to the Iranian Labour News Agency, the speaker, professor Abumohammad Asgarkhani, told the conference: "We are in need of atomic bombs and so far we have neglected this subject."
According to the report, the conference, entitled "Nuclear Issues and National Security," was organized by the Islamic Association of Tehran University and Tehran University of Medical Science.
Asgarkhani, a professor of international relations, predicted Iran's reticence to more quickly develop nukes will cost the citizens of the nation dearly.
"There are a few shameful treaties in Iran's history, and [the endorsing of] the Additional Protocol [to the NPT] is one of them," he is quoted as saying, "more shameful than the [1828] Torkmanchai Treaty [with Russia] and the [1975] Algiers Agreement [with Iraq], and only the people of Iran will face its consequences, the first of which will be the change of regime in Iran and the second one, the tearing of Iran into pieces."
Asgarkhani slammed the NPT, saying Iran has been shortchanged.
"The NPT has divided the world into two groups, the haves and the have-nots," he said. "Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have joined the haves, but we are still part of the have-nots. We are always on the train that takes the haves to any destination they wish to go."
Referring to requirements Iran currently must meet, the lecturer said, "We have made many commitments without receiving anything from them [Europe and the U.S.], and accordingly, with a 48-hour notice, they can inspect Iran's most secret places."
Asgarkhani then explains how he believes the current Muslim regime could lose power.
"When the September 11 [incident] happened, we went through three phases. The first phase was the attack on Afghanistan and the second one on Iraq. About 18 months prior to this attack, I said that the regime change in Iraq was inevitable and my predictions came true. As regards the Islamic republic [of Iran], they want to frighten the regime and then disarm it, the consequence of which will be the erosion of the regime's legitimacy inside the country."
BAGHDAD: Iraqi health officials are worried about a surge of drug addicts in Iraq and accuse neighbouring countries such as Iran of supplying narcotics through the country’s porous borders.
There are no accurate figures on the extent of the problem, but it is definitely serious, admitted Iraq’s interim Health Minister Alaeddin Abdul Sahib Adwan.
“According to the information that we have received, the problem of drug abuse is becoming endemic in Iraq, particularly among teenagers and the young,” he told a news conference in Baghdad on Tuesday.
“Iraq is surrounded by countries that have a history of producing and commercialising illegal drugs, such as Afghanistan, Iran and certain Gulf states, where at the moment the borders are badly guarded,” he said.
The known number of declared drug addicts in Iraq is 2,029, with most of them concentrated in the south and the centre, said a health ministry official dealing with the fight against drugs, Siruane Kamel.
There are 286 registered addicts in the southern province of Maysan who receive treatment at clinics, while some five percent of the province’s population use drugs, the officials said.
“In the central province of Karbala, there are 679 drug adicts who are registed at clinics and four of them have died,” he noted. Kamel blamed “the Iranians who make drugs to be used by pilgrims in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.” afp
Borrowing Carson's old Tea-Time Movie bit:
''Our next movie features Alice Faye, Fay Wray, Turhan Bey, Khamenei, and Scratch the Wonder Crab in ''No Nukes is Good News'', with the B-2 Bomber Boys singing 'Sh-Boom!'.''
...c'mere, Carol...
Reporters Without Borders welcomed an announcement by justice spokesman Jamal Karimi-Rad that nine people accused of links to reformist websites have been released in recent weeks, but regretted that seven journalists remain in prison in the same case.
"This gesture from the Iranian authorities does not mean they are easing up on their crackdown against online publications," said the worldwide press freedom organisation. "We fear that this apparent leniency may only be a smoke-screen to allow sentencing of the cyberjournalists. We repeat our call for them to be released."
The Iranian authorities have arrested around 20 people since September 2004, all suspected of contributing to news websites. Among them were people accused of being involved in technical management of sites, along with seven professional journalists accused of posting articles on the reformist sites.
These were: Javad Gholam Tamayomi, Omid Memarian, Shahram Rafihzadeh, Hanif Mazroi, Rozbeh Mir Ebrahimi, Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh and Fershteh Ghazi.
None of the journalists has so far been released. However Judge Jafar Saberi Zafarghandi was quoted by the official student press agency SNA as saying that Hanif Mazroi could be freed within few a few days on bail of 150-million rials (13,000 euros).
According to information obtained by Reporters Without Borders, some of the journalists have been tortured and are believed to be psychologically weakened as a result. Under pressure from the authorities, Omid Memarian was forced to refuse the help of the lawyer Nemat Ahmadi.
Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh, editor of Ferzaneh, a magazine dealing with the condition of women, was arrested on 1st November.
Fershteh Ghazi, another journalist activist for women's rights was imprisoned on 28 October.
Javad Gholam Tamayomi, a journalist on the daily Mardomsalari (Democracy) was arrested on 18 October.
Omid Memarian, journalist and weblog creator, was arrested on 10 October.
Shahram Rafihzadeh, cultural editor of the daily Etemad, was arrested on 7 September.
Hanif Mazroi, former journalist on several reformist press publications, was arrested on 8 September.
Rozbeh Mir Ebrahimi, former political editor of Etemad, was arrested at his home on 27 September.
"As regards the Islamic republic [of Iran], they want to frighten the regime and then disarm it, the consequence of which will be the erosion of the regime's legitimacy inside the country."
Before they would lose power they would kill thousands in Iran and possibly in the world. They are already killing our boys in Iraq through their support of the "insurgents/terrorists". They will ratchet it up and give aid to those who would attack on our soil.
I believe because of our situation in the world right now the Iranians are going to have to do a revolution like our country started with. We are too engaged to give them much aide right now.
Let me make this clearer. I am not a part of SMCCDI.
I support their efforts and am a friend of their US director.
They are a great organization.
For those wondering who SMCCDI is, go to their website:
http://www.daneshjoo.org
The people of Iran are waiting for a clear message from our government. We haven't provided it yet.
I suggest reading this excellent report to understand why.
If you like it, spread the word.
Revolutions take years to build. They don't happen overnight.
There are druggies all over Iran. Walking down streets in Tehran you'll see real young teens spaced out on all kinds of drugs. It's in the government interest to have these kids on drugs rather than on the streets demonstrating for more freedom and jobs.
It is true.
The people are in despair.
The government allows the drug trade to keep the people from rising up against them.
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