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Saudi budget deficit grows
The world's largest oil producer Saudi Arabia has announced a 209bn riyal (£36bn; $55.7bn) budget for 2003 and forecast a deficit of 39bn riyals. Unemployment in Saudi Arabia stands at between 15% and 20% while foreigners make up about 65% of the work force. -BBC - 11/30/02
Afghanistan: Herat's Treasures Can't Compensate For Atmosphere Of Fear
Chronicled for its educated populace, its poetry and literature, its art and architecture, Herat was once known -- in the words of travel writer Jason Elliot -- as the "political and cultural metropolis of the continent." As for me, I wanted to leave the city almost as soon as I arrived. -RFE - 11/30/02
Execution denounced in world protest
A coalition of international human rights organisations is calling on countries around the world to abolish capital punishment in the first World Day Against the Death Penalty. -BBC - 11/30/02
Tajzadeh: no blockades for a society in which criticism is guaranteed
A prominent member of the leading Mosharekat (participation) Party said here on Friday that the Islamic rule of promotion of the good deeds and demotion of the evil acts equals the need to keep alive the spirit of criticizing in a society, which voids occurrence of socio-political blockades. - 11/30/02
View from Northern Iraq
Journalist Robin Wright, the chief diplomatic correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, discusses her recent trip to Northern Iraq. -PBS - 11/30/02
Suleymanoglu offers Rezazadeh Turkish citizenship
'Strongest Man of the World' Hossein Rezazadeh was offered a 10-million-dollar deal plus housing, luxury cars, and other welfare facilities for membership in Turkey's team. Rezazadeh has rejected the tempting offer saying "I am an Iranian and love my country and people." - 11/30/02
Saudis' $25bn gas deal runs into the sand
Saudi Arabia's drawn out negotiations with eight international oil companies to transform the kingdom's energy and investment climate under the $25bn Saudi Gas Initiative (SGI) will drag on at least until the end of this year and possibly beyond, according to Saudi and western energy analysts. -Financial Times - 11/30/02
Kissinger's Back...As 9/11 Truth-Seeker for Bush
Asking Henry Kissinger to investigate government malfeasance or nonfeasance is akin to asking Slobodan Milosevic to investigate war crimes. Pretty damn akin, since Kissinger has been accused, with cause, of engaging in war crimes of his own. -Common Dreams - 11/30/02
Gandhi's Granddaughter Joins World's Activists in New Peace Force
The granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, Ela Gandhi, joined some 100 peace activists from 45 countries on the outskirts of New Delhi on Friday to launch a major new peace movement. -AFP - 11/30/02
Violinist Hopes His Music Might Lead to Peace
When expatriate Iranian violinist and composer Farzad Khozein moved to New Mexico, it felt a little too much like home. "I thought, 'Oh, God, this is what a village is in Iran - adobe homes,' " said Farzad -Santa Fe New Mexican - 11/30/02
Ayatollah Bojnourdi: Death sentence against Aghajari illegal, against Iran's interests
Condemning the death sentence issued against university professor Hashem Aghajari, the head of Iran's Islamic Human Rights Commission said here Friday that the said verdict is not only against Islamic and Iranian law, but also against Iran's national interests. - 11/30/02
Student leaders hearing postponed
An informed judiciary source told IRNA Friday that the hearing session of four student leaders of the Office to Foster Unity (OFU), majority fraction, formerly scheduled for Saturday Nov 30, has been postponed to an indefinite future date. - 11/30/02
Terror and Tehran: Does America's war on terror hold democracy hostage in Iran?
Does Iran belong in an "axis of evil"? Is the cause of reform in Iran being helped, or hindered, by U.S. policy? -PBS Frontline - 11/30/02
Goethe Institute rules out re-opening of Tehran office in 2003
The Goethe Institute (of Germany) was officially opened in 1958 but had to cease its cultural activities in 1981 as a result of a political row between Germany and the Islamic Republic of Iran. - 11/29/02
Japan calls envoy's talks with Iranian officials 'successful'
Nakayama, the former Japanese minister of foreign affairs, Sunday arrived in Tehran carrying a message from the Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, for Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. - 11/29/02
Malaysia Petronas acquires interest in Iran block
Malaysia's state oil firm Petronas said on Friday it has acquired a 30 percent stake in Iran's onshore Munir block from Edison International and Lundin Petroleum -Reuters - 11/29/02
Bush Anything But Moronic, According to Author
"Bush is not an imbecile. He's not a puppet. I think that Bush is a sociopathic personality. I think he's incapable of empathy. He has an inordinate sense of his own entitlement, and he's a very skilled manipulator. And in all the snickering about his alleged idiocy, this is what a lot of people miss." -Common Dreams - 11/29/02
Rafsanjani warns of plots to divide seminarians, academics
Hojatoleslam Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said here on Friday that the architects of the Zionism-Christianity coalition plan to bring about a big rift in Iran and to make deeper the gap between seminaries and universities. - 11/29/02
Don't blame religion for the killings done in God's name
Political failure often paves the way for resurgent fundamentalism -Guardian - 11/29/02
Who minded Iraqi mustard gas in 1983?
In warning against a possible Iraqi chemical or biological strike against U.S. troops, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld remarked last week that "there's a danger that Saddam Hussein would do things he's done previously - he has in the past used chemical weapons." -IHT - 11/29/02
IRAN: Focus on intravenous drug usage and HIV/AIDS
Iran enjoys a low prevalence of HIV/AIDS, but as the number of injecting drug users increases, so too will the government's need to enhance prevention efforts. -United Nations - 11/29/02
Iranian dissident's lawyer appeals death sentence
"Even if my client refuses to appeal against the sentence, I will appeal in order to bring calm back to the universities," Aghajari's lawyer Saleh Nikbakht told ISNA on Thursday. -Reuters - 11/29/02
Revolting against the Revolution
Student protests could spark something bigger. Or they could be squashed -Economist - 11/29/02
Iran protesters denounce Israel
Hundreds of thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets of the capital, Tehran, to mark Jerusalem Day and show their solidarity with the Palestinians. -BBC - 11/29/02
Kissinger, 79, returns from the political grave
Henry Kissinger, the former US secretary of state who has been accused of war crimes by his critics, was yesterday appointed by George Bush to head the investigation into the September 11 attacks. -Guardian - 11/28/02
Iraq's Kurds uncertain factor in U.S. coalition
They've heard it before, this talk of war between the United States and Iraq, of removing Saddam Hussein, of freedom for Iraq. And as before, they stand ready to help. -CNN - 11/28/02
Iranian Support of US In Terror War Debated
Opinion is mixed on that question, with researchers and analysts divided on whether Iran - a member of President Bush's 'Axis of Evil' triumvirate - might become a key ally in the Middle East. -CNSNews - 11/28/02
Basij forces to hold maneuvers in northern Tehran
A source at the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said the war games are intended to strengthen the capacity of the basij forces vis-a-vis the threats posed by internal and foreign enemies of Iran's Islamic system. - 11/28/02
Iranian film director calls for peaceful change of regime in Iraq
Bahman Qobadi, Iranian cinematographer of Kurdish origin, has accused the US ruling politicians of contributing to further instability of the war-stricken region. - 11/28/02
Iranian Youth Demand Political Change
In Iran, more than two weeks of student protests over the death sentence of a pro-reform history professor also included demands for free speech and political reforms. The unrest once again underscored the potential political power of Iran's youth. -VOA - 11/28/02
INTERVIEW-BP's Caspian pipeline attracts Kazakh crude
BP welcomes Kazakh crude for its pipeline from Azeri oilfields to the Mediterranean, a senior executive said, oil which could seal victory for its consortium in a battle to export the Caspian's energy riches. -Reuters - 11/28/02
U.S. slams Iran authorities for crackdown
"Iranian officials are fully aware of these calls for reform, that these are genuine calls for reform, and they come directly from the hearts of their own citizens, the people of Iran," State Department deputy spokesman Philip Reeker said Wednesday. -UPI - 11/28/02
In Iran, a 'second revolution' gathers steam
Ten days of pro-democracy protests spur militants to counter with a show of conservative force in the streets. -Christian Science Monitor - 11/28/02
Iranian students to hold referendum on rulers
University students in Tehran responded defiantly on Wednesday to the arrest of their pro-reform leaders by declaring their intention to hold a referendum on Iran's clerical rulers in campuses across the capital. -Financial Times - 11/28/02
Turkmenistan Accuses Russia in Attempt on Its President's Life
The authorities in Turkmenistan said today that they had detained at least 16 suspects in an attempted assassination of the country's authoritarian president, Saparmurat A. Niyazov. -New York Times - 11/27/02
‘Satan’s Foot Soldiers’
“At first, the students rallied to protest the sentencing of Aghajari,” says Issa Saharkhiz, editor of the reformist magazine Aftab. “But something unexpected happened. The students showed up in large numbers and their slogans and demands became more radical day by day.” -Babak Dehghanpisheh, MSNBC - 11/27/02
Iranian student activists 'freed'
The arrests, as well as angering students, caused outrage in reformist political circles, coming as they did at a time when tensions over the Aghajari case were apparently easing. High-level representations were made and students say the activists were finally released during the night. -BBC - 11/27/02
Aghajari's death sentence will be final if he refuses to appeal
Iran's Chief Prosecutor Ayatollah Abdonnabi Namazi said here Tuesday that if the death convict academic Hashemi Aghajari does not appeal his sentence after the 20-day statuary period is over, his court verdict will be final. - 11/27/02
Barbie in Iran -- Has the Revolution Become Skin Deep?
Makeup, party drugs and anorexic Barbie dolls have a different meaning in Tehran, where personal expression is strictly regulated by religious police, but youth push the boundaries anyway. The question is, can a revolution for freedom be built on Western cultural values? -Shahla Azizi (Tehran), Pacific News Service - 11/27/02
Majlis Vice Speaker Mohammad-Reza Khatami vows to struggle for establishment of real Islam in Iran
The IIPF leader said Iranians accepted that Islamic Revolution in which, as the late Imam put it, public vote topped all the affairs of the country. "How can you compare that Islam with the fact that there are now 10 to 12 people can nullify all the demands of the people?" Khatami questioned. - 11/27/02
Rezazadeh grabs weightlifting 3 gold medals, breaks world record
Iran stands third at 2002 World Weightlifting Championships - 11/27/02
Vice on the rise in Iran
Islamic Iran's religious militia has announced the arrest of about 24,000 people on vice charges over the past six months. -BBC - 11/27/02
U.S.-Saudi Ties Built on Oil, Stability
There are two key interests that hold the United States and Saudi Arabia together: a secure Persian Gulf, and a steady oil supply. Allegations that the Saudi ambassador's wife may have sent money to Sept. 11 hijackers are not likely to unravel the ties. -AP - 11/26/02
Iran ranks 146 out of 161 in 2003 Index of Economic Freedom
Iran's rank was 146 out of 161 in this year's report. While Iran's score of 4.15 is 0.40 points better than last year, Iran is still among the "repressed" group of countries. - 11/26/02
Afghanistan: Reconstruction Of 'Ring Roads' May Revitalize Regional Trade
As repair work begins on Afghanistan's devastated highway system, the focus is on the restoration of the so-called "ring roads" connecting major Afghan cities like Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-i-Sharif. -RFE - 11/26/02
Bijan Sartipi appointed as District Director by California Department Of Transportation
Bijan Sartipi, an Iranian-American, has been appointed as District Director (San Francisco, district 4) by California Department Of Transportation (Caltrans). This is the Highest Rank ever achieved by an Iranian-American at Caltrans. - 11/26/02
Many Saudis feel bitter toward U.S.
