AoS note: your comments go in yellow highlight, not brackets. Please fix in the future or posts may be deleted.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has acknowledged publicly for the first time that tumbling oil prices are gouging the country's fragile economy.
The official IRNA news agency has quoted the increasingly unpopular president as saying Iran will be forced to trim spending and generous subsidies and raise taxes... or maybe testify before Harry Reid and request a bailout. Continued on Page 47
Iran plans to send exploratory rockets into space with live animals on board, paving the way for manned space flights, a space research official said on Tuesday.
It emerged on Tuesday that Qassem Suleimani, a senior Iranian military official, commanded a Hezbollah drill south of the Litani River in southern Lebanon roughly two weeks ago.
Suleimani is the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and is considered an emissary between Iran and Hezbollah.
Israeli government radio broadcasts operating in southern Lebanon reported in Arabic on the drill for the benefit of its southern Lebanese target audience.
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008 00:00 ||
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The Islamic Republic plans to build two new 1000-megawatt units at the Bushehr nuclear power complex, says a senior Iranian official.
The deputy director of the Iran Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO), Ahmad Fayyazbakhsh, said that instead of completing the second unit at the Bushehr plant, Iranian authorities have decided to build two new reactors. "IAEO officials plan to build two new units with a capability of 1,000 MW each, rather than completing the second unit of the Bushehr nuclear reactor," IRNA quoted Fayyazbakhsh as saying on Tuesday.
Work on the first unit of the Bushehr nuclear power plant is in its final stage. IAEO spokesman Mohsen Delaviz said in November that the plant is scheduled to become fully operational in 2009. "The commissioning stages of the Bushehr nuclear plant have begun, and we are hopeful that the plant will be launched in 2009, as per the agreement we have with the Russian party," said Delaviz.
Russia's Atomstroyexport has been helping Iran in the construction of a nuclear power plant capable of generating 1,000 megawatts of electricity annually under a contract signed in 1995. The Russian company also trains Iranian specialists and has so far delivered eight fuel shipments to the reactor.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Which is worse: the fact that Iran is building nuclear power plants, or the fact that we aren't?
Argentina says it will end its $1 billlion in commecial trade with Iran over the unsolved 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires.
The move was reportedly taken due to differences over recent investigations into the attack on the AMIA Jewish Community Center, which killed 85 people and wounded many others. Although no one has ever been convicted for the attack, Argentine prosecutors have accused a number of Iranian officials with involvement in the blast and have issued warrants for the arrest of 12 Iranians by Interpol.
The Islamic Republic, however, has vehemently dismissed the repeated allegations.
In 2007, Iran's charge d'affaires in Buenos Aires, Mohsen Baharvand, said the Islamic Republic would be ready to cooperate with the Argentinean government on the AMIA dossier, if certain conditions were met. "If legal guarantees are given to avoid politicizing the case, Iran will be ready to respond to all the accusations... and prove its innocence," Baharvand stated.
But if Interpol gives in to US pressure and issues arrest warrants for Iranians, Tehran may also issue similar arrest warrants, he said at the time.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is slated to discuss the Iran embargo with members of the American Jewish Committee. Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America.
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/03/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Wow! After only 14 years.
Posted by: Formerly Dan ||
12/03/2008 8:56 Comments ||
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#2
Argentina's economy is in deep trouble. Iran can't help them so its time to suck up to the U.S.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says even if the price of oil hits zero, Iran has enough foreign exchange reserves to last for 'three years'.
"As far as the foreign exchange reserve is concerned, we are in good shape, and even if the price of oil hits zero, we can manage the country for about three years," the Fars News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.
"The foresight of the country's managers prevented Iran from being swallowed by the global economy, and this helped us because it decreased our susceptibility to the world financial crisis," he said in a live TV address in Tehran on Tuesday.
Ahmadinejad noted that the sanctions imposed on Iran and the Islamic Revolution's prioritization of self-sufficiency helped Iran become strong enough to withstand the "waves of the world economic crisis."
"We thank those countries that imposed sanctions on us because these sanctions helped Iran stand on its own two feet," the Iranian president said.
A U.N. special commission investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri reported Tuesday that it has uncovered fresh evidence that could lead to more suspects.
Hariri's killing touched off widespread protests in Lebanon, which together with intensified international pressure forced Syria to withdraw its troops after a nearly 30-year presence.
"The commission reports that it has acquired new information that may allow it to link additional individuals to the network that carried out the assassination," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wrote the Security Council.
A commission report submitted by Ban to the 15-nation council did not specify what the evidence was, but asked that its mandate be extended through February so it can continue the investigation.
The independent team of investigators headed by Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare has been helping Lebanese authorities investigate 20 other bombings and assassinations in Lebanon since October 2004, and there are "links between those cases and the Hariri case," Ban said.
Hariri, a wealthy businessman who opposed Syria's influence in Lebanese affairs, died in a suicide truck bombing that also killed 22 other people on Beirut's coast.
No one has been charged, although four pro-Syria Lebanese generals have been under arrest for three years for alleged involvement in the murders.
The first U.N. chief investigator, Germany's Detlev Mehlis, has said the plot's complexity suggested that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services had a role. Syria has denied involvement.
Bellemare's team said in its latest report that Syria "has provided generally satisfactory cooperation."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A U.N. special commission investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri reported Tuesday that it has uncovered fresh evidence that could lead to more suspects.
