Category: News on the Regime
Iran flouts U.N. sanctions, sends arms to Syria: panel
By Louis Charbonneau UNITED NATIONS | Wed May 16, 2012 7:22pm EDT (Reuters) – Syria remains the top destination for Iranian arms shipments in violation of a U.N. Security Council ban on weapons exports by the Islamic Republic, according to a confidential report on Iran sanctions-busting seen by Reuters on Wednesday. Iran, like Russia, is [...]
Iran eyes new phase for Iraqi pipeline
TEHRAN, May 15 (UPI) — Negotiations are under way to choose contractors for the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Iran to Iraq, Iranian officials said. The managing director of Iran’s Gas Engineering and Development Co., Ali Reza Qaribi, said a 48-inch pipeline to Iraq would carry around 880 cubic feet of natural gas [...]
Egypt police raid Iran TV office in Cairo: security source
CAIRO: Egyptian police raided the Cairo office of Iranian television channel, Al-Alam, confiscating its equipment after it was found to be operating without license, a security source said on Monday. The raid was carried out on Sunday and the head of Al-Alam’s Cairo office, Ahmed Sioufi, was charged with working without an official permit, the [...]
Timing of nuclear claim puts Tehran on the spot
The New York Times (blog) View From Europe – By HARVEY MORRIS LONDON — To the untrained eye it could be an industrial boiler or a storage tank. But an unidentified official says the picture above shows an explosives chamber used by Iran to conduct nuclear weapons-related tests. It was published over the weekend by [...]
Revealed: how Bush offered to bring Iran back into the international fold
The Independent Robert Tait Iran spurned a previously undisclosed American offer from President George W Bush of talks aimed at reaching a “grand bargain” over long-standing differences between Washington and Tehran, a leading figure in the country’s theocratic regime has revealed. The proposal was made in 2004 – before the controversy over Tehran’s suspected nuclear [...]
Iran turns off tracking systems on tankers: report
WASHINGTON (AFP)— In a bid to circumvent crippling international sanctions, Iran has been routinely switching off satellite tracking systems on its sea-bound oil tankers, The Washington Post reported. Citing unnamed US officials, the newspaper said the practice has been going on for more than a month. US officials and industry analysts describe it as a [...]
In the region, Iran is just like Al Qaeda
(MENAFN – Arab News) Al-Qaeda only operates in separatist regions or areas beset with tribal conflict; whilst it thrives wherever there is a sectarian atmosphere. The same applies to Iranian policy in our region, for Tehran is supporting the Baathist, secular and Alawite Assad, whilst at the same time supporting the extremist Sunni Al-Qaeda organization, [...]
AP Exclusive: Drawing focuses on Iran’s nuke work
The Associated Press By GEORGE JAHN VIENNA (AP) — A drawing based on information from inside an Iranian military site shows an explosives containment chamber of the type needed for nuclear arms-related tests that U.N. inspectors suspect Tehran has conducted there. Iran denies such testing and has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of such [...]
Exiles: Iran advancing active nuclear arms programme
By Nicholas Vinocur and Fredrik Dahl PARIS/VIENNA | Sun May 13, 2012 12:40pm IST (Reuters) – An exiled Iranian opposition group said on Saturday that Iran has some 60 scientists and engineers involved in a concerted and expanding programme to develop nuclear weapons under defence ministry auspices. However, diplomats say the National Council of Resistance [...]
Iran presses for official to be next leader of Shiites
The New York Time By TIM ARANGO NAJAF, Iraq — As the top spiritual leader in the Shiite Muslim world, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has instructed his followers on what to eat and how to wash, how to marry and to bury their dead. As a temporal guide, he has championed Iraqi democracy, insisting on [...]
Iran busts sanctions with private oil sale
United Press International TEHRAN, May 11 (UPI) — The Iranian Oil Ministry said the private sector can now sell as much as 400,000 barrels of oil per day on the international market to get around sanctions. New Delhi, one of Iran’s largest oil consumers, has faced difficulties this year in purchasing Iranian crude oil because [...]
London troubled by Iranian rights record
United Press International LONDON, May 10 (UPI) — A nine-year prison sentence for an Iranian human rights lawyer is a sign the government is consistently repressing its people, a British official said. Iranian lawyer Mohammad Ali Dadkhah was sentenced to nine years in prison this week by Iranian authorities. He was convicted of spreading propaganda [...]
Iran threatens to expel Afghan refugees if Kabul ratifies US strategic partnership
By Ben Farmer, Kabul Fazel Hadi Muslimyar, speaker of the Afghan senate, said the Iranian ambassador had made the threat last week as he demanded senators reject the deal between Barack Obama and Hamid Karzai. His intervention triggered a diplomatic row as senators denounced his meddling in Afghan affairs and called for his removal. “He told me that if [...]
Iran may be ‘cleansing’ suspected nuclear site, analysis says
Los Angeles Times A flurry of recent activity at an Iranian military compound, spotted on commercial satellite photos, has raised concern that Iran may be “cleansing” a building before nuclear inspectors can examine it, said an analysis by a Washington-based security institute. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, has been trying [...]
Image shows more activity at Iran site
United Press International WASHINGTON, May 9 (UPI) — A satellite image of an Iran military site a U.N. watchdog suspects may house a nuclear weapons program shows signs of increased activity, weapons experts say. David Albright and Paul Brannan of the Institute for Science and International Security, based in Washington, wrote in a report the [...]
Biden pledges to prevent Iranian nuke ‘by whatever means necessary’
Los Angeles Times By Morgan Little Vice President Joe Biden, seeking to reaffirm the White House’s support for Israel and, in turn, its tough stance on Iran’s alleged efforts to gain nuclear weapons, promised economic sanctions would have an effect on the Iranian regime and predicted the current leadership’s fall within two years. “The U.S. [...]
Afghan FM summons Iranian ambassador
TREND-The Meshrano Jirga (upper chamber of Afghan parliament) chairman on Tuesday said Iran’s ambassador to Afghanistan would be summoned by the foreign ministry in Kabul over his recent remarks on the US-Afghan strategic partnership agreement, Afghan media reported. Ambassador Abul Fazal Zuhrawand requested the upper house of Parliament to reject the recently-signed strategic deal between [...]
British MPs condemn Iraqi government’s conduct during transfer of Iranian dissidents
LONDON, May 5, 2012 /PRNewswire/ The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom (BPCIF) strongly condemns the Government of Iraq’s outrageous conduct of returning the utility vehicles accompanying the fifth convoy of Iranian dissidents who were transferred from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty. The covetous act of the Government of Iraq was in clear violation [...]
US eyes more cuts in India’s oil imports from Iran
The Associated Press By MATTHEW LEE DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will use a two-day visit to India this week to urge further reductions in Indian imports of Iranian oil. A senior official traveling with Clinton in Bangladesh ahead of her arrival in India on Sunday said the matter [...]
Parliament rejects Iran subsidy cuts proposals
By Marcus George DUBAI (Reuters) – A committee of Iranian lawmakers has rejected a government plan to increase prices for subsidised food and fuel in a move that threatens to derail a drive to rein in the country’s sanctions-squeezed budget, Iranian media reported late on Saturday. International sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear programme have sharply [...]