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For the PDF in English: Click here
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ߍѤ ߍ܍ Ǎ ߤߍ
1349
AN INDEPENDENT SOURCE OF NEWS ABOUT IRAN
Founded in 1970
| | |
For the PDF in English: Click here
For the PDF in Farsi: Click here
ߍѤ ߍ܍ Ǎ ߤߍ
1349
AN INDEPENDENT SOURCE OF NEWS ABOUT IRAN
Founded in 1970
| Friday July 4, 2008 |
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Iran Digs Graves for U.S. Soldiers: Iran Times- July 2, 2008: The Islamic Republic this week announced it would dig about 320,000 graves in which to bury U.S. soldiers and close the Straight of Hormuz in the event of a military confrontation between the U.S. and Iran.
Brig. Gen. Mir-Faisal Baqerzadeh said, "We will dig 15,000 to 20,000 graves in each of the border provinces," clarifying the goal was to provide a decent and speedy burial for American troops that would inevitably be killed in the event of a U.S. attack on Iran.
MEK Hosts Rally With Claimed Attendance of 70,000: Iran Times- July 2, 2008: The Mojadedin-e Khalq (MEK) held a rally near Paris last week-claiming an attendance of 70,000-to call for an end to the EU ban on the group and the removal of the group as a designated terrorist organization.
The rally came days after a British court lifted its ban on the Iranian opposition group, removing it from its list of terrorist organizations. But many of the rally's attendees admitted they did not know what the rally was about but were enticed to attend because they received free transportation to Paris, lodging and food for the weekend if they attended the rally.
Hersh Reports U.S. Apportioned $400m for Iran Covert Ops: Iran Times- July 2, 2008: Seymour Hersh, the American Pulitzer Prize Winning investigative journalist, reported the Bush Administration last year convinced Congress to approve $400 million to fund covert operations against Iran. Hersh said Congress approved the funds to expand clandestine plots against Iran, which Hersh said began more than two years ago.
He said the program goes far beyond funding dissidents inside Iran, alleging American troops have been crossing into southern Iran since last year. Baluchi Bandits Claim Murder of Four Iranian Police: Iran Times- July 2, 2008: The Iranian Baluchi band Jundallah reported it executed four of 16 Iranian border police it claimed to have kidnapped earlier this month in an apparent response to the execution of two of its members by Tehran last month. The group announced it would execute the remaining captives soon unless Tehran released 200 of its members currently held captive. Tehran has said it will not negotiate with the bandits, and questioned the validity of the group's claims. "It is likely that [the group's] claims are a psychological maneuver and nothing more," government spokesman Gholam-Hossain Elham said in response to the alleged killings.
Iranian Citizen Condemned to Death for Israeli Espionage: Iran Times- July 2, 2008: An Iranian revolutionary court sentenced a Tehran man to death Monday on charges of spying for Israel. Ali Ashtari, 45, was arrested by Iranian intelligence in 2007 and accused of trying to "create a link"
between Iranian experts and Israeli Mossad agents. The ruling against Ashtari is the first time in almost a decade that an Iranian court has convicted and sentenced an Iranian citizen on charges of espionage.
Iranian-American Entrepreneur Worth $30 Million: Iran Times- July 2, 2008: Arman Eshraghi, 41, moved to the states with his wife in 1996 after winning the green card lottery. In 2000, the Iranian computer software engineer and entrepreneur launched LogiXML. LogiXML is a business intelligence software provider that helps clients, who range from the U.S. Army to various universities, keep track of information.
Eshraghi estimates his eight-year-old company to be worth between $25 and $35 million.
Iranian Waits Six Years for Citizenship: Iran Times- July 2, 2008: An Iranian-American professor seeking U.S. citizenship had to wait six years, file suit against the United States and even be denied citizenship before he was finally approved. University of Illinois at Chicago professor Mohammed Reza Ghaffarpour aced his 2003 English and U.S. history exams as part of the citizenship process. But even after receiving a letter informing him he was being recommended for citizenship, it was a long, uphill battle until he was finally sworn in as a U.S. citizen June 12. In 2006, four years after his 2002 application, Ghaffarpour sued the United States. When a judge ordered that his application be promptly processed, officials responded by mail informing him that his citizenship had been denied for his alleged failure to disclose trips he had taken abroad-trips that were later revealed to have actually been reported. Ghaffarpour said the whole process has bolstered his faith in the American legal system. Iranian Convicted of Plot to Export U.S Goods Will be Retried: Iran Times- July 2, 2008: A federal judge in Florida has thrown out the conviction and sentence of Iranian Shahrazad Mir Gholikhan, who had pleaded guilty to assisting in a plot to illegally obtain U.S.-made night vision goggles for the Iranian military. Gholikhan, 30, turned herself in to U.S. authorities and pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to export the military goggles without a license after the prosecution said they would ask for a sentence of time served. But days after the judge ordered the time served sentence, the prosecution said it had used the wrong sentencing guidelines and ordered a sentence of 29 months, one month was taken off for time already served. Gholikhan will now be retried on all seven counts she is accused of with a maximum penalty of 60 years in prison. "I can't wait for the trial," she said. Iranian-American Convicted on Two of Three Counts: Iran Times- July 2, 2008: An Iranian software engineer, who worked for 17 years at the Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona before resigning and returning to his native Iran, has pleaded guilty to transporting stolen property from the plant but avoided re-trial on another more serious charge.
