January 2012
26 posts
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Iran begins arrests and intimidation of bloggers &... →
The arrests of the journalists and bloggers, including two prominent women whose blog posts are widely read in Iran, have not been reported by the official news media. […]
Friends of the two arrested women, Parastou Dokouhaki and Marzieh Rasouli, have started a Web site to publicize their situation. Ms. Dokouhaki, a rights activist whose blog, Written by a Woman, attracted a wide...
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“The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire,...”
– Salman Rushdie (via apoplecticskeptic)
That’s precisely the point, my dear Salman.
“Look at Iran. Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided...”
– Obama
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WatchBritain’s Foreign Secretary, William Hague, gives details of Iran sanctions.
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“We would like to formally congratulate Iranian film director Asghar Farhadi. We...”
– State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland
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Guardian: Iran's Nuclear Scientists Are Not Being... →
Killing our enemies abroad is just state-sponsored terror – whatever euphemism western leaders like to use.
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“My people are truly, a peace-loving people.”
– Director of A Separation, Golden Globes winner
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WaPo: Goal of Iran sanctions is regime collapse,... →
The goal of U.S. and other sanctions against Iran is regime collapse, a senior U.S. intelligence official said, offering the clearest indication yet that the Obama administration is at least as intent on unseating Iran’s government as it is on engaging with it.
The official, speaking this week on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the administration hopes that...
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“Amir Mirza Hekmati was sentenced to death … for cooperating with the hostile...”
– Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency [the voice of the Revolutionary Guards], as quoted by Reuters, regarding the sentencing by Iran’s Revolutionary Court of an American man for spying. (via breakingnews)
Current and former U.S. government officials told Reuters in November that Iran had succeeded...
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“They’re a theocracy with deeply embedded beliefs that the afterlife is...”
– Rick Santorum’s reply to David Gregory’s question, “Why is it that we can’t live with a nuclear Iran?” on the Meet the Press debate
Isn’t that the deeply embedded belief of every religion?
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From the LATimes:
“We consider the actions of the U.S. forces in saving the lives of the Iranian seamen to be a humanitarian and positive act, and we welcome such behavior,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told state television’s Al Alam Arabic channel Saturday. “We think all nations should display such behavior.”
[But] Fars said Iran’s navy has...
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NYT: U.S. Military Rescues Iranians Captured by... →
The United States Navy rescued 13 Iranians whose fishing vessel had been seized by pirates more than a month ago in the North Arabian Sea, the Pentagon announced on Friday.
In a conference call with reporters, Rear Adm. Craig S. Faller, the commander of an American carrier strike group patrolling the area, explained that the 15 Somali pirates had surrendered to a boarding party from the U.S.S....
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NYT: Iran Warns the United States Over Aircraft... →
The attempts by Iran’s leadership to flex the country’s muscles on the world stage coincide with efforts to stamp out dissent at home ahead of planned parliamentary elections in March, the first ballot to be held since a disputed presidential vote in 2009 prompted national protests and a severe crackdown.
On Tuesday, an Iranian court sentenced Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of former...
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December 2011
9 posts
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Iran Much In Mind As U.S. Wraps Up $30B Sale Of... →
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“You need not come any longer, Freedom. We have found our joys in your absence.”
– Iranian poetess, Elham Eslami, who died in a car accident yesterday along with her poet husband, Gholamreza Boroosan
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“The U.S. has long had Iran virtually encircled as a result of the American occupation of Afghanistan on Iran’s Eastern border, its invasion of Iraq on its Western border, its NATO ally Turkey hovering on Iran’s Northwestern border, some degree of military relationship with Turkmenistan on Iran’s Northeastern border, and multiple U.S. client states sitting right across the Persian Gulf...
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Iran says it shot down a U.S. spy drone →
An unidentified Iranian military official quoted by the official Islamic Republic News Agency said the unmanned aircraft suffered minor damage when it was shot down in eastern Iran and was in the possession of the country’s military.
He identified the aircraft as an “RQ170” type drone and said Iranian forces were “fully ready to counter any aggression.”
November 2011
24 posts
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Britain expels Iranian diplomats and closes Tehran... →
The foreign secretary [William Hague] said it was not possible to maintain an embassy in the current circumstances, adding that the estimated 200 protesters who invaded the embassy and the British diplomatic compound yesterday were “student basij militia”. The basiji operate as a youth wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, one of the most powerful institutions in the country....
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HAARETZ: 'Iran opposition will unite with... →
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Key missile pioneer & Revolutionary Guard... →
A Revolutionary Guard commander killed in an explosion at an ammunition depot west of Tehran was a key figure in Iran’s missile program, the elite military force said in a statement Sunday.
Gen. Hasan Moghaddam was killed together with 16 other Guard members Saturday at a military site outside Bidganeh village, 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of Tehran. The Guard said the accidental...
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WatchLetters from Iran (Al Jazeera): Iranian citizens who make up Iran’s Green Revolution continue to work for change. This Al Jazeera special program (above) highlights the opposition in the aftermath of Ahmadinejad’s contested 2009 re-election.
[More on pantslessprogressive]
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Imminent Iran nuclear threat? A timeline of... →
1. Earliest warnings: 1979-84
Fear of an Iranian nuclear weapon predates Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, when the pro-West Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was deep in negotiations with the US, France and West Germany, on a nuclear-energy spending spree that was to yield 20 reactors.
Late 1970s: US receives intelligence that the Shah had “set up a clandestine nuclear weapons development...
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“War is not a picnic. We want a picnic. We don’t want a war.”
– Ehud Barak Plays Down Talk of War with Iran | NYT
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IAEA: Iran now has the ability to produce a... →
Intelligence provided to U.N. nuclear officials shows that Iran’s government has mastered the critical steps needed to build a nuclear weapon, receiving assistance from foreign scientists to overcome key technical hurdles, according to Western diplomats and nuclear experts briefed on the findings.
Documents and other records provide new details on the role played by a former Soviet weapons...
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