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Wednesday, 09 March 2005 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Mar. 07 – The ending ceremony of the sixth national student newspaper festival turned into a demonstration yesterday as over 1,000 students from universities across the city of Mashad (northeast Iran) heckled the regime's Minister of Health, forcing him to flee the event. Students took the podium and jeered the government minister, shouting slogans and demanding the release of political prisoners and an end to the crackdown on students in Iran's universities. |
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Wednesday, 09 March 2005 |
 AFP: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday there was plenty of reason to be concerned over Iran's nuclear ambitions, downplaying press reports that US intelligence on Iran was inadequate. "I believe that there is enough evidence that there are problems with Iran's civilian nuclear power ambitions," Rice said in an interview with Univision television, the largest Spanish-language network in the United States.
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Wednesday, 09 March 2005 |
 AFP: Polish police have detained a British citizen of Iranian origin wanted on an international arrest warrant on suspicion
of trying to bring an experimental US plane to Iran, authorities said here Wednesday. Ali Asghar Manzarpour "is accused of trying to export to Iran in 2004 an experimental Berkut 360 plane bought in the United States," Maciej Kujawski, spokesman at the Warsaw prosecutor's office, told AFP. |
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Wednesday, 09 March 2005 |
 New York Times: An American scholar who was instrumental in getting the head of the Library of Congress invited to Iran for an official conference in November has suspended his own five-year effort to build bridges between the two countries after he and a colleague were turned away at the Tehran airport in separate incidents last month. |
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Wednesday, 09 March 2005 |
 AP: Federal authorities have launched an investigation into allegations that a guard beat one of four Iranian brothers who have been detained for more than three years at an
immigration detention center, authorities said. |
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Monday, 07 March 2005 |
 Reuters: OPEC does not feel it must cool scorching world oil prices by raising production at its March 16 meeting and will continue its suspension of the $22-$28 price band, Iran's OPEC governor said on Sunday.
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Saturday, 05 March 2005 |
 Washington Post: They waited more than a thousand days for good news, and on a chilly February afternoon it came: A guard at the Terminal Island immigration jail walked into the dorm room of the four Mirmehdi brothers and said they were being released. |
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Friday, 04 March 2005 |
 AFP: Allowing Iran to join the World Trade Organisation should not be considered as an incentive during nuclear negotiations with the European Union, its commerce minister was quoted as saying Friday. "Whether the United States and Europe accept it or not, this is not a favour to Iran and they cannot demand something from Iran in return," Mohammad Shariatmadari told the student news agency ISNA. |
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Friday, 04 March 2005 |
 Los Angeles Times: The Bush administration is considering a more aggressive effort to foster opposition inside Iran and seeking ways to use a new $3-million fund to support activists without exposing them to the risk of arrest. The approach would represent a change since President Bush's first term, when the administration was more wary of such potentially dangerous moves, officials said. |
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Friday, 04 March 2005 |
 New York Times: President Bush, working to define a common strategy with Europe to get Iran to dismantle its suspected nuclear weapons program, conferred Thursday with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about what the Iranian government must do as its part of any agreement, according to American and European officials.
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Friday, 04 March 2005 |
 Washington Post: The Bush administration is now seeking guarantees from Europe that allies will back punitive measures against Iran if diplomatic talks do not result in agreement by the Islamic republic to permanently abandon any ambitions of developing a nuclear weapon, according to U.S. and European officials.
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Thursday, 03 March 2005 |
 Los Angeles Times: President Bush and his closest foreign policy advisers convene Thursday to grapple with an important shift in U.S. policy toward Iran: how best to support a European diplomatic initiative to prevent the Middle East nation from becoming a nuclear weapons state. The discussions follow a working lunch Wednesday at the White House that included Vice President Dick Cheney, national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, during which the Europeans' strategy to offer economic incentives was discussed, according to administration officials. |
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Wednesday, 02 March 2005 |
 AFP: The head of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards has warned that 190,000 US troops stationed close to the Islamic republic could be targetted if Iran were attacked, a report said Wednesday.
"More than 190,000 members of American forces are scattered in Afghanistan and Iraq. If the US carries out its threats against Iran, they nust know that all these forces will be within our reach," Yahya Rahim Safavi told the ultra-hardline Ya Lessarat newspaper. |
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Wednesday, 02 March 2005 |
 New York Sun: Two leading Republican members of Congress are urging the White House to refrain from joining European negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program. In an interview yesterday with The New York Sun, Senator Santorum, a Republican of Pennsylvania who is his party's third-ranking senator, said he did not like the idea of the negotiations. |
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Wednesday, 02 March 2005 |
 Reuters: European officials have said they expect a quick U.S. decision -- within days or weeks -- on whether to support incentives for Iran to give up its suspected nuclear weapons programme. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised the issue on the sidelines of a Middle East conference and a senior U.S. official expected her to do so at a dinner Tuesday ... |
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Tuesday, 01 March 2005 |
 Iran Focus: London, Mar. 01 – The International Committee of the Red Cross dismissed claims by Iran that it supervised the repatriation of a group of 100 Iranians formerly associated with the opposition People’s Mojahedin in Iraq.
