[Iran Press TV Latest] Fifty members of the Assembly of Experts have signed a petition calling on Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani and the nation to fall in behind the Leader of the Islamic Revolution in the aftermath of the disputed June 12 presidential election.
In a letter released on Friday, the Assembly members dismissed the opposition's objections to the official vote result that gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second four-year term in office as "myths of the great election fraud, copied from the script of the velvet revolution."
The signatories warned that expressing doubts about the veracity of the election would result in "despondency" among the people and help the "enemies of Islam."
Given that the opposition has questioned the legitimacy of President Ahmadinejad's victory because of what they consider to have been the fraudulent counting of ballots, the letter contends that legitimacy is derived from the Leader's approval.
The Assembly of Experts consists of 88 clerics. It is an elected electoral college that is tasked with electing a new leader in the event of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution's passing.
It is presently headed by the veteran revolutionary figure and two-term former president Rafsanjani.
[Al Arabiya Latest] The United Nations peacekeeping chief said there are signs an illegal weapons stockpile that exploded last week in southern Lebanon belonged to the Lebanese guerrilla movement Hezbollah.
In a speech delivered behind closed doors to the Security Council on Thursday, U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy also said that some of the people who tried to prevent U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon (UNIFIL) from investigating the site were Hezbollah members dressed in civilian clothes. "A number of indications suggest that the depot belonged to Hezbollah, and, in contrast to previous discoveries by UNIFIL and the Lebanese Armed Forces of weapons and ammunition, that it was not abandoned but, rather, actively maintained," he told the 15-nation council in the speech.
Violation of resolution 1701
He said the mere presence of such arms south of the Litani River represented a "serious violation of resolution 1701." Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 34-day war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah, banned all unauthorized weapons between the Litani River and the Blue Line, the U.N.-monitored border between Israel and Lebanon.
The weapons at the site of the explosion were from various countries and included mortars, AK-47s, artillery shells and 122mm rockets, Le Roy said. "The weapons and ammunition dated from the 1970s to the 1990s and generally appeared to be in good order," he added.
After Le Roy's speech, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff joined Israel in accusing Hezbollah of violating the U.N. weapons embargo in southern Lebanon and undermining the efforts of U.N. peacekeepers there.
UNIFIL said last week that peacekeepers had been pelted with stones by a crowd of about 100 Lebanese in the village of Khirbet Selim while trying to investigate the July 14 explosion at the suspected arms dump. Le Roy said the blast site was still being investigated.
Hezbollah denies
" The baseless American accusations are a repetition of the Israeli position and an expression of the U.S. administration's support for continuous Israeli aggression against Lebanon via its violations and spy networks "
Hezbollah parliamentarian Hassan Fadlallah
A Hezbollah parliamentarian denied on Friday the movement had any role in the disturbances and said it was keen to restore relations between UNIFIL and local people to normal. "The baseless American accusations are a repetition of the Israeli position and an expression of the U.S. administration's support for continuous Israeli aggression against Lebanon via its violations and spy networks," Hassan Fadlallah told Reuters.
He denied the blast was a violation of resolution 1701, saying it was a one-off accident that involved the explosion of an arms cache that had been in place before the 2006 war.
Fadlallah said the U.N. Security Council had done nothing to stop Israeli violations of Lebanese sovereignty, including almost daily military flights in breach of 1701.
Israel's U.N. ambassador, Gabriela Shalev, said in a letter to the Security Council that the arms cache that exploded clearly belonged to Hezbollah. She said the actions of Hezbollah represented "a clear violation of 1701 which gravely endanger the stability in the region ... (and) the local Lebanese population."
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
07/25/2009 00:00 ||
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It took the UN how many years to figure this out?
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/25/2009 9:03 Comments ||
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TEHRAN -- An Iranian airliner overshot the runway and slammed into a perimeter wall killing 17 people in the second city of Mashhad on Friday in the country's second air disaster in 10 days, state media said.
"There was an accident and a fire involving a passenger plane from Tehran to Mashhad that has left 17 people dead and 19 injured," the official IRNA news agency reported, quoting the deputy governor of Khorasan province, Ghahreman Rashid.
Rashid identified the plane as a Russian-designed Ilyushin and said it carried 153 passengers. "All the dead and injured people and passengers have been evacuated and the fire has been completely controlled," Rashid said, according to IRNA.
Russian design and Insh'allan maintenance ...
Either that, or somebody important but not well-liked was flying.
That's about half of Iran right now ...
A senior transport official said the incoming aircraft had overshot the runway. "Instead of landing at the beginning of the tarmac, the plane landed in the middle of the runway," the ISNA news agency quoted deputy transport minister Ahmad Majidi as saying. "Because the tarmac?s length is short, it has gone off the tarmac and crashed into the opposite wall.
The Mehr news agency said the plane crashed through the airport's perimeter wall before hitting power lines and coming to a halt in adjacent farmland.
State television said that the accident occurred as the plane was landing at the international airport in Mashhad, a popular Shiite Muslim pilgrimage centre in northeastern Iran.
I seem to recall rumours that Israel had some people working airplane maintenance in Iran... or perhaps the Mossad spy squirrels are running with the American spy squirrels now. I wouldn't put it past them -- squirrels are known for their delight in chewing on vehicle wiring.
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[Al Arabiya Latest] The United Nations peacekeeping chief said there are signs an illegal weapons stockpile that exploded last week in southern Lebanon belonged to the Lebanese guerrilla movement Hezbollah.
TEHRAN -- An Iranian airliner overshot the runway and slammed into a perimeter wall killing 17 people in the second city of Mashhad on Friday in the country's second air disaster in 10 days, state media said.
