Free Republic

Top News Story Hadley On Iran Nukes 22 March 2005 The United States has dropped its objections to certain incentives the European Union is offering Iran to stop its uranium-enrichment program. Enriched uranium can be used as fuel in nuclear power plants but can also be a key component of nuclear weapons. Many suspect that Iran's clerical regime is secretly trying to build nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian energy program. The European Union has been negotiating with Iran since December to turn a temporary suspension of uranium-enrichment and related activities by Iran into a permanent ban....

Top News Story Converging U.S. Navy aircraft carrier groups in Middle East send strong message to Iran and Syria Sudhir Chadda, India Daily (thanks to Dan Darling and Rantburg.com):The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is on the move in Atlantic Ocean and is possibly headed towards the Mediterranean Sea. The convergence of three carrier groups in the corridor of the Middle East will send very strong message to the Syrians and Iranians. There are indications that soon US is moving two more aircraft carrier battle groups to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. This will...

Top News Story RFERL At first the ear-splitting explosions, blazing bonfires and choking stench of teargas could have been mistaken for the prelude to a new Iranian revolution. In reality the occasion, Chahar Shanbeh Souri, was celebratory. Iranians young and old, male and female, were gathered in Mirdamad Street, in one of Tehran's most affluent neighbourhoods, to mark the opening of festivities for Norouz, the new year in the ancient Zoroastrian calendar. Nevertheless, subversion - along with noise and smoke - hung heavy in the air as fashionably dressed young men lobbed firecrackers and set flame to piles of...

Just In! Dr. Corsi Begins His Book Tour Tomorrow! I just recieved the following from Dr. Jerome Corsi. He begins his book tour, for his new book Atomic Iran.In Atomic Iran, Jerome Corsi, co-author of the best-selling Unfit for Command, uncovers the true intentions and practices of the Iranian regime and gives light to the aid and comfort being supplied by some key U.S. politicians. Here is his book tour schedule: Monday, March 21; 8:20am-10:20am (ET)ABC Radio NetworksKCMO-Kansas City, MO; 8:20am (CT)KFAB-Omaha, NE; 8:50am (CT)KEX-Portland, OR; 6:20 (PT)KFBK-Sacramento, CA; 6:40am (PT)WABC-New York, NY; 10:20am (ET) Monday, March 21; 4pm...

Top News Story LA Times L.A. Is a Den of Iranian Intrigue and Ambition Anne-Marie O'Connor, Greg Krikorian and H.G. Reza, LA Times: Roozbeh Farahanipour was jailed and beaten during student protests in Iran in 1999. Today, he sits in a cramped office above a Persian-language bookstore on Westwood Boulevard, speaking in low tones about the pro-Tehran "agents" he says still dog him. Two years ago, after hostile men confronted his Iranian activist group at public forums, he walked downthe bustling avenue — past Persian restaurants, Persian pop music vendors and the publisher of the 1,200-page Iranian Yellow Pages...

Top News Story Iranian Dissident Due in America as Protests Rise Eli Lake, The NY Sun:A key opponent of the government of Iran will be arriving here this month to urge American support for the idea of holding a popular referendum in Iran on whether the country should remain a theocracy. The visit from Mohsen Sazegara comes as demonstrations in Iran have cropped up during the country's festival of fire before the Persian new year, featuring some revelers shouting slogans in favor of President Bush. With America's Iran policy torn between support for European negotiations over the Islamic republic's...

Top News Story As Evidence Grows Of Iran's Program, U.S. Hits Quandary EXCERPTS: Carla Anne Robbins, The Wall Street Journal:New Data Suggest Big Effort To Build Nuclear Warhead, But Will World Believe It? For two years, U.S. experts and international inspectors have pored over satellite photos, radioactive samples and tips from sometimes-unreliable sources trying to solve the Iran nuclear puzzle. Then, last year, U.S. officials received what they now consider the best evidence yet that Iran is pursuing an ambitious nuclear-weapons program. An intelligence source, solicited with German help, provided the U.S. tens of thousands of pages of Farsi-language...

Top News Story RFERL Students in Isfahan, central Iran, disrupted a campaign speech by Mustafa Moin, an aspirant in the presidential election set for June, forcing him to curtail his remarks and leave, Radio Farda reported on 7 March. Moin, a former education minister, is favored by the reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front and Mujahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization. Members of the Islamic Association of Isfahan Universities and Medical Faculties, an umbrella student group, reportedly sang and shouted slogans against Moin as he spoke, and waved placards denouncing the now stagnant reforms initiated in 1997 by President Khatami....

Top News Story Traditional "Pagan" Celebration Turns Into Street Fights Against Regime ForcesSMCCDI (Information Service) Mar 15, 2005 Violent clashes rocked, this evening, main Iranian cities as brutal militiamen attacked Iranians who transformed the already hardly tolerated celebration of the traditional "Tchahr Shanbe Souri" (Fire Fiest) into protest action and show of "un-Islamic" joy. Most areas of the Capital and cities, such as, Esfahan, Mahabad, Shiraz, Rasht, Kermanshah, Babol, Sannandaj, Mashad, Khoram-Abad, Zabol, Tabriz, Hamedan and Oroomiah (former Rezai-e) were scenes of sometimes unprecedented street fights between the regime forces and groups of Iranians.Armed clashes have been reported from...