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Tuesday, 01 March 2005 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Mar. 01 – Workers' demands for overdue wages and actions over poor working conditions have gained momentum over the past few days in Iran, with protests and strikes erupting in a number of towns and cities. Coal miners from Sangroud are set to march today all the way to Tehran to demand that their wages be paid and safety measures be properly implemented. |
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Tuesday, 01 March 2005 |
 AP: Iran has begun production of a heavy machine-gun with armour-piercing bullets, state television reported Tuesday. Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani said the 12.7-millimetre gun has a range of 2.5 kilometres and is suitable for snipers. "The United States had protested to a European country about selling the gun (to Iran), while we have already produced it," Shamkhani said. "Today the first consignment of the weapon was delivered." |
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Tuesday, 01 March 2005 |
 Reuters: President George W. Bush is close to deciding whether to join Europe in offering incentives to Iran, including membership of the World Trade Organization, in exchange for Tehran's agreement to give up nuclear weapons, U.S. officials said on Monday. It would mark a significant shift in strategy for Bush, who has been reluctant to consider economic incentives for Iran to avoid being seen as rewarding bad behavior. He had been talking about taking Iran to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
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Monday, 28 February 2005 |
 Reuters: Outraged by scenes of young boys and girls using Shi'ite Islam's most sacred mourning day as an opportunity to flirt in public, Iran's religious hard-liners are calling on authorities to stamp out such "vulgar displays." Failure to do so, some newspaper commentators said, would force pious citizens to take matters into their own hands. |
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Sunday, 27 February 2005 |
 Reuters: The United States should seek to bar Russia from this year's major-nation summit to protest actions by Moscow including its deal on Sunday to provide Iran nuclear fuel, a leading Republican senator said. Lawmakers from both major parties joined in calling for Russia to be punished for the nuclear deal and what they said were anti-democratic actions by Russian President Vladimir Putin, although the French, German and British ambassadors to the United States opposed barring Russia from the summit. |
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Sunday, 27 February 2005 |
 The Washington Times: A federal grand jury in the District on Friday returned a five-count indictment against a British man, charging him with attempting to send restricted electrical parts and other equipment, including an experimental airplane, to Iran. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Michael J. Garcia, who heads U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said the indictment accuses Ali Asghar Manzarpour, 43, of violating federal export laws. |
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Saturday, 26 February 2005 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Feb. 26 – Workers from Iran's Pars
Textiles yesterday protested outside the governor's office in Gilan (Iran's Caspian coastal province) after having gone more than 10 months without pay. At least 180 workers took part in the protest demanding that the government take action against their employer. |
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Saturday, 26 February 2005 |
 Washington Post: A British national once convicted of smuggling into Iran steel used to make nuclear weapons has been indicted in Washington on charges of illegally exporting new materials to Iran. A grand jury indicted Ali Asghar Manzarpour, 43, on Thursday on charges of violating the U.S. Iranian export embargo, charges that were unsealed by a federal judge yesterday. |
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Thursday, 24 February 2005 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Feb. 24 – Comments from Iran's Oil Minister this morning raised suspicions that some $54 billion was being fraudulently used by agencies within the Iranian government, a state-run news agency reported. "I refuse to answer", was the reply Bijan Namdar-Zangeneh gave as he was questioned by reporters after a cabinet meeting regarding four affiliate oil ministry accounts currently holding $54 billion cash. |
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Thursday, 24 February 2005 |
 Reuters: Forlorn villagers picked through the ruins of their broken homes on Thursday, looking for belongings to salvage from the wreckage of Tuesday's earthquake in southeastern Iran in which at least 549 people died. Officials said the death toll would climb as more corpses were uncovered. Some 220 of the roughly 900 injured were in a critical condition. |
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Thursday, 24 February 2005 |
 Iran Focus: Tehran, Feb. 24 – In a recent secret report to the Iranian regime's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps pointed out that were a demonstration or rebellion to last more than six hours in Tehran, the security apparatus would no longer be able to control the situation. |
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Thursday, 24 February 2005 |
 NBC: As President Bush pressures European allies to get tougher with Iran, NBC News got a rare glimpse inside the country — at an Iranian air show attended by some of the world's leading military contractors eager to do business with America's adversary. On the island of Kish, mullahs mixed with Ukrainian generals amid photos of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Iran's contempt for the United States was clear — emblazoned underneath a helicopter, in Farsi: "Death to America." |
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Wednesday, 23 February 2005 |
 Press Association: Twelve United Kingdom parliamentarians today supported a call for the main Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin, to be removed from the international list of terrorist groups.
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Wednesday, 23 February 2005 |
 Reuters: Tired and cold survivors of a powerful earthquake in southeastern Iran begged authorities for food and shelter on Wednesday, complaining aid was slow to reach the worst-hit mountain villages. Iran has so far declined offers of foreign assistance to deal with the aftermath of Tuesday's tremor
which had a magnitude of 6.4 and killed at least 420 people. |
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