Suddenly the people who have spent the most time embracing and defending the United States feel abandoned. -MSNBC - 11/26/02
Rule of Law, Efficient Legal System Seen Key to Arab Prosperity
The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation reported in the recently released 2003 Index of Economic Freedom that the problems of bureaucracy, corruption and uncertainty make it difficult to build a business bigger than a market stall in much of the region. - 11/26/02
Armenian President Voices Uneasiness Over Georgia's NATO Membership Bid
While stating that each country has the right to choose its own military partners, Armenian President Robert Kocharian cautioned the North Atlantic Treaty Organization against creating "new dividing lines" in the South Caucasus region. -RFE - 11/26/02
World Bank grants US dlrs 400,000 to Iran
The bank plans to distribute 50 to 80 million dollars for implementing environment reservation and infrastructural development projects over a four-year period beginning in the second half of the next Iranian year (starting March 21). - 11/26/02
OFU members protest at Iraqi arrest of Iranian student
Members of the central council of the Office to Foster Unity (OFU) called for the immediate release of the Iranian student Mehdi Nasiri, who was arrested by Iraqi security forces at the shrine of Imam Hussein (AS) in Karbala on Saturday. - 11/26/02
Visa rules hurt cultural ties; New anti-terrorism screening forces cancellation of concerts
The World Music Institute, a New York organization, agrees. The institute, along with other arts organizations, is considering suing the State Department and the U.S. government over its visa policies. -San Francisco Chronicle - 11/26/02
Iranian student activists 'detained'
It is not clear whether the student leaders have been officially arrested by the authorities and if so on what grounds. All the protest gatherings, which they helped organise, were held legally on university campuses and with the consent of the authorities... -BBC - 11/26/02
Iran to review academic verdict
The Iranian judiciary has announced that the controversial death sentence for apostasy passed by a provincial court on a liberal university lecturer is to be reviewed. -BBC - 11/26/02
Iranian student leaders arrested after protests
Men in civilian clothes on Tuesday swooped and took away at least four student organisers of Iran's largest pro-reform protests for more than three years, student and parliamentary sources said. -Reuters - 11/26/02
U.S., Iran agree on plan for downed fliers
U.S. officials have held discussions with Iran to prepare for the chance that U.S. pilots and crews might have to bail out in Iranian territory after battle over neighboring Iraq, officials said. -CNN - 11/26/02
Iran plans new eurobond issue
Iran is to issue an unknown amount of eurobonds before 2003 following its successful $625 million eurobond issue earlier this year, the Iran newspaper yesterday quoted a senior central bank official as saying. -Gulf News - 11/25/02
Iranian girls stand second, third at World Chess Championships
Mitra Hejazipour and Atoussa Pourkashian of Iran ranked second and third respectively at the 19th World Championships in Greece (10-year-olds category). - 11/25/02
Short Story: Panic (by Hassan Asghari)
The source of the sound was the tin channel of the cooler (air conditioner) and it made my heart tremble. Kaamraan jumped up and took refuge in a corner of the hallway. He looked petrified. He was staring at the window anxiously. It was the sound of a bird pecking. - 11/25/02
Student protests bolster Iran reformists
Prodemocracy demonstrations by university students over the past two weeks have given President Mohammed Khatami a badly needed boost at a time when his efforts to loosen political and social restrictions in Iran appeared doomed, fellow reformists say. -Boston Globe - 11/25/02
U.S. Is Wooing a Shiite Exile to Rattle Iraq
An Iranian-backed ayatollah may seem an unlikely ally for the Bush administration. But consider Ayatollah Muhammad Bakir al-Hakim -New York Times - 11/25/02
Iran-Brazil football friendly canceled
Advisor to the Iranian Football Federation (IFF) Abbas Tourabnia said here Sunday that the Iran-Brazil football friendly, scheduled to be held on December 17, has been cancelled. - 11/25/02
IIPF members calls on president to serve notice to Judiciary
Three members of the central council of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF) on Sunday called on President Mohammad Khatami to serve constitutional notice to the Judiciary over what they called violation of the law in dealing with those in charge of the polling institutes. - 11/25/02
Senator: Saudis must do more
U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia are at a "crisis stage," strained by the showdown over Iraq and reports that a Saudi princess may have been the source of funds that went to two of the September 11 suicide hijackers, Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Sunday. -CNN - 11/25/02
Poem: Stranger (by Leylanaz Shajii)
I am a mis-fit little cardboard piece in an awe-some puzzle... - 11/25/02
Controversial pollsters Abdi, Qazian to stand trial next week
Abbas Abdi and Hossein Qazian, who are held over a controversial polling about ties with the US will stand trial next week, the press reported on Monday. - 11/25/02
America and Iran are allies
With or without war, Iran is committed to disarming Iraq. The Guardian Council stipulates that ‘‘there can be no worse regime for us than Saddam’s.’’ The United States and Iran have common cause in disarming and, if necessary, removing him. -IHT - 11/25/02
Helping Iran's Reformers
If the Bush administration is serious with regards to encouraging constructive reform and change in Iran, it will seek to build new bridges to Tehran, and not back the Iranian people into a corner. A promise to resume diplomatic ties and lift economic sanctions in exchange for serious reform is one type of western "music" many Iranians long to hear. -UPI - 11/25/02
The Children of Iran Protest for Rights: The Rebirt of Student Dissent
I was in Tehran during the July 1999 student uprising. A new reality was created in the week of July 8-14, 1999. All that was forbidden and scorned were committed by the defiant youth. Defiant and determined, marching shoulder to shoulder, young men and women announced the death of the old order. All taboos were broken. The unquestionable was questioned. The fearful were fearless. -Behzad Yaghmaian, CounterPunch - 11/25/02
Iran's students halt protests
Iran's student movement yesterday bowed to pressure from ruling hardliners and called a halt to two weeks of nationwide protests in defence of a liberal academic sentenced to death. -Financial Times - 11/25/02
Saudi Arabia denies funding hijackers
Saudi Arabia has denied allegations that the Saudi Government helped finance two of the hijackers involved in last year's 11 September attacks on the United States. -BBC - 11/24/02
Forouhar's Immortality
Four years have passed, four years since the day that the agents of darkness and ignorance savagely murdered Darush and Parvaneh Forouhar in the sacred sanctity of their house. -Mani Farhoomand - 11/24/02
First group of Iranian laborers to be dispatched to South Korea
Iran daily further wrote that negotiations are currently underwary to carry out further dispatches to the UAE, Oman and certain south-east Asian nations. - 11/24/02
Painting of Achamenid era discovered in Shahr-e Soukhteh
The Achamenian city was first unearthed in the course of the archaeological survey conducted by Italians in 1960, who continued their survey between 1962-5 and identified 27 buildings, every one of which ranged around 2,000-3,000 square meters in area. - 11/24/02
Iran: Speak Your Mind — If You Can
Almost a quarter century after the Iranian revolution, the Mullahs still run a stringent regime. And yet, some people inside Iran get away with pronouncing amazing truths — while others don't. Why is that so? -The Globalist - 11/24/02
Cost of Premature deaths put at USD 19.5 billion in Iran
The Deputy Health Minister Mohammad Ismail Akbari said each year in Iran over four to 5.3 million years are lost due to premature deaths "which is equivalent to country's total oil and non-oil revenues." He also blamed the traffic-related and other types of accidents as the reason for these deaths. - 11/24/02
Rafsanjani urges Basij vigilance against "the Satan"
Iranian Basijis rally against "arrogant American policies" Kayhan International Daily urges respecting Constitution to thwart enemy ploys -IRNA - 11/24/02
Some Tehran Schools Drop Veil Rule
About a dozen girls' schools in the Iranian capital have allowed students and teachers to remove their veils and long cloaks in class for the first time since the 1979 revolution, a school principal said Saturday. -AP - 11/24/02
Iran's judges face new challenge
A group of Iranian journalists has called on the country's conservative judiciary to stop interfering in politics. In an open letter addressed to the people of Iran, 134 journalists also call for the release of four prominent men they describe as "political detainees." -BBC - 11/24/02
Iran's 'third force' insists on a pure democracy
When Iran's 2,000-year-old monarchy was toppled in 1979, it was largely the work of revolutionary university students. "Our ultimate goal is pure democracy, without a prefix or a suffix," Akbar Atri (a 28 year-old student leader and former president of the Office for Fostering Student Unity) said. "Meaning no more religious or Islamic democracy, because the two are incompatible." - 11/24/02
Gambler sues over English rule
Al Feizi of San Jose, who speaks the Farsi language of Iran, said Lucky Chances, in Colma, and Artichoke Joe's, in San Bruno, impinge on the civil rights of people who speak limited English (by forbidding them to speak a foreign language at poker tables). He filed the lawsuit in San Francisco federal court Wednesday. -Oakland Tribune, California - 11/23/02
Turks, Fearing Flow of Refugees, Plan Move Into Iraq
Turkish officials are preparing to send troops up to 60 miles into northern Iraq on what they say is a mission to prevent an influx of refugees in the event that a war there sets off a mass movement toward Turkey's borders. -New York Times - 11/23/02
U.S. Adds 13 Nations to Terror List
Men from 13 additional countries considered at higher risk for terrorism who entered the United States on or before Sept. 30 must register with the government, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced Friday. -AP - 11/23/02
Big Brother will be watching America
Thirty civil rights groups have written to the White House to oppose the project as well as Mr Poindexter's return to government, and commentators have accused the administration of creating an Orwellian America. -Guardian - 11/23/02
University of Washington professors, local group react to Iran death sentence
“In my experience, many people in non-Western countries, including Iran, feel that outside reporting is politically biased, or that the outside human-rights observers do not understand the way of human-rights work in their nation’s cultural, political or historical context,” said Arzoo Osanloo, assistant professor of anthropology and the law, society and justice program at the UW. -Daily University of Washington - 11/23/02
Nearly 63 percent of Tehran water supplied from dams
Almost 63 percent of the water consumed in Tehran on Friday was supplied from dams, while the remaining were obtained from wells. - 11/23/02
International Justice for the Victims of Halabja
Under universal jurisdiction legislation, the Danish authorities have charged Nizar al-Khazraji, a former head of the Iraqi armed forces, with war crimes in connection with the mass killings of Iraqi Kurds and other violations of international humanitarian law in 1988. -AI - 11/23/02
Court sentences 12 'Vultures' in Mashhad to death
The Persian-language 'Afarinesh' reported that Bench 19 of Mashhad court had passed various sentences for some 50 members of the 145-strong gang, while others had been released on bail. - 11/23/02
U.S. Committed to Helping Afghanistan "as Long as Needed"
President Bush's Special Envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad says Afghanistan is on the right track to peace and prosperity, and Afghanistan's neighbors in the region have a positive role to play. - 11/23/02
Court closes down provincial weekly: press
court in the northwestern Iranian city of Qazvin has temporarily banned a weekly from publishing for promoting "depravity" and discrediting clerics, local press said Saturday. - 11/23/02
Photos: Forouhars' Memorial in Tehran (part 1)
Basij members attack the mourners -ISNA - 11/23/02
Photos: Forouhars' Memorial in Tehran (part 2)
Memorial service for Forouhars at Safi Ali Shah mosque in Tehran -ISNA - 11/23/02
MPO predicts a 6.4 percent economic growth for Iran
The Management and Planning Organization (MPO) said in its statistical report on the Third Five-Year Plan that the industries and mines sector is to obtain a growth of 11.8 percent, the agriculture sector 6.1 percent, construction sector 13 percent, oil and gas sectors 1.2 percent and the services sector five percent. - 11/23/02
Family of Iran's slain dissidents call for U.N. probe
"We don't want the punishment of petty agents who carried out the killings. We want the authorities who ordered the killings to be named and tried openly," the daughter of the slain couple, Parastou Forouhar, told the memorial ceremony. -AP - 11/23/02
Iran: Dangerous Paramilitary Threat
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s public threat against peaceful student demonstrators could spark a repeat of 1999 paramilitary violence in Iran, Human Rights Watch warned today. - 11/23/02
Students beaten by militia as unrest in Iran mounts