Mohammad Reza Alavi, 50, faced three charges. A federal jury convicted him last month of illegally accessing a protected computer but deadlocked on two other charges. In a plea bargain deal last week, Alavi pleaded guilty to a subsequent charge of transporting stolen property; the prosecution, in return, dropped the most serious charge of violating the U.S. trade embargo on Iran. U.S. authorities said when Alavi resigned he brought a laptop to Iran containing declassified training software along with other details of the nuclear plant. Officials at Palo Verde, however, said the information Alavi took did not pose a security threat and U.S. officials said they didn't believe Alavi intended to provide details of the plant to terrorists.
EU Sanctions Order Bank Melli Shut in Europe: Iran Times- July 2, 2008: Bank Melli's three branches in Europe-in Hamburg, Paris and London- have stopped operating as a result of the new EU sanctions. Ali Sedeghi, the bank's managing director in Tehran, said the bank had not transferred any assets out of Europe. But in early June, before the sanctions were imposed, a weekly newspaper in Tehran quoted Mohsen Talai, the deputy foreign minister for economic affairs, as saying Iran had already withdrawn $75 billion from Europe. President-Ahmadi- nejad reacted to the EU sanctions by telling a gathering of judges "a court should be formed to try and punish all world criminals who invade the rights of the Iranian people".
Founded in 1970 |
Nth opening announcement: The Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant will begin operations in October, Ahmad Fayazbakhsh, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, announced Sunday. The contract for the plant was signed with Russia in 1995 with a launch date fixed for 2000, making the project somewhat delayed. Wrong words: U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown (photo) is in deep trouble with Iran for failing to use the term Persian Gulf. In a speech to an energy conference recently, Brown said, "The North Sea, which has passed its peak in terms of oil and gas supplies, will be turned into the equivalent for wind power of what the Gulf of Arabia is for oil." Iran's embassy in London has fired off a letter of protest. The Fars news agency said this is yet another example of Britain's "hostile attitude" toward not only the Islamic Republic but also the Iranian people. Memorial to dead: Thursday, July 3, was the 20th anniversary of the shooting down of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes. Iran last week invited artists from all over the world to submit designs for a memorial by September. The winning design will be awarded 4,000 euros and the memorial will be built in Bandar Abbas, from which the ill-fated plane took off. The Islamic Republic continues to say that the Airbus was shot down intentionally. Mehr news agency added that Washington has neither admitted wrongdoing nor responsibility. Actually, Washington has acknowledged full responsibility and made payments to the families of the 290 people killed, but describes the shootdown as an error, not intentional. Lobbying in gear: Iran has launched a major lobbying effort to prevent the extradition from Britain to the United States of former Ambassador Nosratollah Tajik, who is charged with trying to smuggle military gear to Iran. Tajik's extradition papers were signed last year, but he has been appealing since then. In the latest part of Iran's effort, U.K. Ambassador Geoffrey Adams was invited to the Majlis this week where Alaeddin Borujerdi, the new chairman of the National Security Committee, pressed Adams about Tajik. Musical chairs: For several years, Ali Larijani has been one of two representatives of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi on the Supreme National Security Council. When Larijani became Majlis speaker, he became an ex officio member of the SNSC and his old seat opened up. Several news reports said ousted Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel would get the seat. But he didn't. Instead, Khamenehi appointed Saeed Jalili, President Ahmadi-nejad's personal pick as secretary of the SNSC, to be the Leader's representative. At the same time, Haddad-Adel was named as a senior adviser to the Leader. We haven't kept track of all the senior advisers named, but there must be hundreds by now. It's a throwaway appointment. Stolen art in Romania: Romania has handed over to the Iranian embassy a 3,000-year-old clay pot. A border police official said a frontier guard seized it from the trunk of a car being driven by an Iranian. The Rompress news agency said the Iranian wanted to sell it on the black market. The Iran embassy said the pot is priceless and similar to an item on display in the National Museum of Iran. Buses slowed: The managing director of the Tehran bus company says the capital's bus system is breaking down because the government has forced the company to shift from gasoline to natural gas but has not provided enough natural gas to keep the buses running. Khatami gearing up: Former President Mohammad Khatami has now publicly acknowledged he is thinking of running again for the presidency next year. A few months ago, when asked about running, he said he was "in retirement," which was not a firm denial of plans to run but did discourage many supporters. Last week, Khatami, 64, said, "Unfortunately, in the political arena there is no retirement.... When we can be active, we will be active." As for "what will happen in the future, we will have to wait and see what the circumstances and conditions will be." Last week it was revealed that Khatami has written 13 reformist figures asking their thoughts on his candidacy. Canada head count: The last U.S. census in 2000 showed 333,000 Iranian-Americans, a figure many think is far too low. Now the 2006 Canadian census finds 121,505 Iranians in Canada. That makes Iranians a much greater proportion of Canadian society than of American society. (The U.S.-Canada population ratio has long been 10-to-1.) Of the 121,505 Iranians in Canada, 95,420 said they were direct immigrants from Iran with the rest being offspring of immigrants. Almost half of the community lives in metropolitan Toronto. Which is it? According to the state news agency, Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Safari last week said foreign sanctions have "had no effect on our economy." But the news report also said that Safari demanded to know who would pay for all the harm done by sanctions. Duty free: The Kabul Times reports that Iran agreed last month to provide Afghan traders with 100 hectares of land at the Gulf of Oman port of Chahbahar through which goods can be imported duty free for transit to Afghanistan. Afghans have been dependent on imports through Karachi. This could loosen the Pak stranglehold. No news outlets in Iran have been seen to report this. | ||||||||
