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Thursday, January 8th

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	Hamas has failed – it is time they stepped down. Regardless of the outcome of the barbaric Israeli Operation Cast Lead, one thing is certain; it is high time for Hamas to step down as the keeper of Gaza. This is where people will object and remind us that they were democratically elected. My answer to that is: Yes, but they are incompetent. By Sultan Al Qassemi >Read the Article

Posted 6/1/2009 @ 12:6:53 GMT
The long-range 120 mm mortars raining down on Israel are Iranian.
The press calls the rockets "Grads" or "Katyushas," the Russian name given several generations ago to the original Soviet-made surface-to-surface missiles. Today, it would be more correct to label some of the missiles by their real name, the "Arash," the name given to them by their Iranian manufacturers. The long-range 120 mm mortars raining down on Israel are also Iranian in origin. The mortars are equipped with auxiliary motors to increase their range from six to ten kilometers. more
By The Cutting Edge News

Posted 5/1/2009 @ 17:26:35 GMT
Iran says over 70,000 students sign up for martyrdom operations
TEHRAN, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) -- The director of the Public Relations of Iran's Students' Basij (Volunteer) Organization Esmaeel Ahmadi said here on Monday that over 70,000 students had signed up for martyrdom operations, the official IRNA news agency reported. "More than 70,000 students from universities throughout Iran have signed up on the list to conduct Esteshhadi (martyrdom seeking) operations (against Israeli troops in Gaza)," Ahmadi said. "The students will act as part of Esteshhadi battalions," he added. more
By China New Agency

Posted 5/1/2009 @ 13:41:31 GMT
Iran wants to use oil exports as a weapon against supporters of Israel
TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian military commander called on Islamic countries to cut oil exports to Israel's supporters in response to the Jewish state's offensive in Gaza, the official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday.IRNA said commander Bagherzadeh described oil as a commodity that could put pressure on Israel's European and American backers in the "unequal war" faced by Palestinians in the coastal strip. more
By http://uk.reuters.com/article/UKNews1/idUKTRE5032MJ20090104

Posted 5/1/2009 @ 13:14:29 GMT
OAPEC to ignore Iran oil supply cut to supporters of Israel
DUBAI, Jan 5 (Reuters) - Core OPEC oil producers in the Gulf would ignore Iran's call for Islamic countries to cut supplies to supporters of Israel in response to the Israeli offensive in Gaza, an OPEC source said on Monday."There are no plans to do this and I think it is very unlikely," the source told Reuters. more
By Reuters

Posted 4/1/2009 @ 19:4:5 GMT
How Israel, Hamas define victory in Gaza
Israel has hit at hundreds of targets across Gaza but has not seriously damaged Hamas's fighting force, which continued to fire rockets on southern Israel on Sunday. Escalating a week-long assault against Hamas, Israel invaded Gaza over the weekend to stop the Islamist militants who continue to launch cross-border rocket attacks. But what victory means for each side still remains vague. The Israeli military says the ground offensive is aimed at eliminating militant rocket-launching sites, destroying weapon caches, and pursuing fighters hiding in the crowded coastal strip. more
By The Christian Science Monitor

Posted 4/1/2009 @ 18:48:10 GMT
Israel%u2019s Worst Fears
Its U.S. ambassador says the big threat is that Iran has almost enough fuel for its first nuclear weapon.From the magazine issue dated Jan 12, 2009. Sallai Meridor has been Israel's ambassador to the United States since 2006. During that time, his government's main strategic worry has been Iran, and that remains so today despite the fighting in Gaza. Israel warns that Iran is making rapid progress toward a nuclear bomb—Meridor calculates that Tehran should have enough fuel for its first bomb sometime in 2009—and that Israel will take military action unless the United States and other allies step in. A former intelligence officer, Meridor recently met with NEWSWEEK editors in New York to discuss Iran and how best to deal with it. Excerpts: more

Posted 4/1/2009 @ 12:13:24 GMT
Iran budget to be based on oil price of $37.5
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's 2009-10 budget is expected to be based on an oil price of $37.5 per barrel, a "logical" level in view of last year's price fall, Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari was quoted as saying on Sunday. An Iranian newspaper last month said the government and a parliament committee had an initial agreement to base the budget running from March on an oil price of $45, lower than previously suggested. Iran is the world's fourth-largest oil producer. "The price of oil in next year's budget has been envisaged at $37.5 (per barrel) which seems to be a logical price considering the drop in prices," Nozari was quoted as saying by the semi-official Mehr News Agency. more
By Reuters