Top News Story Iran Exiles Declare Their Unified Stand For Democracy BY JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun March 14, 2005 LOS ANGELES - An unusual assembly of Iranian exiles joined together here yesterday to pronounce the external opposition to the Islamic regime more unified than ever and to press for increased international support for democratic reformers inside the country.More than 100 Iranian dissidents - some from as far away as Paris - offered thanks for President Bush's vocal endorsement of Iran's democracy movement, but many expressed distress over the administration's recent decision to join a European...

Top News Story Tehran Times TEHRAN – Iran’s Intelligence Minister Ali Yunessi here Sunday scoffed at U.S. incentives aimed at coaxing the Islamic Republic to drop its uranium enrichment program and declared that Washington’s overtures are ridiculous, irrelevant, and insulting. The U.S. concessions, announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, include an end to Washington’s opposition to Iran’s application for membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and a partial lifting of the ban on sales of some spare parts for Iran’s civilian aircraft. “The offer is not only illogical but so absurd,” said the minister adding that the...

Top News Story Focus: Taking aim at Iran Uzi Mahnaimi and Tony Allen-Mills report Israeli troops are training for an assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Will it happen and what would be the fallout? Israel’s finest soldiers had been flying for several hours before the assault helicopters reached their target — the uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, in southern Iran. Most of the men from the Shaldag battalion were dressed in the uniform of the Iranian Pasdaran militia, while others wore Israeli army kit and carried the standard issue M4A1 carbine rifle fitted with Trijicon Reflex sights. As the...

Top News Story The Iranians Reject the US Nuclear Incentive BBC News Iran has rejected a new US policy offering economic incentives to the Islamic state to give up its nuclear enrichment programme. "No pressure, bribe or threat can make Iran give up its legitimate right" to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, said an Iranian spokesman. President George W Bush announced the major change in US policy on Friday. He said the US would back European talks to resolve the stand-off over Iran's nuclear issue. His Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, announced the lifting of a decade-long block...

Top News Story U.S. to back EU over Iran Fri Mar 11, 2005 4:48 AM GMT By Arshad Mohammed and Carol GiacomoWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration, in a major shift, will adopt a European proposal to offer Iran economic incentives to abandon its nuclear ambitions, U.S. and European officials say.The United States is expected to allow Iran to join the World Trade Organisation and buy aircraft spare parts and, in return, Britain, France and Germany have agreed to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council if it fails to give up its suspected nuclear weapons program, the officials...

Top News Story Hillary Clinton to be Invited for Fundraising by Controversial Iranian CirclesSMCCDI (Information Service) Mar 10, 2005 Circles close to some of the most notorious 'former' Islamic regime's apologists in the U.S. intend to consolidate their position among the highest levels of the U.S. Democratic Party, following the debacle they witnessed with the victory of George W. Bush. The self-called "Iranian American Political Action Committee" (IAPAC) have some founders and members that were close to the Clinton Administration intend to invite Senator Hillary R. Clinton to a fundraising in Northern California, later this week. It's believed that...

Top News Story Iran tells EU to back down on nukes TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian officials have threatened to break off negotiations with France, Britain and Germany if the three European Union heavyweights continue to insist that Tehran abandon all sensitive atomic activities. European officials began a new round of talks with Iranian negotiators in Geneva aimed at working out a permanent resolution to the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme, which Washington says is a front to build atomic weapons. Tehran insists it is intended solely to generate electricity and has rejected an EU demand to terminate its uranium...

Top News Story Secularist opposition to gather in "Coalition Coordination Council For Ending the Islamic Regime"SMCCDI (Information Service) Mar 7, 2005 Tens of respected leaders and well known activists supporting Iran's secular-democratic and nationalist opposition will gather, on Sunday March 13th, in order to form the "Coalition Coordination Council For Ending the Islamic Regime."Opposition figures representing various Iranian political organizations, ranging from republican to monarchist, will be traveling from all parts of the U.S. and European cities to participate in this meeting, which will be the prelude to the announcement of the long awaited "Iranian Opposition Council." Many more...

Top News Story Iran Press Service In an unprecedented open letter to the ruling clerical leaders, more than five hundred Iranian scholars, intellectuals, journalists, students, artists and politicians have denounced the "incompetence" of the present clerical-led leadership and warned that only bowing to the principles of a real democracy can save the country and nation from total collapse. Observers say this is the first time that so many dissidents of all categories have joined in writing such a letter, produced on the occasion of the forthcoming presidential elections, due next June. The signatories, most of them well known activists,...

Top News Story Iran Says It Won't Give Up Program to Enrich Uranium By NAZILA FATHI Published: March 6, 2005 EHRAN, March 5 - Iran's chief nuclear negotiator said Saturday that the country would never permanently cease enriching uranium, and he warned that if the United States went to the United Nations Security Council to seek sanctions against Iran, "the security and stability of the region would become a problem."The statements came at the opening of a rare conference on nuclear technology in Tehran, to which three American scholars were also invited. The Iranian negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, also said...

Top News Story Iran Constructing the 40 MW Heavy Water Reactor at Arak Despite Calls Not to Do So by the European Union and the IAEA Board of Governors March 4, 2005 Institute for Science and International Security February 29, 2004Space Imaging February 17, 2005Space Imaging February 27, 2005 DigitalGlobe Click on Each Picture to View Larger Image in a New Window In his briefing to the IAEA Board of Governors on March 1, 2005, Pierre Goldschmidt, IAEA Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Safeguards, said Iranian officials have, "indicated that the Heavy Water Research Reactor...