tagged w/ Ahmadinejad
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Yesterday was National Students Day in Iran. Traditionally, the Iranian President comes to a campus and addresses its students. Yesterday Ahmadinejad made no such appearance. Instead, thousands of Iranian students took to the streets of several cities to protest the regime.
From the LA Times: "...[A]mateur videotape posted on the Internet showed thousands of anti-government students chanting slogans and gathering on various campuses around the country. Credible reports of protests emerged from campuses in the central Iranian cities of Esfahan, Shiraz and Kerman, in the eastern city of Mashhad and in the western cities of Tabriz, Kermanshah, Hamedan and Ilam as well as in Rasht on the Caspian Sea."
The New York Times Lede Blog has a great round up of coverage from yesterday, including several videos. This video is of students at Ami Kabir University pulling down its gates.
These protests seem to have shifted from the aims of the first round of protests in the summer. Instead of being focused on the disputed election, there were various reports of protesters calling out the regime itself. From Newsweek:
"The first wave of dissent after the elections was explicitly focused on voter fraud, both from a genuine belief that the system would investigate the results and also so that protestors couldn't be accused of trying to overthrow the system. But as the government crackdown increased, the position of the opposition began to harden. The slogans today are the clearest indication yet that at least some elements of the opposition are not only challenging the results of the presidential election, but the regime itself. One video posted on the Internet today even showed a protestor burning pictures of both Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. This may not sit well with the moderate elements of the opposition, and the student protestors may have overplayed their hand."
The cycle of protests leading to harsher crackdowns leading to more radical protests leading to harsher crackdowns continues. What will become of Iran's opposition? Will they all end up jailed or repressed? Or are we looking at a crack in the very foundation of Iran's theocratic regime?
FROM THE NEWS BLOG: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/12/08/iran-students-day-of-protest/
SOURCES: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-iran-protests8-2009dec08,0,7136715.story?page=1
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/latest-updates-on-new-protests-in-iran/
http://www.newsweek.com/id/226069Yesterday was National Students Day in Iran. Traditionally, the Iranian President... more
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Iran said Wednesday it would produce whatever nuclear fuel it needed on its own, the latest indication it was rejecting a U.N.-backed deal aimed at reining in Tehran's nuclear program over fears it is geared to produce weapons.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran will enrich its uranium to an even higher level on its own, after expressing frustration over the ongoing negotiations over the U.N. deal to exchange its low-enriched uranium for more highly enriched fuel rods.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34237710/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/Iran said Wednesday it would produce whatever nuclear fuel it needed on its own, the... more
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One day, Ahmadinejad announce that Iran will build 10 nuclear power plants and will enrich uranium as he pleases, the day after other government officials say that the dialogue is still possible.The theater will go on like this for who knows how long. Meanwhile, in reality, the Iranians have yet to complete a nuclear power plant, and the Russians that are building it will complete it, perhaps, only in the course of next year.
http://www.inaltreparole.net/en/world/irannucleare301109.htmlOne day, Ahmadinejad announce that Iran will build 10 nuclear power plants and will... more
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Newsweek reports that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei will be the last Supreme Leader of the country, ever. Khamenei is only the second Supreme Leader the country has ever had, the first being Khomeini. His successor has proven to be less successful at being the most powerful voice in the country according to the clerical leadership.
From Newsweek:
"Khamenei's response to the massive election demonstrations this past summer reaffirmed a longstanding but secretive belief among a majority of Iran's religious teachers and scholars: supreme clerical rule, no matter who is at the helm, can lead only to despotism and should be abolished. There can be no absolute power because, as Khamenei showed, men are fallible. It's well enough understood outside Iran that those clerics have found common cause with the street demonstrators; what the rest of the world hasn't realized yet is that they also want Khamenei gone."
The Supreme Leader will hold the position until he dies at which point the decision to eliminate the title could be made. Whether or not the standing theocratic order will be around that long is an entirely different question. The street protests continue sporadically and Neda Agha Soltan continues to be a powerful global symbol of the Iranian regime's brutality (as we saw on the blog recently: Neda's boyfriend speaks after escaping Iran).
FROM THE NEWS BLOG:
http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/11/18/the-last-supreme-leader-of-iran/
SOURCES: http://www.newsweek.com/id/223345Newsweek reports that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei will be the last... more
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Caspian Makan, a 38 year old Iranian photographer, has had a terrible few months. Amid massive street protests against Iran's government his girlfriend, Neda Agha Soltan, died a bloody and disturbing death. And the whole watched it on YouTube. Things only got worse for Makan from there. He spent months in the dreaded Evin Prison and upon release, decided to flee the country for his own safety.
The Guardian has a long interview with Caspian Makan, now having had smugglers help him escape Iran. A short excerpt:
"On the day of her death, Caspian was out with his camera in another part of the city. "I was taking pictures of the protests and the protesters that day. It was hard to take pictures as the security guards were beating up protesters. I used my mobile's camera when I couldn't use my big camera. It was six to seven in the evening when I started seeing people get shot and injured. I thought of Neda a lot. I was very worried for her. I wanted to call her but the mobile phone system had been disconnected and I couldn't contact her at all. I didn't sleep that night. The terrible scenes were going through my head. I was sitting in front of my computer, looking at the photos I had taken. Around six in the morning my mobile rang. It was Neda's number. But it wasn't her. It was her sister. She said, 'Caspian, Neda is gone!' I didn't understand what she meant. I couldn't believe what she was telling me."