Posted 3/1/2009 @ 18:2:33 GMT
Organization of Islamic Countries Snobs Iranian Regime
The following is a news dispatch from Iran's official news agency Fars. It is obvious from this report that an overwhelming majority of the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) members have ignored Iran's call for an emergency meeting and instead have gone to Jeddah in response to the Saudi invitation. This explain the absence of Iranian foreign minister at that gathering reported earlier on this page.IRVAJ more
By Fars News Agency


Posted 3/1/2009 @ 17:47:47 GMT Al Maliki speaks diplomatically to press in Tehran The following is a Press TV interview with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who is currently in Tehran for talks with government officials. Press TV is an English language governmental news channel run by the Islamic Republic.In this interview he talks about mutual relations and the question Mujahedeen. more

Posted 3/1/2009 @ 8:22:29 GMT
Mojahedin-e Khalq in Iraq Face Uncertain Future
Citing assassinations of U.S. military personnel and civilians in Iran in the 1970s and other violent acts, the U.S. State Department labeled the PMOI, also referred to as Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK), a foreign terrorist organization in 1997 and in 2002 the European Union followed suit. But in 2003, shortly after the invasion of Iraq, the group agreed to give up their weapons in return for protection by U.S. coalition forces. Camp Ashraf's residents have been "protected persons" under Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention since 2004, and as such cannot be extradited or forced to return to Iran while the U.S. maintains a presence in Iraq. more
By The Huffington Post

Posted 2/1/2009 @ 22:36:30 GMT
Iran FM: Arab countries have "betrayed" Gazans
TEHRAN (AFP) — Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki hit out at the international community for not doing more in the face of Israel's deadly blitz on Gaza on Friday and demanded an immediate halt to the assault.Mottaki accused the Israeli navy of behaving like "a bunch of Somali pirates" after a patrol boat collided with an aid boat carrying medicines and international activists trying on Tuesday to break Israel's blockade of Gaza. He said the Gazans were justified in their belief that some Arab countries had "betrayed" them. more

Posted 2/1/2009 @ 22:22:24 GMT
Reading Mom and Dad in Tehran
When Azar Nafisi was a professor of Western literature in Tehran in the 1980s and ’90s, she told her best stories anonymously, sometimes to visiting foreign journalists seeking guidance about Iran’s Islamic Republic. In 1997 she settled for good in the United States and discovered her public voice, turning the volume up high in her 2003 memoir, “Reading Lolita in Tehran.” more
By The New York Times

Posted 2/1/2009 @ 22:5:25 GMT
Nouri al Maliki and Iraqi Ministers Visiting Tehran
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will go to Iran this weekend along with a delegation of top Iraqi ministers, an official confirmed Friday.Iraq's Ambassador to Iran Mohammed Majid al-Sheik said Maliki would be joined in his Tehran visit starting Saturday by a foreigh ministry adviser and ministers of electricity, municipalities, trade and transportation, Al-Sumaria reported. Maliki will also head a joint supreme committee during his diplomatic visit, alongside Iranian First Deputy Speaker Pervez Daoudi more

Posted 2/1/2009 @ 21:58:5 GMT
U.S. condemns harassment of Iranian Nobel laureate
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Friday criticized the harassment in Iran of Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi and said such actions were part of an "increasingly hostile campaign" that targeted activists.State Department spokesman Sean McCormack urged Iran's government to abide by its human rights commitments and obligations."The United States condemns the continued harassment of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi," said McCormack in a statement. more
By Reuters

Posted 2/1/2009 @ 17:56:36 GMT
Protesters target home of Iran Nobel laureate
TEHRAN (AFP) — Dozens of protesters demonstrated outside the home of Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi on Thursday, chanting slogans accusing her of supporting US and Israeli "crimes," she told AFP. Around "150 demonstrators gathered outside my building and chanted slogans opposed to me," Ebadi said. They chanted "America and Israel commit crimes, Ebadi supports them," said the lawyer and human rights activist. more

Posted 1/1/2009 @ 22:11:1 GMT
Cultlike Iranian militant group worries about its future in Iraq
Elham Zanjani is pretty at 29. Her long eyelashes curl up perfectly and her tan skin is a creamy brown. Nine years ago she was studying at York University, engaged to another Iranian Canadian and living in her hometown of Toronto. She left all that behind to come to Camp Ashraf in Iraq, the small base that is the home the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, or MEK, a Marxist Islamist group that is as much a cult as a political party dedicated to the overthrow of the Iranian regime. more
By McClatchy Newspapers

