Free Republic

Top News Story IRAN: JOURNALIST SUSPENDS HUNGER STRIKETehran, 22 August (AKI) - The Iranian journalist and writer, Akbar Ganji, has suspended the hunger strike he began in prison on June 11, his wife, Massoumeh Shafii, told Adnkronos International (AKI). She confirmed the news after seeing him at the Milad hospital in the Iranian capital Tehran, where he was transferred from prison after his health worsened. Shafii did not say what led her husband to break off his hunger strike. There is speculation in Tehran that Ganji's decision could be the result of a letter from UN secretary-general Kofi Annan...

Top News Story Iranian secularist forces prepare Ahmadi-Nejad's 'welcoming' to USSMCCDI (Information Service) Aug 22, 2005 Iranian secularist opposition groups are preparing a kind of 'welcoming' ceremony for the Islamic republic's appointed president on US soil. Ahamdi-Nejad is to speak on September 14th at the UN General Assembly in New York.Groups are preparing to stage a peaceful protest rally, at the UN, on the days of September 14th and 15th. They intend to denounce, in a common voice, the presence of the Islamist president as the 'symbol of Iranian Nation' and the persistent human rights' abuses by his illegitimate...

Top News Story Iran’s Agenda for the WorldAmir Taheri   When he launched the invasion of Iraq in 2003 President George W. Bush promised to help the greater Middle East, the Muslim heartland from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, to bury a despotic past and build a democratic future.As if on cue, political elites throughout the region began to use “democracy” as a catchword. In Egypt President Hosni Mubarak declared the building democracy as the central aim of his next administration. The Lebanese launched their “Cedar Revolution” under the banner of democracy. The Saudi municipal elections were described...

Top News Story The Free World's Guess NY Sun, Eli Lake :"Iran is not in a revolutionary or even a pre-revolutionary state." This quote is from an August 1978 CIA assessment of a government five months away from being toppled by the first modern Islamic revolution. The phrase, however, could easily belong to many of the Bush administration's top analysts ... Brave leaders of Iran's democracy movement, men such as Akbar Ganji, Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, and Ahmad Batebi, should not be discouraged by the free world's recent guesswork. Read More A Daily Briefing of Major News Stories on...

Top News Story Iran Made Thousands of Centrifuges, Breaking Pledge, Exiles Say Thu. 18 Aug 2005 By Alex Morales, Iran Focus: an MEK website New York - Iran has continued to produce centrifuges, which are used in the uranium enrichment process, in contravention of a November 2004 agreement with the U.K., France and Germany to suspend all such activities, the exiled opposition National Council for Resistance in Iran said. Iran this month removed United Nations seals on equipment used in uranium enrichment at its Isfahan plant, after rejecting an offer from the so-called EU-3 of technology and economic incentives...

Top News Story The military strike option against Iran Experts disagree about possible effect of US or Israeli preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. By Tom Regan| csmonitor.com Iran once again says it will resume its nuclear program, despite International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)concerns. Iran claims its interest in nuclear power is entirely for peaceful purposes. Last week US President George Bush said during an interview on Israeli TV that "all options are on the table," including a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities by US or Israeli forces, if Iran doesn't "comply with international standards." When it...

Top News Story Iranian President Coming to America Hamid Namvar - 8/18/2005 According to media reports indicate that the United States is considering an entry visa to Iran's new president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attend a UN meeting in New York City in mid-September. This would send a very wrong signal at a very crucial juncture to the increasingly belligerent Iran. Administration must firmly deny Ahmadinejad entry to the United States. And by all indications, the American public opinion would certainly welcome such a move. Ahmadinejad, a former senior commander of the feared terror-sponsoring Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (the "Pasdaran"),...

Top News Story New-conservatives, regime crisis and political perspectives in Iran by Ardeshir Mehrdad and Mehdi Kia; August 15, 2005 In the recent presidential elections in Iran, Mahmood Ahmadinejad, an unknown conservative military commander, won. His victory was surprising as many had predicted Hashemi Rafsanjani would become Iran’s next president. Rafsanjani, perhaps the second most powerful man in the Islamic Republic, was supported by a broad coalition of reformists and pragmatist elites. The shock of this surprise victory may partly explain the crude nature of some of the analyses that followed. Even more striking is the failure to address...

Top News Story Islamic regime strengthensSMCCDI (Information Service) Aug 14, 2005 The Islamic republic regime is preparing itself for its last stand against the Iranian People and the world community. In that line the theocratic regime is hardening its position in the domestic and foreign fields by strengthening its control at all levels and placing its hardcore militiamen at key posts.Already decision has been made to back the regular police and army forces by the repressive Bassij militia and several changes have taken place in police and military commands. The new government is also adopting a much more radical...

Top News Story Reuters In a stern warning to Iran, President Bush said "all options are on the table" if the Iranians refuse to comply with international demands to halt their nuclear program, pointedly noting he has already used force to protect U.S. security. Bush's statement in an interview on Israeli TV late Friday was unusually harsh. He previously said diplomacy should be used to persuade Iran to suspend its nuclear program and if that failed then the U.N. Security Council should impose sanctions. The U.S. government and others fear Iran's nuclear work is secretly designed to produce nuclear...

