Middle East
Iran vows swift response to attack
New Details Emerges About Detainees Sentenced to Death
When 22-year-old student Hamed Ruhinejad first heard about the street protests that erupted throughout in Iran following the country's presidential election, he was already in jail. In fact, when the contentious June 12 vote took place, he had already been serving time at Tehran's Evin prison for about 40 days. But that fact didn't spare Ruhinejad, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, from a death sentence imposed for participating in rallies he could not possibly have attended.
Top Revolutionary Guard commanders killed in Iran suicide bombing
Killed and Detained Since 12 June
The 3-minute video that may prove Iran’s nuclear intentions
VIENNA - The last place you would expect to hear the apocalyptic soundtrack of the movie "Chariots of Fire" would be Iran. This 1981 film recounts the story of a Jewish British athlete and his teammate, a devout Christian, who refuses to compete on Sunday, his day of rest. But this soundtrack accompanies a highly secret video, produced by Iranian nuclear scientists, but never screened before the general public - a three-minute film depicting a computerized simulation of the detonation of a warhead, most likely a nuclear one. Whether it was intentional or merely coincidental, the nameless Iranian editor decided to use the soundtrack of the British blockbuster to accompany the video. ...
The 3-minute video that may prove Iran’s nuclear intentions
VIENNA - The last place you would expect to hear the apocalyptic soundtrack of the movie "Chariots of Fire" would be Iran. This 1981 film recounts the story of a Jewish British athlete and his teammate, a devout Christian, who refuses to compete on Sunday, his day of rest. But this soundtrack accompanies a highly secret video, produced by Iranian nuclear scientists, but never screened before the general public - a three-minute film depicting a computerized simulation of the detonation of a warhead, most likely a nuclear one. Whether it was intentional or merely coincidental, the nameless Iranian editor decided to use the soundtrack of the British blockbuster to accompany the video. ...
Report Says Iran Has Data to Make a Nuclear Bomb
Report from Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations
Reviewing the technical and legal aspects it could easily be concluded that the international community has been, to a great extent misled with bias, politicized and exaggerated information on Iranian nuclear programs and activities. Iranian nuclear issues which should have been dealt in a purely technical manner within the framework of the IAEA, has been politicized. In order to divert the attention of international community from the: immediate and serious security concerns as the result violation of article VI of the NPT; existence of the huge number of the nuclear warheads; recent development in manufacturing new types of nuclear weapons by two Nuclear Weapon States and the last but not the least the potential nuclear threat by Israel; being the only non-party to the NPT in the strategic region of Middle East.
Experts Say Iran May Be Ready for a Nuclear Deal
Ahmadinejad: Upcoming nuclear meet in Vienna is ‘test’ for West
Yahoo didn’t sentence 200,000 Iranians to death, and other misadventures in online journalism
In one of those wonderful ironies of scheduling that make columnists weep with joy, Larry Dignan spent yesterday at a Yahoo! hack day in New York. This is the same Larry Dignan who is Editor in Chief of ZDNet, which is the same ZDNet that yesterday published a blog post accusing Yahoo of passing the names and email addresses of thousands sorry, hundreds of thousands - of bloggers to the Iranian authorities during the country s recent election.
Yahoo DENIES giving Iran names of 200,000 protesters
Black Market Shows Iran Can Adapt to Sanctions
On Leadership Panelists Bad leaders like Ahmadinejad must be forced to change.
During the past thirty years, Iran has been a sworn enemy of the United States. During the past five years, Iran has become far more powerful a player than before -- this in a region of critical strategic importance. During the past five years, Iran has sought aggressively to acquire more arms, now including nuclear arms. During the past year (as well as before) Iran oppressed its own dissenters -- many to the point of persecution. Finally, Ahmadinejad has himself, ironically, repeatedly and in no uncertain terms, been a Holocaust denier and Jew-hater. To gild this lily he has spoken openly and frequently of obliterating the state of Israel, of "wiping it off the map."