Posted 1/1/2009 @ 21:56:36 GMT
Iran adopts a bellicose posture on the Gaza conflict
Public displays and rhetoric have two purposes: to assert leadership in the Islamic world and to bolster Tehran's hard-liners at home. But they also may link Iran unfavorably with Hamas' militancy.(Reporting from Beirut) — Students storm the British Embassy residence compound in Tehran, ripping down the Union Jack and hoisting the Palestinian flag, while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposes to try Israeli leaders in absentia.An Iranian religious organization signs up volunteers for suicide operations in the Gaza Strip, and an Iranian general suggests an Islamic military response to the five-day Israeli offensive against Hamas. more
By Los Angles Times

Posted 31/12/2008 @ 18:49:37 GMT
Shadow of Iran Looms Large Over Gaza
The Israeli air raids on Hamas’s infrastructure along with troop movements around Gaza’s enclave and the shelling of Israel by the jihadist organization are both troubling developments in the Middle East but they are certainly neither new nor surprising. Dramatic images of bloody Palestinian civilians fleeing from attacks and pictures of Israelis rushing to the shelters while under fire will always bring chills to observers and depress the entire international community. more
By FOX News

Posted 30/12/2008 @ 19:38:51 GMT
Iran Jews stage pro-Palestinian rally near UN offices in Tehran
Members of Iran's small Jewish community staged a demonstration outside of the United Nations' office in Tehran, to protest the Israel Defense Forces' operation in the Gaza Strip. The official Iranian news agency, IRNA, reported that community members, alongside Jewish parliamentarian Siamak Mara-Sedq, urged Israel to do its part to return quiet and security to the region. The chairman of Iran's Jewish Union, Rahmatullah Raafi, said the community had come out in support of the Palestinian people. more
By Haaretz

Posted 30/12/2008 @ 17:53:26 GMT
Iran has set up a court to try Israel!
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has set up a court to try Israelis for its air attacks on Gaza and is ready to try in absentia any people who Tehran says have committed "crimes," a judiciary official said on Tuesday. Iran, which does not recognise Israel, has criticised some Arab states for not doing enough to stop military action by the Jewish state. Iran's top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called on all Muslims to defend Palestinians in whatever way they can. more
By Reuters

Posted 30/12/2008 @ 13:58:54 GMT
Iranian Authorities Raid Private Offices of Ebadi
TEHRAN — Authorities stormed the private office of Iran’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Shirin Ebadi, on Monday, seizing her computers and her clients’ documents. Ms. Ebadi, who is the country’s most prominent human rights activist and an outspoken critic of the government, has recently come under increasing pressure from the government. The move on Monday appeared to be part of an effort to limit her activities ahead of presidential elections in June. more
By The New York Times

Posted 29/12/2008 @ 17:2:29 GMT
The land of two steps forward and one step back
The case of the Saudi judge upholding the marriage of an eight-year-old girl to a man 50 years her senior is so very wrong on innumerable levels and is a step back in the otherwise forward progress of the Kingdom. Indeed, much of the progress in the Muslim world at large seems to consist of taking two steps forward and one step back. In Saudi Arabia, few doubt the popularity of the modernising King Abdullah. He has, for example, initiated the establishment of several women's universities and has even declared, to the American journalist Barbara Walters, that he believes "the day will come when women will drive." more
By The National

Posted 29/12/2008 @ 15:18:29 GMT
Iran hardliners register volunteers to fight Israel
TEHRAN (Reuters) Mon Dec 29, 2008 5:44am EST- A group of Iranian hard-line clerics is signing up volunteers to fight in the Gaza Strip in response to Israel's air strikes that have killed at least 300 Palestinians, a news agency reported on Monday. "From Monday the Combatant Clergy Society has activated its website www.rohaniatmobarez.com for a week to register volunteers to fight against the Zionist regime (Israel) in either the military, financial or propaganda fields," the semi-official Fars news agency said. more
By Reuters

Posted 28/12/2008 @ 22:39:16 GMT
Islamic Republic of Iran to send aid cargo to the Gaza Strip
Iran will send its first ship carrying aid today to the Gaza Strip despite an Israeli naval blockade of the Hamas-controlled territory, state television reported. Israel patrols the coastal waters around Gaza and accuses Iran, which refuses to recognise Israel's existence, of supplying Hamas Islamists with weapons. Tehran denies this, saying it only provides moral support to Hamas. Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip has been stepped up in recent weeks amid a surge of violence along its frontier with the Palestinian territory. more
By The Independent