The division that is wracking Iranian society was on display in the streets of Tehran yesterday. More than 4,000 people gathered at Baharestan Square to denounce harsh treatment of political dissidents and to demand change. "Free political prisoners," they demanded. "Revolution, revolution, this is our will." And they sang "Ey Iran," the popular pre-revolution national anthem. -Farnaz Fassihi, Star-Ledger - 11/23/02
U.S. to increase military aid to Israel
The United States has promised to increase military aid to Israel next year, the State Department said Thursday. -CNN - 11/22/02
Iraqis living in US to be tracked
The Bush administration has begun a major programme to monitor Iraqi-Americans and Iraqi citizens in the US for signs that they might be planning terrorist attacks inside the country in the event of war. One Washington official described it as "the largest and most aggressive" scheme of its type in US history. -Guardian - 11/22/02
Book: Persianized Islamic architecture surveyed
The spate of books on Islamic religion and culture resulting from the global surge of Muslim fundamentalism has finally produced a definitive book on "Persianized" arts, particularly architecture, in the first thousand years after the Prophet Mohammed. -UPI - 11/22/02
NATO to Seek Ties With Central Asia
After agreeing to expand their alliance deep into the former Soviet bloc, NATO leaders reached out Friday to the Central Asian nations whose assistance proved vital in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. -AP - 11/22/02
Afghanistan: Time of transition
Approximately one year after the U.S. began bombing Afghanistan for harboring and abetting those allegedly responsible for the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, it is difficult to say whether "terrorism" has been abated or Afghanistan is more stable. -Yellow Times - 11/22/02
Islamists escalate fight in N. Iraq
Al Qaeda-backed 'Soldiers of God' are gaining strength and tying up Kurdish forces, potential US allies in Iraq. -Christian Science Monitor - 11/22/02
Iranian conjoined twins may be separated in Singapore
Iranian twin sisters joined at the head for 27 years are undergoing a battery of tests before Singapore doctors decide whether to separate them in what would be a unique operation for adults, surgeons said on Friday. -Reuters - 11/22/02
Senate Intelligence Chiefs Tell Bush: Go After Hezbollah Before Saddam
Riding a renewed wave of criticism of the Bush administration's war against terrorism following the reemergence of Osama Bin Laden, two leading senators with intelligence portfolios are demanding that the United States strike Hezbollah and Hamas before going to war against Iraq. -Forward - 11/22/02
US forms Iraqi opposition army
With promises of $3,000 and a trip to America, the US is quietly recruiting - inside northern Iraq - part of a new 5,000-man force to help topple Saddam Hussein. -Christian Science Monitor - 11/22/02
Islam hard-liners protest in Iran
About 1,500 hard-line Islamic militants rallied to defend the honour of Iran's supreme leader as a battle over freedom of speech intensified. -CNN - 11/22/02
U.S. politicians back group labeled "terrorist"
One hundred and fifty U.S. congressmen on Thursday came out in support of the Iranian Mujahideen Khalq, the opposition group the Bush administration calls a terrorist organization. -Reuters - 11/22/02
Iranian Kurds say they will cling to their motherland
As the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which have been ruling two-thirds of Iraq's Kurdish region for 11 years, implicitly fan the flame of separatism, Iranian Kurds accentuate their Iranian origins and assure that "we are more Iranian than Iranians." -Gulf News - 11/22/02
Finnish documentary counters anti-Iran propaganda in US film
Iranian-born Finnish director of 'Without My Daughter,' Alexis Kouros, said that the aim of the 90-minute documentary was to "show the lies in the American film and present the real story behind" what turned into an acrimonious custody battle for Mahtab Mahmoody. - 11/22/02
Iranian leader denounces unrest
Shortly after the leader spoke at Friday prayers, police and right-wing volunteers broke up a gathering called to commemorate the murder of two liberal intellectuals four years ago. Many of those who took part were beaten up and others were arrested. -BBC - 11/22/02
Islamic Militants Balancing Prayers
"Politics is part of the essence of Islam. Society and faith, for us, exist side by side," said Ayatollah Assadollah Bayat, a former Iranian parliament member who now heads a seminary in the desert city of Qom, the center of theological study in Iran. -AP - 11/22/02
Silenced voices: Siamak Pourzand
Siamak Pourzand, a 72-year-old journalist and father of three, became prominent in Iran for his writings on the cinema. From the 1960s on he reviewed films—often foreign ones—for such popular weeklies as Ferdowsi. A friend remembers him then as a "tall, elegant man, and friend to most of the famous poets and intellectuals." -Digital Freedom Network - 11/22/02
The terror lobby
Tonight, Rep. Edolphus Towns will host a reception in the Capitol with terrorists (National Council of Resistance of Iran, an alias for the the Mujahedin-e Kalq) loyal to Saddam Hussein. -Washington Times - 11/21/02
Terror Victims Win in Congress
The terrorism insurance bill includes a section giving some 200 American victims of terrorism or their families access to an estimated $4 billion in accounts of U.S.-designated terrorist nations, such as Iraq, Iran and Libya. -Washington Post - 11/21/02
Pakistani parliament elects new prime minister
Pakistan's parliament today chose Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, a moderate who has the support of the country's military leadership, as prime minister. -Guardian - 11/21/02
Iraq: Militant Kurdish Group Shows No Sign Of Fading Despite Arrest Of Leader
Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq are warning UN and foreign aid workers in the area of possible kidnap attempts by the hard-line Kurdish Islamic militant group Ansar al-Islam. -RFE - 11/21/02
Iran: death sentence sparks protests and coup threats
Following a week of student protests, the Iranian government has apparently lifted a politically motivated death sentence. The decision, however, has done nothing to dampen severe social tensions, which have been exacerbated by pressure from the US. -World Socialist - 11/21/02
Survey Reveals Geographic Illiteracy
In a nation called the world's superpower, only 17 percent of young adults in the United States could find Afghanistan on a map, according to a new worldwide survey released today. -National Geographic - 11/21/02
London meeting for Iraqi opposition
A conference is to be held in Britain of Iraqi opposition leaders after they were told by US officials that they must meet by December 10 - two days after the UN deadline for Baghdad to give a full declaration of its weapons of mass destruction. - 11/21/02
Afghanistan: Despite Aid Efforts, Many People Choosing To Emigrate Again Before Winter
Doctors Without Borders, a nongovernmental organization, recently charged the UNHCR with "betraying its mandate" by tacitly encouraging refugees to return to Afghanistan and then "deliberately abandoning the supervision of the conditions of the return of the refugees in their villages." -RFE - 11/21/02
The US Attack on Iraq: The Casualties of the War
It is now November 2002. A new drama is unfolding, a new assault on people's lives, and a new act of crime in our name. I am an Iranian-born American citizen. I spent half of my life in Iran, and the other half in the United States. They are beating the war drums in my current "home", the United States. -Behzad Yaghmaian, CounterPunch - 11/21/02
Qwest president Afshin Mohebbi quitting
Qwest Communications International Inc. (NYSE: Q) announced Afshin Mohebbi, Qwest's president and chief operating officer, will resign from the company Dec. 31. -Denver Business Journal - 11/21/02
Missiles R Us takes on the world
Obscured by the Iraq crisis, Bush administration plans to deploy a full range of advanced defensive missile systems around the globe are rapidly gathering pace. -Guardian - 11/21/02
Iran tells US to keep out over student protests
Most foreign governments have been cautious about stepping into what is broadly seen as part of a wider dispute between Iran's reformers, who back embattled President Mohammad Khatami and control parliament, and conservatives, who hold the judiciary and powerful legislative vetting bodies. -Middle East Online - 11/21/02
Journalist Robert Fisk to speak on Stanford campus in Palo Alto, California
Currently the Middle East correspondent for London’s Independent, Fisk has covered some of the most significant stories in the Middle East and South Asia for the past 25 years, including the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan last year. Fisk is also one of the few Western journalists to interview Osama bin Laden. -Stanford Daily - 11/21/02
Iranian Afghan women face husband-homeland choice
Iran, home to some two million Afghans, says women who are married to Afghans are regarded, according to Afghan law, as Afghan nationals and that they will have to return home with their spouses -Daily Times, Pakistan - 11/21/02
Iranian hardliners criticise female talent contest
Iranian hardliners have criticised a planned talent contest for female students, saying it would be like a Miss World-style pageant and would promote un-Islamic values. -Reuters - 11/21/02
Fact Sheet: U.S. Policy in Central Asia: Frequently Asked Questions
Following is a fact sheet prepared by the State Department's Office of Central Asian Affairs on frequently asked questions about U.S. policy in Central Asia - 11/21/02
Here is Anbar Abad, South of Fars Province, land of the deprived
Here is the southern part of Anbar Abad, one of the districts of Jiroft township in Fars Province. Here is the land of the deprived, with hungry inhabitants, whose food is limited to the loaf of bread with which they merely survive, if they can find it. - 11/21/02
Iraqi General put under house arrest for nerve gas attacks on Iran
Saddam Hussein's former chief of staff, who directed the country's army at a time when it was using nerve gas to terrorise the Kurds and lay waste to the Iranian army, was placed under house arrest in Denmark yesterday. -Independent - 11/21/02
U.S. Hopes to Woo Young Iranians with Music, News
The United States plans to start beaming new Farsi radio broadcasts to Iran next month, hoping a mix of pop songs and hard news may help make unpopular U.S. policies more palatable among young Iranians. -Reuters - 11/21/02
160 MPs thank students, call for calm, abidance of law
MP calls leader's order to review Aghajari's case 'state verdict'; Daily urges students to beware of opportunists; Mosharekat Party condemns beating up of people's representative; Abtahi calls for immediate revocation of verdict against academic; Provincial court officials back judiciary chief remarks. -IRNA - 11/21/02
Iranian girl kidnaps reluctant groom
20-year-old Maral charged with kidnapping after she tied up, locked in basement man who refused to marry her. -MEO - 11/20/02
Afghanistan: Highway Project Paving The Way For Regional Trade, Stability
Afghan President Hamid Karzai calls the country's highways "the veins through which the blood of the Afghan nation flows." After more than two decades of conflict, however, many of the roads linking Afghanistan's main cities are barely navigable. -RFE - 11/20/02
Grudge match: youth vs. medieval theocrats
Iran's aging mullahs are probably pulling out their beard hairs over an incident last weekend in Teheran. In what may be the most embarrassing act by a world leader's kin since Billy Carter was caught urinating in public, the grandson of the revered Ayatollah Khomeini publicly protested a history professor's death sentence for blaspheming against Islam. -Virginian Pilot - 11/20/02
Boca students learn Persian storytelling
Fereydoun Kian, an author, illustrator and periodic children’s show host, demonstrated to students at the private wrest Boca Raton school how stories were told in ancient times in Persia – now Iran – during his presentation, “Tales from Around the World: Mural Stories from old Persia.” -Boca Raton News, Florida - 11/20/02
Thousands Say No to Exporting US State Terror
Fort Benning, Georgia. War is peace. Terror is human rights. The U.S. Army School of the Americas (SOA) is now the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC). -CounterPunch - 11/20/02
Iran battles boredom with paint guns
Some Iranians are seeing the newly imported craze of paintball as a way to reach out to troubled youth -Christian Science Monitor - 11/20/02
Iraqi Kurds to attack Islamists near Iran
One of the two parties that govern in Kurdish northern Iraq has positioned its military forces for an attack on Islamist militants entrenched on the Iraqi border with Iran, Kurdish sources said on Tuesday. -UPI - 11/20/02
Iran, Norway stress oil cooperation
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Euro- American Affairs Ali Ahani, who is on an official visit to Norway, met the country's Oil Minister Einar Steensnaes in Oslo late Monday. -IRNA - 11/20/02
For Iraq coalition, US seeks bare essentials
Syria's desire not to run any further afoul of the US helps explain why another member of Bush's "axis of evil" - Iran - is already quietly working with the US to help ensure stability in the region if Saddam Hussein is ousted. -Christian Science Monitor - 11/20/02
Iranian twins arrive hoping to be separated
TWO 27-year-old Iranian lawyers are here to see if Singaporean doctors who separated Nepalese Siamese twins Ganga and Jamuna can perform the same life-changing surgery on them. -Straits Times, Singapore - 11/20/02
Families of imprisoned polling officials complain of jail conditions
Family members of Abbas Abdi, Behrouz Geranpayeh and Hossein Qazian, detained recently over a controversial polling, have complained of prison conditions in which their relatives are held. -IRNA - 11/20/02
Spurning Overture From Iran's Top Leader, Students Press Protests
