November 2011
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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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Iran confirms that more than 520 Hajj pilgrims... →
An unidentified member of the initial group of 150 detained on October 31 told Iran’s Fars news agency that they were detained at Medina airport on the pretext that they had fake visas. “They are telling us that there is a problem with our visas, whereas our visas are genuine,” he told the agency. “They were issued by the Saudi Consulate in Mashhad and some of the...
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Is Israel's "threat" to attack Iran yet another... →
garysick:
Every few years we have an outbreak of media and official speculation that Israel is on the verge of attacking Iran, perhaps in coordination with the United States. These mini-orgies of incestuous reportage typically involve reports of Israeli military preparation, a flashy show of long-range bombing runs, politicians saying that Iran is so close to a bomb that only bombing can stop...
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“Iran’s capability to retaliate for an Israeli strike against the U.S. is enormous. It could encourage its Shia allies in Iraq to attack American forces, as they seek to withdraw from the country before the end of the year, or the American diplomats who will stay behind. It could encourage the Afghan Taliban, with which it has developed a closer relationship in the last couple of years, to...
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“[I]f Israel or the United States (or both) were to decide to attack Iran - through air-strikes rather than a ground invasion - they will seek to ensure three preconditions in the region: that Arab resistance to any such attack will be limited; that it would not be perceived as an attack on “Islam”; and that Iran’s regional satellites (Hizbollah and Hamas) are given strong disincentives to...
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Guardian: UK military steps up plans for Iran... →
Britain’s armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran’s nuclear enrichment program, the Guardian has learned.
The Ministry of Defense believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses...
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Iran bans footballers for 'immoral' goal... →
Footage posted online shows Persepolis defender Mohammed Nosrati squeezing teammate Sheis Rezaei’s bottom. Another video seems to show Rezaei squeezing a teammate later in the 3-2 Persepolis victory over Damash Gilan. […]
The two “have been banned indefinitely from all football activities for committing immoral acts”, AFP news agency quoted Ismail Hasanzadeh, the head of...