How to Press the Advantage With Iran
This article is more idealistic rather than realistic, not paying attention to the people and the situation at hand! "Because President Obama assembled a national security team that, for the most part, did not share his early vision for American-Iranian rapprochement, his administration never built a strong public case for engagement. The prospect of engagement is still treated largely as a channel for rewarding positive Iranian actions and punishing problematic behavior precisely what Mr. Obama, as a presidential candidate, criticized so eloquently about President George W. Bush s approach."
A Nuclear Debate Brews – Is Iran Designing Warheads
U.S. Is Seeking a Range of Sanctions Against Iran
The Obama administration is scrambling to assemble a package of harsher economic sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program that could include a cutoff of investments to the country s oil-and-gas industry and restrictions on many more Iranian banks than those currently blacklisted, senior administration officials said Sunday.
The U.S.-Iranian Triangle
Iran test fires short-range missiles on eve of Yom Kippur
U.S. to Accept IranÂ’s Proposal to Hold Talks
U.S. Says Iran Has Ability to Expedite a Nuclear Bomb
WASHINGTON American intelligence agencies have concluded in recent months that Iran has created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, if risky, sprint for a nuclear weapon. But new intelligence reports delivered to the White House say that the country has deliberately stopped short of the critical last steps to make a bomb.
In Wake of Election Protests, Iranian Officials Canceling Major Ramadan Events
Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad
Ansar-e Hezbollah
Student Leader Says Tehran Isolating Activists
IRAN Proposed education minister accused of making up his degrees
Did President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nominee as head of the nation's higher education system fake his university degrees? According to an investigation by a reformist website, Mowjcamp.com, Kamran Daneshjoo, Ahmadinejad's proposed minister of higher education, has lied about his academic credentials by claiming that he obtained British university degrees.
Tehran prosecutor ‘promoted’ into obscurity
Creative Opportunism’ on Iran
What I'm arguing for is an Iran policy of "creative opportunism." We should take advantage of the fact that our biggest adversary in the Middle East has just had a political crackup. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vote-rigging putsch has backfired. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's attempt to squelch protest has only revealed his weakness. In the post-election turmoil, even Ahmadinejad and Khamenei have been squabbling.
Iraq, Iran current affairs
In the chaos following the disputed June presidential elections in Iran, journalist Spencer Ackerman reported that the administration of United States President Barack Obama "insisted that it would not interfere with the struggle for power between regime-backed President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and the thousands of demonstrators who contend the election was stolen".
Israel UN witholding details of Iran’s nuclear program –
The Foreign Ministry on Saturday issued a statement accusing the International Atomic Energy Agency of not publishing information gathered against Iran's nuclear energy program. The statement alleges that an IAEA report on Iran's nuclear energy program released on Friday "does not reflect the entirety of the information the IAEA holds on Iran's efforts to advance their military program, nor their continued efforts to conceal and deceive and their refusal to cooperate with the IAEA and the international community."
Ali Larijani News
Ahmadinejad Urges Prosecution of Political Rivals
Intellectual movements in Iran – VisWiki
August 19, 1953 – The Day Iran’s Democracy Died
Political Prisoners
Each of these people are unique and are their mother's treasured child; we must find the truth and report it to honor them. We must recognize their sacrifices made to bring Freedom to all Iranian People. Please, help me keep this updated. Some websites have listed different locations, different dates & different personal identification information for the same person. I have included all information gathered, until the true facts are known.
ranelection
Iran’s Next Supreme Leader
People in the know in Iran report that the hottest subject of discussion among Iranian conservative leaders these days is the issue of who is to succeed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is said to be suffering from leukemia. The same individuals report that the person most likely to take Khamenei's mantle is Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the powerful chief of the Judiciary, whose tenure is scheduled to end within weeks.
Ahmadinejad won. Get over it
Without any evidence, many U.S. politicians and Iran experts have dismissed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad s reelection Friday, with 62.6 percent of the vote, as fraud. They ignore the fact that Ahmadinejad s 62.6 percent of the vote in this year s election is essentially the same as the 61.69 percent he received in the final count of the 2005 presidential election, when he trounced former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. The shock of the Iran experts over Friday s results is entirely self-generated, based on their preferred assumptions and wishful thinking.