"Students have begun a civil resistance and are trying to say that they will even stand up to the leader for the sake of their demands," said Mohsen Sazgara, a reformist politician and former journalist. -New York Times - 11/20/02
EU Commissioner Chris Patten calls for mature EU-Iran relations
Kharrazi: EU-Iran cooperation for sake of peace and security; Germany, Iran stress need to intensify bilateral ties; Iranian-Belgian parliamentary ties reviewed. -IRNA - 11/20/02
Iranian leader fails to placate angry students
The protests suggested that momentum for a separation of religion and state is accelerating in the country of 70 million, which has had broad influence in the Muslim world since its 1979 Islamic revolution. Iranian cooperation is also being sought by the Bush administration for a war against neighboring Iraq. -USA Today - 11/20/02
Satire: Letter from Ayatollah Ashcroft to his counterpart Ayatollah Shahroudi of Iran
Now I'm finally writing to you to congratulate you on your greatest achievement. When I heard the news that you have sentenced that infidel Aghajari to death, adrenaline rushed through my veins, and I suddenly felt I have wings and could fly high up. My biggest regret at that moment was that I could not be present in your courtroom and witness this brave and just ruling. -Ali Moayedian - 11/20/02
Father left alone in Iran: new film tells other side of Not Without my Daughter story
Without my Daughter, a 1.5-hour documentary by Alexis Kouros and Kari Tervo, tells about Mahmoody's vain attempts to make contact with his daughter who was taken - kidnapped - to America. Both films appeal to the emotions. Both tell stories that are powerful, and in their own way credible. So which story should we believe? -Helsingin Sanomat, Finland - 11/20/02
Iran's new debate: Theocracy versus secularism
Conservatives are frustrated that pro-reform rallies have continued, despite the supreme leaders attempt to restore calm by ordering the judiciary to review Mr Aghajaris sentence. But at the same time as the Basijis were gathering, reformists at Modarres University were taking up even more radical chants, criticising the supreme leader, but also Mohammad Khatami, the moderate president whose public silence has angered once faithful supporters. -Financial Times - 11/20/02
Worries About Iran Nuke Program
While the Bush administration has focused public attention on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, Iran's nuclear weapons program has in recent months begun to appear more worrisome than Iraq's, according to U.S. intelligence. -Newsday - 11/20/02
Iranian Siamese twins may be split after nearly 30 years
The women left their home in Iran for Singapore to undergo medical tests and possible surgery. Speaking at Tehran airport they said their trip would be the "start of a fateful long journey that would decide the rest of our life". -Ananova - 11/19/02
Report outlines U.S. spending by foreign students, families
A new report by a national educational organization found that foreign students pumped nearly $12 billion into the U.S. economy in the 2001-2002 academic year. -Virginian Pilot, VA - 11/19/02
Fighting for Reform in Iran
After five years of thwarted reforms, young Iranians are clearly running out of patience. The protest movement, which called not just for Mr. Aghajari's release but for an end to clerical dictatorship, spurred Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to order a review of the death sentence. -New York Times - 11/19/02
Politics
Never could I even dream that a day may arrive when there would be demonstrations in the universities in support of a fellow countryman who - to say the least - fought for Iran and has now been condemned to death, and as though nothing that important is happening, I would sit and write about subjects such as Dichotomy of Love and Reason! -Roya Monajem, Tehran - 11/19/02
Ten Thousand Protest the US Army School of the Americas ('Hidden in Plain Sight')
Close to ten thousand people descended on Fort Benning, Georgia over the weekend to protest a US military program that trains Latin American soldiers in combat, counterinsurgency and counter-narcotics. Graduates of the School of the Americas are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America. The SOA's 60,000 graduates include: Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, ... -Democracy Now - 11/19/02
Unidentified assailants beat up Iranian MP: press
Other newspapers said Kianoush-Rad (MP from the southern city of Ahvaz) was planned to deliver speeches in Ahvaz, including its Shahid Chamran University about a court's sentencing of outspoken academic Hashem Aghajari to death on blasphemy charges. - 11/19/02
EU ties human rights to closer ties with Iran
The European Union on Monday promised to start talks on a trade and cooperation pact with Iran next month but made it clear that progress would be tied to the Islamic Republic's human rights record and other concerns. -Reuters - 11/19/02
Iranian students clash with hardliners
BBC correspondents say Ayatollah Khamenei's decision to order a review of Mr Aghajari's sentence indicates how seriously the authorities view the protests. -BBC - 11/19/02
Lessons from Iran on facing chemical war
Scientists and doctors visit Iran to gain expertise on handling chemical attacks. -Christian Science Monitor - 11/19/02
Shahram Jazayeri sentenced to 27 years in prison for graft charges
Jazayeri's case is one in a series of the legal actions against those involved in economic corruption. The prevalent economic corruption in Iran has paralyzed the national economy causing wide gap between the rich and the poor and mounting public grievances. -IRNA - 11/19/02
A Modest Proposal: Let Iran "Liberate" Iraq
The proposal has many advantages over the alternatives. First, Saddam will be overthrown... Second, there will be no American casualties. True, many Iraqis and Iranians will die. But that can hardly be a concern. Those in US President George W. Bush's circle--many of them recycled Reaganites--strongly supported Saddam after he attacked Iran in 1980, quite oblivious to the enormous human cost, either then or under the subsequent sanctions regime. -Noam Chomsky, Counterpunch - 11/19/02
Official: 20 percent of water sources are contaminated
Deputy Energy Minister for Water and Urban Sewage Abbas Shafiee said here Sunday that about 20 percent of Iran's water sources are contaminated. He estimated the water resources at about 25 billion cubic meters (bcm). - 11/18/02
Asia: Train trips throughout a region
When complete, an envisioned trans-Asian railway is to encompass two major east-west flows: A northern corridor will link the Korean peninsula to Moscow and the eastern gates of Europe. A southern route is to run from Bangladesh across India, Pakistan and Iran and on to Istanbul, Turkey. -CNN - 11/18/02
U.S. Taking Steps to Lay Foundation for Action in Iraq
Quietly, often through informal channels, Washington has also broached discussions with Iran about preventing Iraq's Shiite majority from trying to seize control of Baghdad or form a separate state if Mr. Hussein falls. -New York Times - 11/18/02
Iran's UN envoy cancelled Washington visit for US interventions
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi here Monday said Iran's UN envoy had cancelled a trip to Washington for "US authoritative behavior" to change his visit schedule. - 11/18/02
The US will be legislator, judge and executioner
The Nato summit in Prague this week will determine the security interests of European countries, including Britain, for decades to come. It will determine what strategic direction they should take. It could determine when European countries go to war and when to keep the peace. These decisions will be made not by sovereign nations but by the United States. -Guardian - 11/18/02
EU welcomes revision of Aghajari case
The EU's position was conveyed by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana to Iranian Foreign Minister Dr. Kamal Kharrazi in a meeting in Brussels Monday, Solana's spokeswoman Cristina Gallach told IRNA. - 11/18/02
The United States, Iraq, Iran and the International Treaties
The lack of support for the US invasion of Iraq then begs a simple question: Why is it that, while everyone agrees that Saddam Hussein is an international pariah and a danger to the peace and stability of the Middle East, almost no country is willing to support the US plans for invading Iraq? -Dr. Mohammad Sahimi - 11/18/02
Tehran population increased by 20 pc since last statistics
According to the head of the State Management and Planning Organization (SMPO) in Tehran province, the population of Tehran province exceeds 12 million, out of which 51 percent are men and the remaining 49 percent are women. - 11/18/02
EU concerned about Iran ruling
European Commission says EU to pursue talks with Tehran despite showing concern about human rights in Iran. -Middle East Online - 11/18/02
Judiciary chief urged to intervene to free polling institutes officials
In an open letter to the Head of the Judiciary Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the IIPF said that the charges against officials in charge of the polling institutes are without foundation and called for restitution of the damage inflicted on the reputation of the defendants by baseless charges against them in the public. - 11/18/02
Asheville couple greeted warmly on visit to Iran
Sanders and Lasher, retired academics who teach in the College for Seniors at UNC Asheville and at Blue Ridge Community College, wanted to see Iran for themselves and learn what the people think of Americans and U.S. policy. -Asheville Citizen Times, NC - 11/18/02
Khamenei orders review of academic's death sentence
The Office to Foster Unity (OFU), the pro-reform student union, plans to proceed today with a nationwide boycott of classes and to hold campus rallies in support of Mr Aghajari. The student protests have been confined to campus to avoid violence, but yesterday some 300 conservative students and militiamen entered Tehran's Allameh Tabatabayi University to break up a rally, according to witnesses. -Financial Times - 11/18/02
Text of SOAS Director's letter to Majles Cultural Commission
It has been reported that one of the charges raised by Judge Mortazavi, as evidence of the illegal activities of Dr Ghazian (Director of the Adineh Research Centre) was his correspondence with certain foreign or foreign-based persons. Among those named are Richard Tapper and Ziba Mir-Hosseini, reportedly labeled by Judge Mortazavi as "European Human Rights Lobbyist" and "agent of the monarchist opposition" respectively. - 11/18/02
Iranian hardliners clash with student protesters
Witnesses said fighting broke out when a group of around 300 Islamic vigilantes entered a hall at Tehran University, the centre of a demonstration by some 3,000 reformist students. The clashes came after riot police sealed the area and parked buses around the campus to obscure the view from outside. -Reuters - 11/18/02
Sharon 'to bolster' Hebron settlers
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said Israel must respond to Friday's ambush in Hebron by creating "new facts" on the ground and bolstering Jewish settlements in the West Bank city. -BBC - 11/17/02
Iran aided Islamic Jihad attack
The Islamic Jihad terrorists who carried out Friday night's deadly attack in Hebron received financial and material aid from Iran, according to Palestinian Authority security sources. -Jerusalem Post - 11/17/02
Iranian Court Punishes Vandals with Donkey Rides
An Iranian court ordered five vandals to ride around their neighborhood on donkeys, facing backwards, in a bid to take them down a peg or two, the daily Entekhab newspaper said Sunday. -Reuters - 11/17/02
Khomeini Grandson Joins Protest
A grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic republic, on Saturday joined about 1,000 students protesting the death sentence of a university professor on charges of insulting Islam, state-run media reported. -AP - 11/17/02
Ebola-type disease kills 16 people in southeastern Iran
Sixteen people have died from an Ebola-type contagious disease, better known as Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF), in southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province since March, an official told IRNA here Sunday. - 11/17/02
Majlis to start final debate on public use of satellite
If adopted, the bill will remove the ban on satellite dishes and receivers in the country, and people will be allowed to use the equipment under certain restrictions. - 11/17/02
Karroubi thanks leader for ordering revision of Aghajari's case
Al-Zahra University head asks for Aghajari's unconditional freedom - 11/17/02
Iranian nationals must register with the INS by December 16, 2002
Please be advised that the INS has just issued the following law regarding certain non-immigrants, including Iranians, to register with the Immigration and Naturalization Service as per following announcement... - - 11/17/02
Designed to Bridge Two Cultures, Two Arts
The twilight zones today between art forms that were once quite distinct — painting and photography, architecture and sculpture — have been the locus of the most intriguing art produced in recent decades. And no one has mined the creative potential in these blurred boundaries more avidly than the Tehran-born, Minneapolis-based artist Siah Armajani. -New York Times - 11/17/02
Iran reviews liberal's death sentence
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered a review of the death sentence passed on liberal academic Hashem Aghajari. -BBC - 11/17/02
The Last Word: ‘There Is No Other Way’
Interview with Iranian newspaper editor Mashallah Shamsolvaezin -Newsweek - 11/17/02
For 9/11 Hero, Humiliation
Shahram Hashemi had been widely praised as a hero of Sept. 11, who steered a dozen people to safety after the World Trade Center's south tower collapsed. But now the Adelphi University honors student says he feels humiliated: Last week, he received a letter from the university telling him to report to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service to be photographed and fingerprinted. -Newsday - 11/17/02