Top News Story Unrest in Iran's Kurdish Region Has Left 17 Dead; Hundreds Wounded The NY Times: Unrest has rocked Iran's northwestern region of Kurdistan in recent weeks leading to the deaths of more than a dozen civilians and several members of the country's security forces. READ MORE A Daily Briefing of Major News Stories on Iran: IranMania.com reported that the wife of leading Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji pleaded to be allowed to see him on his hunger strike for a 64th day.Xinhuanet reported that four more inspectors from the IAEA arrived in Iran to monitor Iran's nuclear activities.Rancher,...

Top News Story Iran Rejects Agency's Call to Suspend Nuclear Work The Washington Post:The governing board of the U.N. nuclear watchdog unanimously called on Iran on Thursday to halt sensitive atomic work it resumed this week in defiance of the West, a demand that Tehran rejected as unacceptable and illegal. READ MORE A Daily Briefing of Major News Stories on Iran: Reporters Without Borders condemned the current crackdown on Iran's Kurdish journalists.Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post delivered sobering evidence that the U.S. is retreating in the war on terror.BBC News reported that the situation with Iran is more a...

Top News Story Bush: Iran Leader Likely Will Come to N.Y. By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press WriterThursday, August 11, 2005President Bush indicated Thursday that the new Iranian president will receive a U.S. visa to attend an annual United Nations gathering next month and welcomed the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency's warning to Tehran about consequences of its nuclear ambitions. Bush, who met at his Texas ranch with members of his foreign policy team, also said that U.S. investigators still have not yet determined what role Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have played in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy...

Top News Story Iran dissident Ganji still on hunger strike TEHRAN (Reuters) - Dissident Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji is still on hunger strike, a hospital official was quoted as saying on Wednesday, contradicting an official from the conservative judiciary who said he was eating again. Judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimirad said on Tuesday Ganji had ended his eight-week hunger strike after calls from his family and friends, who were concerned that he could die. But Sirus Tabesh, head of public relations at Tehran's Milad hospital, said this was incorrect. "Ganji is not consuming any food," he told the Sharq daily...

Top News Story Iran must be forced to give up nuclear weapons(Filed: 10/08/2005) Iran's seemingly ineluctable progress towards acquiring nuclear weapons has publicly resumed with the conversion of raw uranium outside Isfahan. According to Alireza Jafarzadeh, an exiled dissident based in Washington, it may never have been suspended, despite an agreement to that effect reached last November with the European Union troika of Britain, France and Germany. He claimed yesterday that the Iranians had manufactured about 4,000 centrifuges, capable of enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels, at a plant in Natanz, and had hidden this activity from the International Atomic...

Top News Story Iran not worried about Security Council referral By Parisa HafeziTEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran insisted on Sunday it would resume uranium conversion this week after rejecting EU incentives to end its nuclear fuel work, and said it was not worried about being referred to the U.N. for possible sanctions."Although we think referral of Iran's case to the Security Council would be unlawful and politically motivated, if one day they refer Iran's case...we won't be worried in the least," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi.Britain, Germany and France, heading nuclear negotiations with Iran for the European Union,...

Top News Story Reuters TEHRAN, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Two people have been killed, eight injured and 145 arrested in unrest among the Kurds of western Iran, Iran's Interior Ministry said on Sunday. The deaths in the town of Saqqez followed rioting and a gun battle elsewhere in Kurdish-dominated territories. The Interior Ministry Web site named the dead men in Saqqez as Mohammad Shariati, a 55-year-old retired teacher, and 18-year-old Farzad Mohammadi. It quoted an unnamed senior official as saying that police had denied firing their pistols, but investigators were looking into the type of shots fired to work...

Top News Story Iran won't be intimidated, new president says By Parisa HafeziTEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's new President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday the Islamic Republic, facing intense pressure from the West over its nuclear ambitions, would not be intimidated.Taking the oath of office in parliament following his stunning June election win, the former Tehran mayor said his priority would be to tackle unemployment and his foreign policy would seek to reduce international threats."We are logical and respect international rules, but will not give in to those who want to violate our rights," he said in a brief address....

Top News Story Iran Rejects EU Nuclear PlanIran on Saturday rejected Europe's proposal for ending the standoff over Tehran's nuclear program, calling the package "unacceptable" and not up to Tehran's "minimum expectations."Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the government would send its official rejection to the Europeans later Saturday or Sunday. READ MORE Iran Press News reported that Ayatollah Jannati, the Director of the Guardian Council, said: "We have said, from the very beginning of the discussions with the Europeans that they're duplicitous and conmen. It was evident from the outset that these talks with these 3 Europeans...

Top News Story Iran sends in troops to crush border unrest Michael HowardFriday August 5, 2005The Guardian The Iranian government has deployed large numbers of troops in cities in the northwestern region which borders Iraq in an effort to quell three weeks of civil unrest that has left up to 20 people dead and more than 300 wounded, according to reports from dissident groups. They said as many as 100,000 state security forces, backed up by helicopter gunships, had moved into the region to crack down on pro-Kurdish demonstrations. The claims, from Kurdish groups in Iraq, could not be...