Iran Has Built a Censorship Monster, With Help From Western Tech
When it comes to online censorship and monitoring online activities, the first country that usually comes to mind is China and its Great Firewall. This, however, may soon change, as it seems that Iran has built one of the most advanced systems for monitoring all online traffic, with the help of technology built by Nokia and Siemens
Useful Google Map: Embassies Accepting Injured in Iran
Let s go over some of the ways the Iran situation has affected social media. First, Twitter rescheduled its downtime because it s been instrumental to communication from protesters. Facebook launched a Persian translation to help facilitate discussion. Google Translate released Farsi support so English users could understand Farsi communication easier. And YouTube, Twitter, and the blogosphere have been on fire.
Iran Election Crisis 10 Incredible YouTube Videos
As we reported earlier this week, thousands of Iran-related videos are being uploaded to YouTube() every day, revealing first-hand accounts of the crisis to the world. Some are incredible, some are eye-opening, and other shock you to your very core. We ve included ten of these incredible videos, in a chronological order that helps provide context to the crisis in Iran. Be prepared, for these videos can evoke some very strong emotions:
International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran
The mission of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran is to gather support for Iranian human rights activists and defenders who are advocating for their civil, political, social, and economic rights within the framework of international treaties and standards that define Iran s obligations.
The Leaders of Iran’s ‘Election Coup’
The rigged presidential election in Iran -- a coup d'etat, according to Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a spokesman for the main reformist challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi, and other analysts -- has prompted protests both inside and outside Iran. There is, however, little understanding about the ideology and motivation behind the operation.
Iran’s Disputed Election – The Big Picture –
Following up from last Friday's entry about Iran's Presidential Election, Tehran and other cities have seen the largest street protests and rioting since the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Supporters of reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, upset at their announced loss and suspicions of voter fraud, took to the streets both peacefully and, in some cases, violently to vent their frustrations. Iranian security forces and hardline volunteer militia members responded with force and arrests, attempting to stamp out the protests - meanwhile, thousands of Iranians who were happy with the election outcome staged their own victory demonstrations. Mousavi himself has been encouraging peaceful demonstrations, and called for calm at a large demonstration today (held in defiance of an official ban), as Iran s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has just called for an official inquiry into accusations of election irregularities.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Done Right
A most strange storyline has emerged with regard to the provincial vote totals for the Iranian election. Around 1600 GMT Sunday, the ministry of Interior released the official vote totals by province. As others have mentioned, by law candidates have three days following voting to contest the result, before the final totals are approved by the Supreme Leader. As such, it is notable that both the aggregate totals and provincial totals were certified, approved and released before the three day deadline.
Political Lines Blurred for Iran Vote
In a profound departure from a quarter-century of politics grounded in appeals to religious duty, the presidential campaigns unfolding across Iran's capital betray not the slightest suggestion that this is a theocratic state. Hard-line conservatives are running as reformers. Reformers, after years of being thwarted by hard-liners, are running scared. And most ordinary Iranians are holding themselves aloof -- unmoved, they say, by a political transformation that many dismiss as largely cosmetic.
Hands Off the People of Iran
It is no surprise that the highly contested results of the presidential elections in Iran have sparked unrest in Tehran and other cities across Iran. The level of cheating on display seems crazy even by the standards of Iran's Islamic Republic regime. Clearly, the results are the final proof that confirms that the whole electoral process is deeply undemocratic and rigged from top to bottom:
Khamenei’s Speech on the Iranian Elections, June 2009
Iranian Presidential Debate
Iran President and Challenger Clash in Debate
A moderate politician who is considered the strongest challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran accused him on live television on Wednesday of undermining the nation s interest by constantly questioning the Holocaust and by engaging in an adventurist foreign policy. The sharp attacks by the candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, came during a fierce 90-minute debate with Mr. Ahmadinejad that was broadcast throughout Iran. The two candidates clashed repeatedly during the one-on-one debate, with each accusing the other of radicalism and undercutting the country s interest.