Posted 26/12/2008 @ 17:48:33 GMT
Norway deplores executions in Iran
Norway deplores the executions of 10 persons in Iran on Christmas Eve.Prior to the executions Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere appealed to Iran to stop in time and not go ahead with the executions.Last week Norway aligned itself with an EU declaration on the mass executions in Tehran’s Evin Prison on 26 November and other repeated violations of human rights that have taken place in Iran lately. more
By The Norway Post

Posted 26/12/2008 @ 17:29:2 GMT
Iran's Dismal Record on Rights
In shutting down the country's foremost human rights organization before an event marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Iranian government reveals a great deal about its attitude toward human rights. If a Nobel Peace Prize winner such as Shirin Ebadi can be repressed with impunity, what chance do others have? In fact, Ms. Ebadi's story is just the tip of an iceberg. Whether the challenge has come from activists promoting criminal justice reform, the rights of ethnic minorities or workers' rights, the government's response has been the same. Activists are harassed, subjected to travel bans, monitored, interrogated, prosecuted and imprisoned. The simple act of collecting signatures in support of gender equality has led to at least 45 arrests. more
By The Washington Post

Posted 25/12/2008 @ 15:52:10 GMT
Fury at British TV broadcast of Christmas message by Ahmadinejad
The Government has criticised Channel 4's decision to broadcast an Alternative Christmas Message by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said the invitation by the broadcaster to the hard-line leader would cause international offence. An FCO spokeswoman said: "President Ahmadinejad has during his time in office made a series of appalling anti-Semitic statements. The British media are rightly free to make their own editorial choices, but this invitation will cause offence and bemusement not just at home but amongst friendly countries abroad." more
By AP

Posted 25/12/2008 @ 15:43:42 GMT
Iranian president takes a shot at the West in a Christmas message
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wishes the world a merry Christmas, even though he thinks much of it is in crisis because the West's "bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist" leaders have strayed far from Jesus' path. In a recorded message to air Christmas Day on Britain's Channel 4, Ahmadinejad praises Christianity but goes on to say that if Jesus returned to Earth, "he would fight against the tyrannical policies of prevailing global economic and political systems." more
By L A Times

Posted 23/12/2008 @ 10:41:32 GMT
Memo to President-elect Barack Obama:The Helsinki process provides a model for Obama
Memo to President-elect Barack Obama: It's time to adopt a new approach to North Korea that firmly establishes a link between human rights and security. Congress has twice endorsed such a link by passing and reauthorizing the North Korean Human Rights Act without a single dissenting vote.Throughout the Clinton and Bush administrations, the United States' primary policy objective toward North Korea was to negotiate an end to its nuclear capability. So far, we have not succeeded. For the past five and a half years we've been engaged in the on-again off-again Six Party Talks, which have focused, almost exclusively, on the nuclear issue. more
By The Wall Street Journal

Posted 23/12/2008 @ 9:21:46 GMT
Russia: Arms Sale to Iran Is Denied
A Russian government agency on Monday denied an Iranian official’s claim that Russia was selling an advanced air-defense system to Iran. The Iranian claim “did not correspond to reality,” said the agency, the Federal Military and Technical Cooperation Service. The official Iranian news agency had quoted the deputy head of the Parliamentary Commission for Foreign Affairs and National Security of Iran on Sunday as saying that Russia had begun supplying Iran with the S-300 surface-to-air missile system, called the SA-20 in the West. Russia’s main weapons exporter, Rosoboronexport, said Monday that Russia supplied Iran only with defensive weapons. more
By The New York Times

Posted 23/12/2008 @ 9:9:19 GMT
That first foreign challenge
DURING the fall campaign, Joe Biden ruminated aloud about a foreign policy challenge that a President Obama would have to confront early on. That challenge has come even sooner than Biden anticipated. To test Barack Obama's intentions, if not his mettle, Russia recently announced it plans to go forward with the on-again off-again sale of an advanced air defense system to Iran. more
By Boston Globe

Posted 21/12/2008 @ 16:21:45 GMT
Arab journalists in name, poles apart in practice
President Bush, hardly known for his eloquent oratorical skills, said that the shoe thrower wanted to get on TV, and had succeeded. "I don't know what his beef is," he added, "but whatever it is I'm sure somebody will hear it." I personally won't be surprised if Al Jazeera television offers the shoe-thrower a job. In a section of its website called, of all things, Analysis, the channel has posted an article entitled The shoes are a letter from the widows and orphans as part of its multifaceted coverage of the incident. more
By The National