From the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/15/iran-neda-caspian-makan-interview
Covered on the News blog: http://blogs.current.com/news/2009/11/16/nedas-boyfriend-speaks-after-escaping-iran/Caspian Makan, a 38 year old Iranian photographer, has had a terrible few months. Amid... more
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Just hours after Iranian President Ahmadinejad agreed to accept an IAEA deal to enrich uranium out of the country, they suddenly backed out. The plan had been to take Iran's nuclear stockpile and send it to Russia to be enriched. It's disappointing for those concerned about Iran's plans for its enriching uranium - though I don't think it's particularly surprising.
I was thinking about how long Iran has been playing this game, and it brought to mind this Supernews gem: Iran: Deal or No Deal?
That piece was produced in 2006. Over three years ago. It's kind of disheartening to see what looks like the same game playing out, but with a few different players. No more Bush or Condoleeza Rice, and Putin is now the Prime Minister of Russia, not the President. But it's hard not to watch this and see Iran doing the same things today. Is there another card up the Obama Administration's negotiating sleeve? Let's hope so.
From the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/world/middleeast/30nuke.htmlJust hours after Iranian President Ahmadinejad agreed to accept an IAEA deal to enrich... more
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Washington Post columnist David Ignatius passes on a report in Nucleonics Week that Iran's uranium enrichment may be stuck at 3.5% due to impurities.
The Iranians have not been able to remove low percentages of metallic fluorides from the UF-6 feed stock that they've laboriously enriched to 3.5% U-235 over the past five years. This has the potential to stop their enrichment program cold—at the level used for civilian nuclear power.
Thus, the Obama administration's offer to have the Iranians' impure 3.5% UF6 shipped to Russia where it can be enriched to 19.75% in that nation's modern, high-capacity radio-chemical plants may not be of merely incremental assistance to the raving anti-Semitic military junta that runs Iran. It may be essential for the continuation of their own independent bomb program (independent, that is, from whatever of North Korea's bomb program they're sharing).
In my October 15 column for TIA Daily, I noted that the Russians would return the highly enriched fuel back to Iran in the form of uranium oxide. It turns out the Russian-purified and Russian-enriched fuel is metallic fuel for Iran's little medical isotope reactor.
So not only will the 19.75% enriched uranium get Iran past a chemical stumbling block they haven't been able to resolve in their uranium bomb program; it will get them metallic fuel that can be converted back to highly purified uranium hexafluoride gas very, very easily.
Our president, his advisors, and his State Department have so deep a contempt for the United States and all of Western Civilization that they didn't look into what the Russian deal would give Iran before they offered to sign onto it. All they were interested in was whether or not it would be an effective gesture of "open-handed" American submissiveness that would calm Iran's military junta. Well, it was effective, alright. Obama's negotiating team has moved the doomsday clock for Israel forward from 11:45 to 11:58 pm in one single step. The Russian deal probably gave Iran's leaders the first good night's sleep they've had in years.
Thank you, Barack Obama, friend of dictators, enemy of America.Washington Post columnist David Ignatius passes on a report in Nucleonics Week that... more
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The attack that hit the "Guardians of the Revolutions" in south eastern Iran, causing over 40 deaths bring back to the world's attention the many ethnic and religious minorities living in the country. Although Ahmadinejad's government blames the West for having financed and helped these rebel groups in reality the picture is much more complex than that. Iran is a nation with almost 75 million people, but ethnic Persians are little more than half.The attack that hit the "Guardians of the Revolutions" in south eastern... more
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The tyrant is alive or dead? Dictatorships always have something grotesque, just look at Italy, and so in Iran is spreading the rumor that Ayatollah Khamenei has been dead for days, but official sources says nothing. But the news is spreading on the internet and now has been reported around the world. The fact that the Iranian government doesn't speak could be a confirmation that Khamenei is really dead. But it is also possible that the Supreme Leader, the highest religious authority in the Islamic republic, is only very sick or in a coma.The tyrant is alive or dead? Dictatorships always have something grotesque, just look... more
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Iran has sentenced three people to death over street unrest that erupted after Iran's disputed election in June and links to exiled opposition groups.Iran has sentenced three people to death over street unrest that erupted after... more
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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A top official with Iran's most powerful military force—the Revolutionary Guard—says Tehran will "blow up the heart of Israel" if the Jewish state or the United States attacked Iran.
Cleric Mojtaba Zolnour, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's representative in the Guard, says that if a single U.S. or Israeli missile lands in Iran, Iranian missiles will hit Israel before the dust settles.
Zolnour's remarks were carried Friday by the state IRNA news agency.
Anti-Israeli stance is common for the hardline Guard, and President Mahmoud Ahmadienjad has often called for Israel's destruction.
But Zolnour appears to be ratcheting up the rhetoric ahead of the next round of talks with the West this month over Iran's controversial uranium enrichment.TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A top official with Iran's most powerful military... more
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