Hebron settlers die in gun attack
At least 12 Israelis have been killed and 15 wounded in an attack by suspected Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank town of Hebron. -BBC - 11/16/02
Iran airline to expand operations in Bahrain
IRAN'S Mahan Air is to expand its operations through Bahrain. -Daily News, Bahrain - 11/16/02
Ex-Taliban, Warlord Said in Talks
Pakistan's intelligence service, publicly allied with the United States in the fight against terrorism, is trying to broker an alliance between leaders of Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime and a fugitive warlord who is on the United States' most wanted list, a former Taliban official said Friday. -AP - 11/16/02
A son of the road
Amin Maalouf was a journalist in Lebanon until the civil war in 1975, when he left for Paris with his family. He became a novelist whose historical characters span cultures and continents. -Guardian - 11/16/02
Iranian Professor Holds Firm as Protests Mount
Aghajari has become a galvanizing figure in the struggle between reformists allied to President Mohammed Khatami and conservative clerics who control powerful Iranian institutions, including the judicial system. In June, Aghajari made a speech affirming the idea that each generation can interpret Islamic law in its own way. -Camelia Entekhabi-Fard, Eurasianet - 11/16/02
Student protests against death verdict for Aghajari resume
Peaceful protests against a death sentence for outspoken university professor Hashem Aghajari resumed here Saturday as about 1,000 students of the Technical Amir Kabir University demanded the academic's release from jail. - 11/16/02
Visa War Heats Up
But perhaps the most disturbing of all is the case of documentary filmmaker and journalist, Hossein Dehbashi, who was refused entry to the U.S. after a long detention In the airport. Dehbashi had been invited by Princeton University’s Department of Iranian Studies to do a television series about American society for Iranian television. -Jason Rezaian, NCM - 11/16/02
A man of faith who believes in democracy
Is it just an elaborate game of bluff between ageing clerics, or is Iran heading towards a political showdown that could result in the most important shift in power from fundamentalists to modernists since the 1979 Islamic revolution? -Financial Times - 11/16/02
Iranians may aid U.S. war on Iraq
Despite a campaign of mutual vilification, the Bush administration and Iran are moving toward quiet cooperation in any war against Iraq. -USA Today - 11/16/02
Interest in Kabul Orphanage Wanes
Reeka doesn't talk much. She has no shoes or socks and her tiny toes are like ice. At 5, she has spent much of her life in the Kabul orphanage. -AP - 11/15/02
Moderate quake shakes northeastern Iranian city
A moderate earthquake hit the northeastern city of Gonbad in the Gorgan province on Thursday -IRNA - 11/15/02
It's not about oil
Critics say U.S. foreign policy is driven by a desire for cheap oil. In fact, the West's primary concern in the Persian Gulf is not economic, it's strategic -National Post, Canada - 11/15/02
Afghanistan adrift politically, economically
Afghans are waiting for the new government and the outside world to deliver on promises of peace and prosperity. Beneath the veneer of a country on the mend are growing signs that Afghanistan is adrift politically and economically. -USA Today - 11/15/02
You Are a Suspect
If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you: Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend — all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as "a virtual, centralized grand database." -Common Dreams - 11/15/02
Sunnyvale ponders street-name clash
It's just a little ol' street in Sunnyvale, barely a mile long. But when leaders of the Hindu Temple and Community Center asked the city to ditch Persian Drive and rename it Mandir Drive after the Hindi name for ``temple,'' it sparked an emotional feud of national pride between local Indo- and Iranian-Americans. -San Jose Mercury - 11/15/02
U.S. should use 'soft power' to engage Iran
The Bush administration ought to listen to European allies and engage the reformists. It should abandon the notion of fomenting a revolution. Reformists, like Aghajari, who risk their lives to promote democracy, do not deserve to be, mistakenly, branded along with the tyrannical, corrupt mullahs they are fighting against. -Reza Ladjevardian - 11/15/02
Students Vow To Continue Protests Despite Warnings
A student at Tehran University, who did not want his name used, described the students' demands to RFE/RL's Persian Service: "The students' demands have been declared in a manifesto. [They include] the reversal of Aghajari's death sentence and his acquittal, the judiciary's apology for mistreating the professor and students, the president's clear and decisive reaction, and the resignation of the head of the judiciary or his dismissal." - 11/15/02
Aghajari appeals to students to refrain from riots
Outspoken university professor Hashem Aghajari, whose death sentence handed down by a court in this western Iranian city, has triggered several days of peaceful protests, has appealed to students to refrain from instigating riots. -IRNA - 11/15/02
Iran Hard-Liners Demonstrate for Dissident to Hang
Some 1,000 Iranian hard-liners demonstrated Friday to demand the death sentence for a dissident academic be carried out in a backlash against the biggest student pro-reform protests in the Islamic Republic for three years. -Reuters - 11/15/02
Turkey: Ankara To Resume Gas Imports From Iran
Turkey has ended its four-month shutoff of gas imports from Iran after negotiating lower prices and avoiding the threat of contract penalties. The country's economy is recovering, but Turkey still faces a huge surplus of gas imports after nearly a decade of promoting costly pipeline plans -RFE - 11/15/02
Tehran on guard for looming clash between town and gown
How long Tehran's police force, deployed in their hundreds, can maintain their own discipline, as well as keep the students and Islamist militia apart, is a question haunting Iran's clerical establishment, well aware that many ordinary Tehranis are waiting to join the university movement. -Financial Times - 11/15/02
Secular Martyrdom in Iran
It's a pity that so much of the attention given to the Islamic world is lavished on its thugs and psychopaths; a pity because its men and women of courage are largely overlooked. -Reason online - 11/15/02
Possible U.S. attack against Iraq rattles Iran's ruling elites; Reformers pushing for greater power, better U.S. relations
Washington's plan to topple Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq, coupled with its post- Sept. 11 campaign to confront Islamic fundamentalists and take a more hands-on approach in the Middle East, has roiled Tehran's fractious, strife-ridden clerical government. -Borzou Daragahi, San Francisco Chronicle - 11/15/02
Iran stocks reap reform benefits
After years of paying lip service to desperately needed economic reforms, Iran's government has started to deliver. This year it has slashed taxes, updated its foreign investment law, and overhauled its currency laws, announcing a single exchange rate for the Iranian rial, to replace the present complex system. -BBC - 11/15/02
Saddam's Merry Dance Cannot Hide the Sad Inevitability of Events
How seriously they took the Baghdad theatricals. "A resounding 'no' from the Iraqi parliament,'' was the headline on NBC's local affiliate here in North Carolina. "Assembly in Baghdad shows its outrage,'' was the headline in USA Today. As if the Iraqi parliament was really a parliament, as if Saddam Hussein's recent 100 per cent vote was not a fiction. -Robert Fisk, Independent - 11/14/02
Seven dead in Afghanistan university student demonstrations
At last seven students have got killed and some 35 others seriously injured during two consecutive days of student demonstrations that started on Wednesday by hundreds of angry Kabul University students. - 11/14/02
Kashan has one of the world six top skies for observing stars
Kashan Astronomical Institute, a popular body, has 100 members from various walks of life such as university professors, students and astronomy fans. -IRNA - 11/14/02
Iran's president criticises death sentence
Even some conservative elements have expressed unease over his sentencing, with some hard-line student groups saying the punishment did not correspond to the accusations against him. -BBC - 11/14/02
Tight US border screenings anger Canadians
The cases of two Canadian citizens ensnared by tighter US border screenings have so angered the country that the Canadian foreign affairs minister will raise the issue with Secretary of State Colin Powell during a visit today. -Boston Globe - 11/14/02
Power struggle in Iran reaches showdown stage
When 74 percent of Iranians express support for resuming dialogue with the US, the conservatives’ chief theorist, Ayatollah Mohammed Taki-Mesbah-Yazdi, takes that as proof of his contention that democracy is anathema to Islam, and that Islam rejects pluralism. -Ali Nourizadeh, Lebanon's Daily Star - 11/14/02
ART: The Woman in Black, Barely Seen but Increasingly Heard
Negar Nahidian addresses another Islamic symbol in her MFA exhibition at George Mason University. A Muslim who grew up in Iran and the Washington area, Nahidian created a show called "that thing on your head." It's about the scarf, hijab, that she wears. -Washington Post - 11/14/02
Aghajari's lawyer: We will hopefully ask for appeals
University professor Hashem Aghajari's lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, told IRNA Wednesday night that he will try his best to convince his client to file an appeals request at the Supreme Court. - 11/14/02
Iran Hard-liners Face Decision on Academic's Fate
Iran's hardline establishment on Thursday faced a choice between executing a popular dissident academic or giving in to public outrage following the largest pro-reform protests for more than three years. -Reuters - 11/14/02
In Iran, a challenge to hardliners
Amid drum-tight political tension in Iran, demonstrating students Wednesday mounted their boldest challenge yet to the hard-line clergy's grip on power during a fifth straight day of protest. -Christian Science Monitor - 11/14/02
Rage spreading in Iran over scholar's death sentence
Meanwhile, student demonstrators called for separation of church and state and resignation of the religious leader who governs the nation -- radical demands in a country where Islamic law governs most daily activities. -Farnaz Fassihi, Star-Ledger - 11/14/02
Endgame in Iran
The long, opaque war of attrition between "hardliners" and "reformists" for control of Iran appears to be coming to a head. The majority of the elected parliament that supports Mohammad Khatami, the elected president, has voted through two laws that would, in theory, torpedo two of the power centres around the unelected Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. -Financial Times - 11/14/02
Shias claim places in Bahrain cabinet
Bahrain has named a new and expanded cabinet, with six new ministers, including a former opposition figure. King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has appointed Majid al-Alawi, a member of Bahrain's Shia majority, to the post of Minister of Labour and Social Affairs. -BBC - 11/13/02
Europe lacks moral fibre, says US hawk
Richard Perle, a leading Pentagon adviser on Iraq, last night launched an extraordinary tirade against Europe which he accused of losing its moral direction and providing succour to Saddam Hussein. -Guardian - 11/13/02
Iran tense as Iraq is pressured
U.S. plans to topple Saddam Hussein's government in neighboring Iraq have riled Iran's fractious, strife-ridden government just as tensions between hard-liners and reformists have reached a boiling point. -Washington Times - 11/13/02
Terrorism's threat to globalization
Since September 11, the United States has been pursuing a policy of coercion in order to destroy any threats to the current global economic order. The attacks of that day have been used as a justification to eliminate globalization opposition groups; this justification has also been used to mask increased U.S. expansion in parts of the world (the Caucasus and Central Asia) that were previously beyond Washington's sphere of influence. -Yellow Times - 11/13/02
Student Protests Grow Over Death Sentence For Reformist Professor
The protests, now in their fourth day, brought out some 5,000 students today for sit-ins and boycotts of classes in what have become the largest pro-reform student demonstrations since massive nationwide unrest three years ago. -RFE - 11/13/02
Tricked and bamboozled into war
The casualties of Desert Storm II, physical and figurative, will include Iraqi civilians and combatants on both sides; the people of Israel and of sidelined Palestine; Kurdish hopes of self-rule; Iran's pro-western civil reform movement; the entire region's security, living standards and environment if chemical or biological weapons are used; the Arab and Muslim world's already strained relationship with "Christendom" state sovereignty as defined in international law; and democracy. -Guardian - 11/13/02
Gazprom Approves Pipe Study
Gazprom said Tuesday it had agreed with Pakistan to study whether or not a controversial and costly gas link from Iran to India could cross Pakistan's offshore zone. -Reuters - 11/13/02
Turkey resumes gas imports from Iran
The flow of gas resumed following an agreement signed between Turkish Energy Minister Zeki Cakan and his Iranian counterpart Bijan Namdar Zanganeh in Tehran in October -IRNA - 11/13/02
Iranian lecturer refuses appeal
"If the head of the judiciary thinks that this verdict is fair, he should apply it," Saleh Nikbakht quoted Hashem Aghajari as writing in response to his sentence. -BBC - 11/13/02
Iranian judiciary flays critics of death verdict for Aghajari
