Iran's state-run newspaper says a militant group has attacked the office of Saudi Arabia's state-owned airline in Tehran over a Saudi-backed peace initiative with Israel.
Iran newspaper says the group -- identified as Ikhwan al-Radwan -- attacked the Saudi Arabian Airlines office with several Molotov cocktails on Wednesday, causing minor damage to the building. Saturday's newspaper report quotes a statement by the group saying the reason for the attack was Saudi Arabia's support for an Arab peace initiative. The initiative offers Israel normal relations with all Arab countries if it withdraws from lands occupied in 1967 Arab-Israeli war and allows the creation of a Palestinian state with a capital in Jerusalem.
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2008 00:00 ||
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Apparently Ikhwan al-Radwan feels the same way I do about the terms of such an initiative. Fuck that, fuck you, shove it where the Sun don't shine. One more initiative like that and Israel should roll back into Lebanon, any place else they see fit.
A number of Iranians working for the Islamic Republic's contentious nuclear program were arrested by state security service agents this week, on suspicion of spying.
The arrests were disclosed in a report released Wednesday by Tabnak, an official Iranian news agency with close ties to the Revolutionary Guard - the body overseeing Iran's nuclear project. The report did not detail how many people were arrested or on behalf of which states they were suspected of spying. Nor did it say which nuclear project or site the suspects were employed with or what positions they hold.
Last month, Tehran's official radio station announced that Iran had dismantled an espionage network allegedly linked to Israel's Mossad spy agency.
General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the chief of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, said the alleged network was trying to collect information on Iran's nuclear program and the Guards' military operations as well as details on military and security officials.
Also last month, Tehran executed an Iranian businessman convicted of spying on the Islamic Republic's military on behalf of Israel, the judiciary said on Saturday. Judicial spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi said Ali Ashtari was hanged on November 17 after being sentenced to death on June 30 by a revolutionary court in Tehran. Ashtari, who was in his mid-40s, was a tradesman in electronic merchandise who supplied military, security and defense centers across the country with electronic devices.
Iranian authorities also recently arrested Hossein Derakhshan, a blogger who visited Israel in 2007, upon his arrival in Tehran from Canada. An Iranian news Website reported that Derakhshan, who also holds Canadian citizenship, admitted to being involved in espionage for Israel, but some believe the report of his confession merely aims to prepare the ground for his execution.
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Iran is prepared to dispatch humanitarian aid to Gaza Strip in a bid to help improve the deteriorating living conditions in the costal sliver.
Along with Indonesia and Syria as members of Asian Gaza troika, Iran seeks to help the besieged people of Gaza, Iran's Majlis (Parliament) Speaker Ali Larijani said Saturday in a telephone conversation with his Indonesian counterpart, Agung Laksono.
The parliament speakers of Iran, Indonesia and Syria are to travel to the countries which neighbor Palestine to discuss initiatives for providing aid to the people of Gaza.
The decision to form such a troika was made during the third Asian Parliamentary Assembly (APA) meeting late November in Jakarta. "Besieged Gazans have to cope with the difficult situation they are currently going through. They are denied essential supplies of food, medicine and fuel," Larijani said.
The senior Iranian official meanwhile called for collective effective measures to ease the closures imposed on the coastal strip by the Israeli regime. Tehran has repeatedly called on Cairo to ease blockade by opening the Rafah border crossing for humanitarian convoys to deliver food, medical equipment and other essential supplies to the strip.
Laksono acclaimed Iranian initiative to help Gazans, saying the Palestinian issue is an Islamic and humanitarian one. He added that Indonesia fully understands the gravity of the situation and voiced support for the Palestinians -- and Gazans in particular.
Gaza has been faced with a humanitarian crisis ever since Israel imposed a blockade on the coastal strip in June 2007. An estimated 70 percent of Gaza has experienced lengthy power outages as Tel Aviv cut off fuel supplies to the strip's only power plant. Hospitals must rely on generators to keep life-saving equipment running.
Recent reports reveal that 80 percent of the families living in the strip are fully dependent on food supplies from aid agencies. The number of children suffering from malnutrition, diarrhea, insomnia and anxiety attacks has increased to 40 percent under the current siege. School dropouts have also surged due to the dangers of commuting to and from schools in such a volatile security situation, and also since many of the Gazan families cannot afford schooling for their children any more.
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/14/2008 00:00 ||
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Iran is prepared to dispatch humanitarian aid to Gaza Strip
IEDs, ammo, and DVD of Ahmadinejad dancing Lambada?
The German government favors additional sanctions against the Islamic Republic targeting the country's banking and transport sectors. The weekly Der Spiegel said Saturday that Germany is preparing a package of fresh sanctions against Iran that Barack Obama could use to put pressure on Tehran when he takes office.
The magazine added that German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was seeking come to a consensus with other world powers with respect to the package in a bid to give US President-elect the means to press Iran into relinquishing its nuclear activities. The new round of sanctions are expected target Iran's banking and transport sectors to in a bid paralyze the country, it said.
According to Der Spiegel Frank-Walter Steinmeier's chief-of-staff Volker Stanzel on Thursday proposed new measures to his French and British counterparts. The plan aims at collecting western support for a new set of sanctions that would not necessarily be implemented immediately.
The German Foreign Ministry has so far declined to comment on the report.
Obama has said he is prepared to offer Iran 'carrots' in form of economic incentives to stop its nuclear program, but he has also warned Tehran could meet with 'sticks' in form of toughened sanctions should it refuse to halt its nuclear program.
Under US pressure, the UN Security Council has so far imposed three rounds of sanctions against Iran, demanding the country to halt its enrichment program.
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From the continent that complained the loudest about sanctions in Iraq, comes a new sanctions proposal for Iraqs neighbor.
If Irans economy tanks badly enough, sanctions and incentives might get them to stop. Until the money comes back.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
12/14/2008 1:08 Comments ||
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Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday shrugged off criticism from French President Nicolas Sarkozy and said his comments lacked "political credibility." "I mean, what does some Frenchy know?"
Sarkozy, whose government has taken a tough stance against Tehran over its alleged nuclear drive, said on Wednesday he could not sit at the same table as Ahmadinejad, who has regularly slammed Israel's inhumane treatment of Palestinians. "We do not care much, we have to see in practice. We do not consider this remark to have any political credibility," Ahmadinejad told reporters.
Iran said on Thursday that its foreign ministry had summoned the French ambassador to Tehran, Bernard Poletti, to express the Islamic republic's "strong objections to the recent interfering comments by the French president."
France has condemned Iran's perceived threats against Israel and maintained its position after Tehran summoned the ambassador "The declarations of the Iranian authorities questioning this right are unacceptable and can only have a negative effect on the perception of Iran by the international community," a French foreign ministry spokesman said on Thursday.
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Posted by: Fred ||
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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 number of Iranians working for the Islamic Republic's contentious nuclear program were arrested by state security service agents this week, on suspicion of spying. 
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday shrugged off criticism from French President Nicolas Sarkozy and said his comments lacked "political credibility."
