Free Republic

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...

Top News Story Iran Focus Tehran, Iran, Aug. 03 – Heavy clashes which broke out between protesters and State Security Forces on Wednesday in the Kurdish town of Saqqez, northwest Iran, have claimed 11 lives, according to Kurdish sources. Witnesses reported that agents of the SSF fired lethal rounds on protestors from helicopters in the air. Iran’s state-run media and officials have confirmed extensive clashes in the western regions of the country. The state-run news agency ILNA reported on Wednesday that provincial governors of Kurdistan and West Azerbaijan, deputy chiefs of security in the Interior and Intelligence Ministries, deputy...

Top News Story Ganji's Wife Appeals to the World BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun August 2, 2005 WASHINGTON - Defying warnings from the Iranian regime ordering her not to talk to foreign reporters, the wife of dissident journalist Akbar Ganji yesterday told The New York Sun that she has had no choice but to appeal to the international community to save the life of her husband, who today enters Day 53 of a hunger strike. Meanwhile in New York, a spokesman for Secretary-General Annan says his boss has personally intervened with the mullahs on Mr....

Top News Story CBC News Iran pledged to restart part of its nuclear program on Monday after the European Union missed a deadline to deliver proposals for economic and political incentives. The EU asked for an extension of an Aug. 1 deadline to submit proposals, saying they would be ready by Aug. 7. The EU is offering the incentives so Iran will limit its nuclear program. A senior official with Iran's nuclear program told Reuters news agency on Sunday that plans to enrich uranium would definitely proceed. "As we did not receive the EU proposal, naturally we will definitely...

Top News Story Iran: Europe Proposes Nonaggression Pact Sunday July 31, 2005 12:01 PMTEHRAN, Iran (AP)- Iran's top nuclear negotiator said his European counterparts have proposed a guarantee that Iran won't be invaded if Tehran agrees to a permanent halt on uranium enrichment, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency said on Sunday. Hasan Rowhani said the proposal is under discussion by Europeans and includes several important points such as ``guarantees about Iran's integrity, independence, national sovereignty'' and ``nonaggression toward Iran,'' the agency reported. ``If Europe enjoys a serious political will about Iran's nuclear fuel cycle, there will be the...

Top News Story Iran demands EU make nuclear offer by August 1 TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran demanded on Saturday that the European Union submit proposals in a dispute over its nuclear programme by August 1 rather than take a week longer.The European Union -- represented by Britain, France and Germany -- is due to offer Iran a limited package of economic and political incentives to give up work that the United States suspects is a veil for efforts to build a nuclear bomb.In return, the EU wants Iran to agree to maintain indefinitely its suspension of uranium enrichment, nuclear...

Top News Story Ganji DyingGooya News: They are reporting Tehran's Prosecutor, Mortezavi, said that Ganji may not survive the night.BBC Persian News: Quoted Ganji's wife as saying her husband may be living his last days. A Daily Briefing of Major News Stories on Iran: Muslim Wakeup reported that the International Committee in Support of Akbar Ganji, placed a full-page ad in the New York Times, appealing to the United Nations Secretary General to work for his immediate release.BBC News reported that the wife of journalist Akbar Ganji, says officials will not let her visit her husband, 49 days into...

Top News Story Iran's Students Find Inspiration in Ganji's Protest BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun July 28, 2005 WASHINGTON - A spokesman for Iran's union of student organizations, Tahkim Vahdat, says a hunger strike by jailed dissident journalist, Akbar Ganji, has inspired the country's democracy movement.Separately, the regime, which is preparing for its new hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to take office on August 6, said yesterday that Iran plans to restart some nuclear activities as soon as next month, according to the Associated Press. Iran also has developed solid-fuel technology that will improve the accuracy...

Top News Story A Tipping Point for TehranAn ExcerptNir Boms and Reza Bulorchi, The Wall Street Journal: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's "elected" president, will officially assume his post next month. The elections, no doubt, were a sham and the controversy about voting irregularities is far from settled. Iran's opposition sources revealed that the national ID cards of about five million dead people were provided to regime supporters, enabling them to vote multiple times at multiple locations. So Mr. Ahmadinejad's victory had little to do with the fact that he campaigned as the "populist" son of a blacksmith and hoisted the...

Top News Story Iran press reports Kurdish riots By Frances Harrison BBC News, Tehran The Iranian media has reported more disturbances in Kurdish areas of the country after several days of riots. Two people were wounded on Monday when "hooligans" caused disorder in the town of Oshnavieh, the hardline newspaper Jumhuri Islami said. But Kurdish journalists report that three people were killed on Monday and seven died in previous days. Kurds are saying the unrest is a sign of frustration over the denial of minority rights in Iran. Chief among these is frustration over the denial of the right...