Iranian judiciary on Wednesday lashed out at critics of a death sentence for university professor Hashem Aghajari and defended the court which has indicted him on blasphemy charges. -IRNA - 11/13/02
Iran's top leader enters political fray as crisis mounts
Speakers at Tehran University yesterday targeted both political camps with their anger and frustration at broken promises of reform. Student leaders are considering plans to close down all universities next Monday but have kept their supporters off the streets. -Financial Times - 11/13/02
What is happening at the Modern Art Museum in Tehran
At long last I managed to find a find time to go and see the latest exhibition at the Tehran Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition, which started on 1st of October and will go on until 25th November, is called "NEW ART", or what one might call Installation Plus, with very large and interesting posters. -Syma Sayyah, Tehran - 11/13/02
Prof's death sentence outrages many
For the fourth day in a row, thousands of Iranian students protested the death sentence given to a history professor who said Muslims should not "blindly" follow religious leaders. The students' message yesterday was unusually bold: "This is our last warning to you," 5,000 students chanted in unison at Tehran University. "Iranian students are ready for an uprising." -Farnaz Fassihi, Star-Ledger - 11/13/02
Iraq war could recast US-Iran ties
Observers say the potential Iranian-US horse-trading could result in possible use by US Special Forces of Iranian military bases, the destruction by the US of anti-Iranian militia bases in Iraq, and Iran's help in rooting out Islamic militants in Iraq linked to Al Qaeda. -Christian Science Monitor - 11/13/02
Weddings rebound in Kabul
Stampede to matrimony in livelier postwar capital -MSNBC - 11/12/02
Al-Qaida Leaders Said in Pakistan
U.S. intelligence believes most of al-Qaida's surviving leaders have relocated to Pakistan, although a few have slipped away to countries in Asia and North Africa, defense and counterterrorism officials say. -AP - 11/12/02
A glimmer of European defiance
France and Russia have ensured Bush has no UN mandate for war -Guardian - 11/12/02
A thoroughly modern religion
It has become almost a given in left-leaning circles that organised religion, and Islam in particular, is incompatible with modernity, whatever that may be. In the sense that clerics should not be in charge of secular as well as priestly powers, this is obviously true. But most Muslim countries were not governed by priests. The Iranian revolution was a modern phenomenon. It happened precisely because previous rulers believed that religion had to be crushed. -Guardian - 11/12/02
Scrutiny at the Borders
As an Iranian-American, I resent the government's lumping together of Iranians with Syrians, Libyans and Iraqis in its "extra precaution" screening list of travelers entering the country. -New York Times - 11/12/02
US journalists may be no longer welcome in Iran
Iran considers restricting visas for US journalists, fingerprinting those let in as hit back to US procedures. -Middle East Online - 11/12/02
Motorocyclists gather outside Majlis protesting unemployment
Press reports have said earlier about 3.5 million people of the active population are currently out of job in Iran. At least 5.5 million high school graduates would join the jobless group within the next four years to increase the unemployment rate to 24 percent. -IRNA - 11/12/02
Iranian students renew protests
The action came the day after Iran's supreme leader issued a veiled warning that he might have to call on the "the forces of the people" if the country's governing structures did not solve major problems. -BBC - 11/12/02
US "stirs up trouble" over Hirmand River: daily
Iranian press on Tuesday urged the Afghan government to unblock Hirmand River into Iran, while one newspaper said the US was manipulating the issue to stoke up dispute between neighbors the Islamic Republic and Afghanistan. -IRNA - 11/12/02
Beiza'ie calls for preserving outstanding cinematic films
Addressing the screening session of his film `Mosaferan' (passengers) in Sepideh cinema theater on Sunday evening, he added, "A proper analysis of cinema won't be possible without screening the films produced over the last century." - 11/12/02
Leading Reformist Out Of Jail, But Room For Maneuver Limited
One of Iran's leading reformers, former Interior Minister Abdullah Nuri, is back in the public eye following his early release from prison this month. Nuri riveted Iran when he was tried three years ago on charges of spreading propaganda against the regime, but he used his televised proceedings to argue for liberalizing the political system instead. -RFE - 11/12/02
Opec members abandon quotas says IEA
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries members have abandoned quota discipline for the meantime to gain from high prices, according to the International Energy Agency. -Financial Times - 11/12/02
Iranian Presidential Advisor Sees Progress Tied to Moderation
A former philosophy and history professor, Mohammad Javad Faridzadeh returned to Iran from Germany in 1997 to serve in the cabinet of his friend, President Mohammed Khatami. In the capacity of Khatami’s speechwriter, Faridzadeh has helped steer the president’s efforts to broaden Iranian democracy and global ties. -Eurasianet - 11/12/02
Supreme leader: protecting Islamic system most important obligation of officials
Death penalty against Aghajari reminds Medieval courts' verdicts: Isfahani students association -IRNA - 11/12/02
Iran Student Protests Grow; Khamenei Gives Warning
The momentum of protests appeared to be growing, with bigger crowds in Tehran each day and demonstrations spreading to the provincial cities of Tabriz, Isfahan, Urumiyeh and Hamedan. -Reuters - 11/12/02
Collateral Damage: the health and environmental costs of war on Iraq -Report (pdf file)
The threatened war on Iraq could have disastrous short, medium and long-term consequences not only for the Iraqi population and its neighbours, but also further afield. -Medact, the British affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War - 11/12/02
Iran and Syria: The Axis of Diplomacy?
The U.S. war on terrorism has certainly made some strange bedfellows. In fact, the Bush Administration may have received some help with the passage of the UN Iraq resolution from an “evil” source. -The Globalist - 11/12/02
Political crisis deepens in Iran
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, has intervened directly in the country's growing political crisis by threatening to mobilise the "forces of the people" should rival pro-reform and conservative factions fail to resolve their struggle for power. -Financial Times - 11/12/02
Bioweapons talks reopen amid discord on verification
The conference was suspended in disarray last year after the US demanded an end to negotiations over the protocol, saying it would kill the ad hoc group negotiating it. It had also named four parties to the convention - Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Libya - that it said had illegal bioweapons programmes. They deny it. -Financial Times - 11/11/02
Activists Vow Europe-Wide Protests Against Iraq War
Peace activists pledged on Sunday to stage protests across Europe against any war in Iraq, fired by the success of a weekend rally that brought half a million protesters onto the streets of Florence. -Common Dreams - 11/11/02
Iranian MP thanks Straw over 'clear reaction' on Sharon's remarks
A key Iranian legislator has written a letter to British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, thanking him for his 'clear reaction' to hardline Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's recent remarks in which he had called for an attack on Iran. -IRNA - 11/11/02
Scott Ritter: If Israel uses nuclear weapons it will be destroyed
“The moment Israel uses its nuclear card, Arab countries will not stop until they get the Bomb and drop it on Israel. If you think a nuclear bomb on Baghdad will prevent Iran from dropping a nuclear bomb on Tel Aviv, you’d better think again.” - 11/11/02
MPs calls for ending action against polling institutes
Some 156 lawmakers on Sunday urged President Mohammad Khatami to intervene to end actions against the research and polling institutes. -IRNA - 11/11/02
Short Story: Dream (by M.A. Behaazin)
They were sitting on a large rock under the shade of a plane tree by the river. One was playing the pipe, and the other was spinning and telling herself stories in a whispering voice. And, the flock was grazing on the green hills, among the rain-washed stones and rocks. - 11/11/02
A New Age of Empire in the Middle East, Courtesy of the US and UK
British Member of Parliament George Galloway says that a plan for the division of the Middle East is circulating in the corridors of power on both sides of the Atlantic. Galloway, who met with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad this August, states that the war aims of the US and Britain go well beyond replacing the Iraqi leader. -Common Dreams - 11/11/02
THE EXPERIMENT: Will Turkey be the model for Islamic democracy?
Atatürk founded the Republic of Turkey in 1923. It was his dream to accelerate the reforms of the last Ottoman leaders and to banish from his country all traces of Islamic authority. "I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea," Atatürk once said. -New Yorker - 11/11/02
Official blames 'smugglers' for mass rotten meat controversy
Chairman of Majlis Agriculture Commission Mashallah Hosseini here Sunday put the blame for the rotten meat controversy on smugglers, rejecting reports that certain state organizations and officials were behind the case. -IRNA - 11/11/02
Life is Normal here
But I want to tell you about something totally different. I am sure there are many people like me here in Tehran, or living abroad, who have no idea what the hell is happening in this capital city of ours. -Syma Sayyah, Tehran - 11/11/02
Iranian Film "Gozareshgar" at Sports Oscars in Italy
Gozareshgar was beautiful. Based around Iran’s 1998 soccer World Cup campaign, it drew parallels between the difficulties of the Iranian soccer team on one hand and the mysteries of the contemporary Iranian experience on the other. -By Nooshin, Italy - 11/11/02
After Iraq, Bush Will Attack His Real Target
real target of the coming war is Iran, which Israel views as its principal and most dangerous enemy. Iraq merely serves as a pretext to whip America into a war frenzy and to justify insertion of large numbers of U.S. troops into Mesopotamia. -Toronto Sun - 11/11/02
Court defiant as protests mount against Aghajari's death verdict
In a statement, the Hamedan Justice Department reiterated its 'blasphemy' indictment against Aghajari and rejected what it described as 'harsh, unprincipled, political and factional stances' toward the verdict. - 11/11/02
Iran Student Reform Protests Grow on Third Day
The number of Iranian students protesting at a death sentence passed on a dissident professor swelled to more than 1,000 on Monday, the third day of demonstrations which some warn could spiral out of control. -Reuters - 11/11/02
Russia adds range to Iran's latest missiles
Iran has been supplied by Russia with powerful new technology and parts for long-range missiles that will put Israel and the whole of the Middle East - including British and US forces in the region - within its reach, The Telegraph has learned. -Telegraph, UK - 11/10/02
Event: Exhibition, Lecture, presentaion of Ferdowsi Award (Nov. 11 in New Work)
Exhibitio: Peerless Images: Persian Painting and its Sources (Eleanor Sims, Boris I. Marshak, Ernst J. Grube); Lecture: Pictures in A Stream of Persian Consciousness (Eleanor Sims); Ferdowsi Award For Service to Persian Art, Culture & Literature to Professor DJalal Khaleghi-Motlagh -Asia Society - 11/10/02
Inflation up 15.3 percent year-long in Iran
Iran's inflation rose by 15.3 percent in a year to the Iranian month of `Mehr' (September 23-October 22), according to the Central Bank of Iran. - 11/10/02
Iran protests US Justice Department bid to fingerprint Iranians
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on Saturday that the US Justice department's decision to fingerprint Iranian citizens who entered the United States before September 11, 2002 is an affront to Iranians and runs counter to ethical and civil society norms. - 11/10/02
How war inspires the world's poets (read "The Necklace" by Simin Behbahani)
Take the Iran-Iraq war. Two cultures, intensely proud of a poetic tradition, threw vast armies of their young men against each other. Just as so much First World War poetry is now ignored as hopelessly sentimental or jingoistic, much poetry was used as propaganda by both sides. -BBC - 11/10/02
Half-A-Million March in Anti-War Rally in Italy
More than half a million anti-war protesters from across Europe marched through this Italian Renaissance city on Saturday in a loud and colorful demonstration denouncing any possible U.S. attack on Iraq. -Reuters - 11/10/02
Iran parliament backs reformist bill
The Iranian parliament has approved the outlines of a bill which would give President Mohammed Khatami the right to suspend rulings by the conservative judiciary. -BBC - 11/10/02
Experts debate effects of trade with Iranians
When Riceland Foods said in October that it had made the first sale of American rice to Iran since 1995 after years of negotiations, company President Richard Bell said the situation had "looked hopeless to everyone else." -Arkansas Democrat Gazette - 11/10/02
Two Iranian MPs resign in protest to Aghajari's death sentence
Karroubi pledges early resolution of Aghajari's case -IRNA - 11/10/02
Parliament approves Khatami's bill on presidential power
The bill received an overwhelming approval of the MPs who are fresh from the last week adoption of an electoral bill which curbs the supervisory Guardians Council from wanton disqualification of candidates. -IRNA - 11/10/02
Apocalypse...Soon!