Iran plans to air US-style TV election debate
It is the ultimate slice of political Americana an unscripted no-holds-barred sparring contest between candidates pitting their wits, chutzpah and political virility before an audience of millions. Now the televised debate, a long-established hallmark of US presidential elections, could be given an airing in an unlikely setting: Iran, which for 30 years has denounced America as the "great satan" and spurned its cultural innovations
Political Prisoners on hunger strike
On May 3rd, prison authorities in Gohar Dasht brutally attacked political prisoners including those affiliated to the People s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), beating and abusing them. Ali Reza Karami (a prisoner on death row), Afshin Baymani and Behrouz Javid-Tehrani were transferred to solitary confinements after being badly beaten by the special prison guards.
Israel Cries Wolf
"Iran is the center of terrorism, fundamentalism and subversion and is in my view more dangerous than Nazism, because Hitler did not possess a nuclear bomb, whereas the Iranians are trying to perfect a nuclear option.". Benjamin Netanyahu 2009? Try again. These words were in fact uttered by another Israeli prime minister (and now Israeli president), Shimon Peres, in 1996. Four years earlier, in 1992, he d predicted that Iran would have a nuclear bomb by 1999.
Mr. Obama and Iran
President Obama has set a constructive new tone for trying to engage Iran. He told an Arabic-language TV network: "If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us." And he showed refreshing humility after the Bush administration's arrogance: "Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes."
Stop Torturing us
U.S. Intel: Iran Plans Nuclear Strike on U.S.
Iran has carried out missile tests for what could be a plan for a nuclear strike on the United States, the head of a national security panel has warned. In testimony before the House Armed Services Committee and in remarks to a private conference on missile defense over the weekend hosted by the Claremont Institute, Dr. William Graham warned that the U.S. intelligence community 'doesn t have a story' to explain the recent Iranian tests.
Israel’s Tehran connection
King of the Iranian bloggers
Hossein Derakhshan's T-shirt is the only thing that gives him away. "I love Tehran," it says. Actually the shirt is the only thing that would lead one to guess that the affable, young-and-restless technology aficionado is not from here. He's from Iran, and proud of it. He was born in Tehran, grew up there and thinks it's the most fantastic city in the world. Even today, even now. Because even though Derakhshan cannot live in Iran at present, he is still an Iranian patriot. He despises Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but admires Khomeini; he's a total atheist, but thinks that an Islamic republic is the solution for the future; he's a friend of Israel, who thinks that Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli policy is the leader's stupidest mistake, but he's also an enthusiastic supporter of the Iranian nuclear program and believes it would be very good for Iran to have an atom bomb. Good for Iran - and good for Israel.
Tehran Pollution Kills 3,600 In A Month
Air pollution has killed 3,600 people in just a month in the Iranian capital Tehran, an official said Tuesday, describing the city's environmental situation as a "collective suicide". "Pollution has directly or indirectly caused the deaths of 3,600 people in the month of Aban (October 23 to November 23)," said Mohammad Hadi Heydarzadeh, director of Tehran's clean air committee, quoted by Kargozaran newspaper.
The Clerics Lash Back as Iranians question their legitimacy
Khomeini s real father,William Richard Williamson, was born in Bristol, England, in 1872 of British parents and lineage. This detail is based on first-hand evidence from a former Iranian employee of the Anglo- Iranian OilCompany (later British Petroleum: BP), who worked with and met the key players of this saga. This fact was supported by the lack of a denial in 1979 by Col. Archie Chisholm, a BP political officer and former editor at The Financial Times, when interviewed on the subject at his home in County Cork, Ireland, by a British newspaper.
Iran ‘seeks Kazakh uranium’
Iran accuses Britain of meddling
Iran has called on the British ambassador to respond to accusations of his government's "interference" in the Islamic Republic, as pro-government rallies continue. Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian foreign minister, told a news conference on Tuesday that the ambassador had been summoned over Britain's interference in Iran's domestic affairs.
Iran rejects nuclear trigger claim
Mousavi nephew’ among Iran dead
Timeline Iran after the election
The re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after presidential polls on June 12 was heavily disputed by two defeated candidates, who claimed there had been mass fraud.The dispute of the result brought tens of thousands of supporters of the reformist candidates out onto the streets to demand that the result be annulled and there have been sporadic protests every since.