At the end of August, Jonathan Freedland - a senior journalist at the Guardian, a liberal British newspaper - interviewed Britain's Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks. It caused a furor: a voice that does not echo the party line is not tolerated. -CounterPunch - 11/9/02
A stretching ocean: Bush poses challenges for Europe
Generally speaking, European leaders have been politely non-committal about George Bush's mid-term triumphs this week. But it would be a mistake to assume that, below the public horizon, the Republicans' clean sweep and the empowerment of the Bush presidency is viewed with indifference on this side of the Atlantic. -Guardian - 11/9/02
Another Iranian MP injured in car crash
Mehrangiz Morovati, MP from Khalkhal, sustained injuries on her jaw and face after the car, in which she was travelling on a village road in Khalkhal, hit the mountain. - 11/9/02
Majlis to debate rotten meat controversy on Sunday
The Health Ministry recently reported that several hundred tones of rotting frozen meat have been clandestinely imported into Iran from remote southern ports, and have been distributed in at least 10 out of Iran's 28 provinces. - 11/9/02
Iran: Academic’s Death Sentence Condemned
The death sentence handed down this week for apostasy against Prof. Hashem Aghajari is a blatant attempt to quash legitimate, non-violent criticism of Iran's clerical rulers, Human Rights Watch said today. - 11/9/02
Book Review: 'Persian Pilgrimages: Journeys Across Iran' by Afshin Molavi
Persian Pilgrimages is structured around Molavi's visits to shrines and historical sites in Iran. He calls his travels "pilgrimages," pays the proper respects and prays a few times, but the faith he keeps is primarily journalistic. -Washington Post - 11/9/02
US Concerned About Iran Death Sentence
The United States is expressing deep concern about a death sentence handed down against a leading Iranian reform activist, and says the judgement appears to reflect a worsening human rights situation in Iran. -Voice of America - 11/9/02
Bush Fights for Another Clean Shot in His War
"A clean shot" was The Washington Post's revolting description of the murder of the al-Qa'ida leaders in Yemen by a US "Predator" unmanned aircraft. With groveling approval, the US press used Israel's own mendacious description of such murders as a "targeted killing" – and shame on the BBC for parroting the same words on Wednesday. How about a little journalistic freedom here? -Robert Fisk, Independent - 11/9/02
UN vote casts the die
Pressure was piled on Saddam Hussein, last night after the United Nations security council unanimously voted to deliver an ultimatum to Iraq to accept the unconditional return of weapons inspectors or face the prospect of war. -Guardian - 11/9/02
Iran death sentence angers reformists
The death sentence passed on a liberal academic by a court in Iran this week has caused a storm of protest in Iranian reformist circles, as well as stirring widespread international concern. -BBC - 11/9/02
World Bank grants $225 million for Iran's quake-hit areas
Deputy Governor General of Qazvin province for development affairs Mohammad Hossein Parvin-nia said here on Saturday that the World Bank will extend dlrs 225 million for the reconstruction and economic rehabilitation of quake-stricken areas in Qazvin, Zanjan and Hamedan provinces. - 11/9/02
The Persian Princess
Everybody here seems to lead double lives. There is a strong difference in people's behaviour inside their homes and out on the streets, when at work, or at a family member's home. The presence of a single person can be enough to change people's attitude so as to leave you wondering... -Oxford Student - 11/9/02
Iran's revolution starts to devour its own children
After the revolution comes the revolution, only now it's devouring its own children. Even the most powerful reformers in Iran fear the policeman's knock these days as the country's clerical rulers use their control of the security forces and the judiciary to maintain their grasp on power. -Independent - 11/9/02
In Kazakhstan, Jewish families carry on a tradition born in Persia
Perhaps the biggest irony about the Lakhloukh is that until recently this remnant of a community — there are estimated to be approximately four dozen Lakhloukh families living in Kazakhstan — still held identity papers from Iran, the country their ancestors fled en masse almost 80 years ago. -JTA - 11/8/02
Bush Welcomes Muslims to White House
As part of a White House effort to reach out to Muslims, President Bush on Thursday celebrated a Ramadan break-the-fast meal to thank Muslim countries helping with war on terrorism. -AP - 11/8/02
Quake shakes Razan west of Iran
An earthquake, measuring 4.6 degrees on the open-ended Richter scale, hit the city of Razan in western Hamedan province Thursday night, but there was no immediate report on property damage or probable casualties. - 11/8/02
UN, Afghans spar over statues ruined by Taliban
The monumental stone Buddhas of Bamiyan, reduced to rubble by Taliban demolition experts last year, might one day rise again to defy the intolerance that destroyed them. -Christian Science Monitor - 11/8/02
Canadian Minister fears being 'profiled' at U.S. border
Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal says he's worried about entering the United States because of its latest anti-terrorist measures singling out minorities. "Certainly, I was born in India. I think that anybody who is a visible minority that looked either Middle Eastern and all that, they wouldn't want to be humiliated," Dhaliwal said yesterday. -Edmonton Sun - 11/8/02
Devastating defeat for established parties in Turkish elections
On November 3 voters delivered a devastating rebuff to all the parties that have dominated Turkish politics for the past two decades. None of the parties in the previous governing coalition cleared the 10 percent vote needed to secure parliamentary representation. -World Socialist - 11/8/02
Iran denounces Canada's reaction to death sentence for Aghajari
"Any foreign interference will make the atmosphere surrounding this case political and complicate it," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said. - 11/8/02
Logic of the Birds
This is a multimedia production inspired by Farid al-Din Attar’s 12th-century Persian epic, The Conference of the Birds. His name “attar” loosely means “perfume seller”. How perfect, then, that smell is the first sense stimulated as you enter the candle-lit venue full of pungent, musky incense. -Times, UK - 11/8/02
Daily warns of Caspian pollution
"The pollution is beginning to wash up in coastal areas, thus raising concerns over the fate of the creatures living in the sea, notably the sturgeon and the Caspian seal," wrote the paper in its Opinion Column. - 11/8/02
Ashcroft defends U.S. border checks
He swept away criticism voiced by Canadian politicians, including Immigration Minister Denis Coderre, who has called the process "racial profiling." But the Attorney-General confirmed that the United States would no longer photograph and fingerprint travellers based only on their country of birth. -Globe & Mail, Canada - 11/8/02
On Border Ire, Canada Says: Blame U.S.
Rohinton Mistry, a best-selling India-born Canadian novelist, made front-page news last weekend when he canceled an American book tour because of humiliating treatment he said he had received last month during supposedly random checks at La Guardia Airport and at airports in Washington and Minneapolis. "I don't find this is the random check that they talk about, not when they happen to have it at every single stop, every single airport." -New York Times - 11/8/02
Iran: It's My Party
Despite the strict rules governing their society, teenagers in Iran are much like their Western counterparts. They often skirt the mullahs' rules and throw dance parties — much to the chagrin of the "morals" police. -The Globalist - 11/8/02
'We've settled the question of country of birth'
Foreign Affairs Minister said the issue of a U.S. requirement that Canadian citizens born in several Middle East countries be photographed and fingerprinted before crossing the border has been "settled" and denied Wednesday he had received contradictory information from the U.S. on the matter. -Globe & Mail - 11/7/02
Groups Protest US on Torture Treaty
As the U.N. General Assembly begins final debate on a measure to allow international monitoring of prisons to prevent torture, human rights groups are accusing the United States of diluting its effectiveness by blocking funding. -AP - 11/7/02
Archeological surveys underway in Jiroft
Excavators have begun their archeological surveys at `Halilroud' district in Jiroft, Kerman province in search of remnants of ancient cultures and trends in cultural and civilizational exchanges between Iran's central desert and Mesopotamia. - 11/7/02
Rep. Gekas loses seat - Bill to ban Iranian visas may be reintroduced
Representative George Gekas (R-PA), who introduced the legislation that would ban all visas to Iranians earlier this year, lost his seat to Representative Holden (D-PA) in the mid-term elections yesterday. -NIAC - 11/7/02
Abdollah Nouri's Release Welcomed, But All Prisoners of Conscience Must Also Be Released
Amnesty International welcomes the release on 5 November 2002 of Abdollah Nouri, a former Minister of the Interior and publisher of the banned newspaper Khordad but is calling for all prisoners of conscience to also be released. - 11/7/02
Iran Achieves Replacement-Level Fertility
Having dropped from around 5 to just under 3 between 1989 and 1996, Iran's total fertility rate has again plunged — this time to 2. Iran, an Islamic country, has followed a unique and rapid path to replacement-level fertility. -Population Today - 11/7/02
Afghanistan among worst places for women's health, says UNICEF
Surveys conducted by UNICEF in four parts of Afghanistan have found that Afghan women suffer from one of the highest levels of maternal mortality in the world, with almost half of all deaths among women aged 15 to 49 coming as a result of pregnancy and childbirth. - 11/7/02
Majlis commission reviews Caspian sea legal regime negotiations
Rappertour of the commission, Mrs Elaheh Koulaei told IRNA that the meeting focused on the trilateral agreement of Russia, Azarbaijan and Kazakhstan and its ramification for Iran and on the government's policies for securing the national interests in the Caspian sea. - 11/7/02
How the "Great Satan" Became Just Great
Iranians want freedom, but until then American stuff is the next best thing -Azadeh Moaveni, Time - 11/7/02
Conference: PERSIAN PROSE - Past & Present (February 15 & 16 in Portland, Oregon)
On the occasion of Sadegh Hedayat's 100th birthday anniversary, Andisheh Center will launch a new series of annual literary conferences titled: Persian Prose - Past & Present, and will dedicate its first topic to commemorating Sadegh Hedayat. - 11/7/02
A Muslim scholar builds bridges to the West
Amid rising American confusion over the nature of Islam – intensified in recent months by virulent anti-Muslim statements made in the media – comes an illuminating new book that explores the spiritual and social values of the faith of one-fifth of humanity. -Christian Science Monitor - 11/7/02
Iranian academic sentenced to death
A death sentence for apostasy has been passed on a liberal journalist and academic, Hashem Aghajari, according to Iranian reports. -BBC - 11/7/02
Iran reformist bill approved
The BBC's Jim Muir in Tehran says the council is expected to reject the bill in which case another conservative-dominated body, the Expediency Council, will be asked to arbitrate. - 11/7/02
Russia and the West vie for bragging rights in Georgia
Chechnya isn't the only region Russia and President Vladimir Putin have found themselves entwined with recently. Georgia, headed by former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze and Russia's neighbor to the south, has also been of great concern to the Russian Federation. -Yellow Times - 11/6/02
US warns companies over Israel boycott
The United States has threatened to fine US companies that take part in an Arab lead economic boycott of Israel. -BBC - 11/6/02
Oil steadies after slump on OPEC quota-cheating
Oil prices hovered near five-month lows on Wednesday after a steep fall the day before as worries over flagrant OPEC quota-busting outweighed fears of a war against Iraq. -Reuters - 11/6/02
All Because of One Small Olive
Why has the Sharon-Ben-Eliezer-Peres government collapsed? Because of a small olive. -CounterPunch - 11/6/02
Afghanistan again cuts Hirmand flow into Iran
Ten days after the Hirmand river was re-opened into Iran, Afghanistan Monday once again cut the flow for domestic autumn cultivation, the press reported Wednesday. - 11/6/02
Wary Iraqi Shi'ites vent anger at America
Caught up in a U.S.-fanned revolt against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 12 years ago, people in the Shi'ite Muslim shrine city of Karbala have many reasons to be wary. Now they say the United States is their enemy. -Reuters - 11/6/02
Country in Turmoil, and It Has the Bomb
Pakistan is a poverty-racked, deeply divided country where drug and arms cultures are rife, where central government control is diminished by a chaos of tribal loyalties, where war with India threatens constantly and where ferociously anti-Western and anti-American Islamists are vying for political power — and it has the bomb. -New York Times - 11/6/02
Iranian pop band Arian to perform in Bahrain
The Tehran-based band has eight male and three female members. "Arian is unique not only in Iran but throughout the world," said Mr Reda. -Daily News, Bahrain - 11/6/02
Iran’s President Khatami Presses for Dialogue in Spain
International news agencies reported on November 4 that Spanish companies will soon sign exploration deals for $1.3 billion in Iranian oil and gas. The reports come on the heels of Iranian President Mohammed Khatami’s first official visit to Spain, promoting mutual understanding on more complex issues. -Eurasianet - 11/6/02
Neighbours in firing line as Iraq turns on the charm
As the UN Security Council prepares to vote on a US-sponsored resolution on Iraq, Baghdad has launched a charm offensive to try to convince its neighbours not to support US-led plans for regime change. -Financial Times - 11/6/02
Iran Reportedly Pledges Help in Ousting Qaeda From Northern Iraq
An Iraqi Kurdish leader said today that Iran had promised military help to oust Islamic militants suspected of having ties with Al Qaeda from a swath of northern Iraq. -New York Times - 11/6/02
Iran power struggle nears showdown
The Iranian Parliament has begun debating a controversial bill aimed at stripping conservative hardliners of some of their powers. -BBC - 11/6/02
U.S., Allies Squeezing Iraq's Oil Smugglers in Persian Gulf
Iran's cooperation has been ``critical,'' Captain James Hanna, chief of staff of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command said. ``If you don't have Iran enforcing her borders, you have just a short time to get them,'' he said. ``Iran has worked very hard to actively force them out to the point of using weapons, shooting at smugglers getting them to stop, or having smugglers shoot at them,'' Peterson said. -Bloomberg - 11/6/02
Guardians Council rejects reform in municipal elections law
The Guardians Council on Wednesday announced it had rejected a bill to reform municipal elections law as the Iranian parliament approved a plan to curb the vetting power of the supervisory council. - 11/6/02
Woman tells of humiliation by U.S. officials
Behnaz Tehrani-Ami, a research consultant, was on her way to Orlando, Fla., with her husband to attend an international neuroscience conference when U.S. officials noticed that her Canadian passport says she was born in Iran. -Globe & Mail - 11/6/02
Iranian parliament approves new electoral bill
Iranian parliament on Wednesday approved general outlines of an electoral bill which dispenses with the need for supervisory Guardians Council to vet candidates for key state posts. - 11/6/02
Time To Use Our Influence
Why Voting this Tuesday is Important for our Community -NIAC - 11/5/02
Fingerprinting, interrogation of Canadians by U.S. continues
The U.S. policy of interrogating, photographing and fingerprinting nationals of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Sudan sparked anger in Canada after the Foreign Affairs Department warned Canadians who are also citizens of those countries that they, too, would face the interrogations at the border. -Globe & Mail - 11/5/02
Man is Mind (translation of a piece by Rumi)
Man is mind; the rest of him is merely bones and veins. Word is like the sun. All men are warmed and nourished by it. And the sun always is and exists and is present, giving warmth to all. -Roya Monajem, Tehran - 11/5/02
Quake hits Tehran province
An earthquake measuring 4.2 degrees on the open-ended Richter scale hit Tehran province at 09:16 hours local time (05:46 GMT) on Tuesday. The seismological base of the Geophysics Institute of Tehran University registered the epicenter of the quake 84 km from the capital Tehran. - 11/5/02
Afghanistan: Torture and Political Repression in Herat
The U.S.-led coalition forces are actively backing a warlord in western Afghanistan with a disastrous human rights record, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. - 11/5/02
Islam and democracy combine forces
Startled by their own single-mindedness, the people of Turkey are today weighing the implications of the Justice and Development party's (AKP) landslide election victory. -Guardian - 11/5/02
Parliamentary debate on amendment to election law
debate erupted on the parliament floor on "amendment to the election law" on Tuesday prevented the outlines of the amendment bill to be passed by deputies. The heated debate is to continue tomorrow. - 11/5/02
Straw rejects Israeli call for attack on Iran
The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, today dismissed an Israeli call to attack Iran immediately following a strike on Iraq, and called a war on Iran "the gravest possible error". -Guardian - 11/5/02
Iran, Norway to build bridge across Orumiyeh Lake
The bridge designed to measure 1,500 ms long and 12 ms wide is to be completed in three years. Some rls 500 billion has been earmarked for Shahid Kalantari project. - 11/5/02
Abusing Rumi
For God's sake, he is a poet, and one of the greatest. -Suri Dalir - 11/5/02
US stirs mixed feelings in Iran
Iran's Islamic revolution hardly draws the popular fervor it once did, as Iranians reexamine their love-hate relations with America, their own hard-line clergy, and the popularly elected reform camp that has been stymied at every turn. -Christian Science Monitor - 11/5/02
Former Hostage Taker Now Likes to Take On the Mullahs
"They expect me to denounce America and encourage burning the U.S. flag," Mr. Asgharzadeh said. "I made the mistake of climbing over that wall only once," he added. -New York Times - 11/5/02
Turkey's Erdogan leads his party to decisive victory
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of the Justice and Development party (AKP), viewed by many Turks with suspicion for its Islamist roots, last night carefully contained his excitement at winning a decisive, yet potentially divisive, victory. -Financial Times - 11/4/02
Environmentalists Claim Victory in Caviar Clash
The muddy waters of the Ural River, which divides Europe and Asia, are the theater of a race against time to save a magnificent predator so old it predates even dinosaurs. -Moscow Times - 11/4/02
Rezazadeh announced `Weightlifter of the World'
Rezazadeh burst spectacularly onto the international scene at the 2000 Sydney Olympics with a superhuman lift to defeat two legends of the sport on the way to gold and the title of the `world's strongest man'. - 11/4/02
Tehran says unable to confirm if Bin Laden's son was in Iran
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said here Monday that the Islamic Republic is not in a position to confirm foreign media reports that Osama bin Laden's son was in a group that is said to have entered Iran illegally from its eastern border. - 11/4/02
Oil prices will plummet if the United States attacks Iraq
Is Saddam Hussein the oil patch's best friend? Certainly oil patch revenues have been the big beneficiary of the dictator's head-on collision course with the U.S. military. -Globe & Mail - 11/4/02
Fundamentalists' days numbered in Iran
Twenty-four years after Ayatollah Khomeini's bloody revolution, more than 60% of young Iranians are distancing themselves from Islam. -Nader Sadighi, Japan Today - 11/4/02
Iranian builds foldaway glider
An Iranian inventor has built a foldaway glider for parachuting troops on emergency occasions. The six kg glider was on display at the first international air show in Kish held from October 30 - November 3. - 11/4/02
Turkey Islamists win election landslide
The Islamist-based Justice and Development Party (AK) has won a crushing victory in Turkey's general elections, enabling it to end 15 years of coalition government. -BBC - 11/4/02
Parliament approves operation of foreign universities in Iran
The Iranian parliament on Sunday approved to let operation of foreign colleges in the country as well as establish private universities for the first time since the Islamic Revolution. - 11/4/02
Iran revalues price of non-Muslim lives
Iran's reformist parliament has approved a draft law which puts the same "blood money" value on the lives of Muslim and non-Muslim men. -BBC - 11/4/02
Expert: Iran ripe for revolution
More than 74 percent of Iranians in Tehran support the re-establishment of relations with the "Great Satan," the U.S., according to a recent survey by Iran's state-controlled National Institute of Opinion Polls, notes Fereydoun Hoveyda, who served as Iranian ambassador to the United Nations for eight years prior to the Islamic revolution of 1979. -WorldNetDaily - 11/4/02
Leading Iranian reformist 'arrested'
It has been reported in Iran that a leading figure in the reformist movement, Abbas Abdi, has been arrested at his home in Tehran. The arrest comes amid a crackdown by the hard-line judiciary on organisations conducting public opinion polls. -BBC - 11/4/02
Revealed: Why Germans Oppose War in Iraq - French Fries
Germany is not an oil-producing nation, and the typical German consumes less than half the overall energy and oil of the typical American. -Thom Hartmann - 11/3/02
The Making of An Activist
Laura Brodie is a mother, author, teacher, taxpayer and voter. But in the threat of war with Iraq, she discovered another identity -Common Dreams - 11/3/02
The dilemma of attacking Iraq
In the scope of American politics, the foreign policy of the Bush administration is not radical. Foreign interventions were a regular occurrence in Washington except for a brief deviation during the Clinton presidency. -Yellow Times - 11/3/02
Fleeing bin Laden son detained in Iran
Iranian security forces have detained at least one of Osama bin Laden's sons along with several hundred people suspected of having links to the al-Qaeda organisation. The captures happened on Iranian territory as the group fled Afghanistan, according to an Iranian official. -Financial Times - 11/3/02
Event: "From Revolution to Reform. From Reform to What?" (Nov. 8, in Berkeley, California)
A talk by Dr. Ali Akbar Mahdi from Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio Wesleyan University. - 11/3/02
Event: The Iranian American Bar Association Briefing (Nov. 21, in Washington, D.C.)
A briefing on recently passed and currently pending legislation which could effectively ban the entry of students, tourists and immigrants from Iran into the United States. -NIAC - 11/3/02
Iran bars Kurd MPs from northern Iraq assembly
Iran has turned down a request by Kurdish legislators to attend a regional parliament in northern Iraq on the grounds their participation would fuel tensions with its old foe, a parliamentary source said on Sunday. -Reuters - 11/3/02
Iran's non-oil export shows 12.4 percent boost
According to a report released here on Saturday by Iran's Customs Administration, the value of non-oil exports through customs offices over the same period amounted to dlrs 2.54 billion showing a 7.7 percent boost compared to last year. - 11/3/02
Iranian reformists seek alternative to stoning
Iranian reformist legislators said on Sunday they wanted to replace death by stoning with another form of punishment following European criticism of the practice. -Reuters - 11/3/02
Iran hires first woman bus driver
The first woman bus driver in Iran has begun work on an inter-city route, heralding a new era in a country dominated by men. -BBC - 11/3/02
Iran: Temporary marriages surge by 122% six months
Notaries' office says social, economic problems, particularly poverty, main reasons behind rise of ‘Sigheh’. -Midde East Online - 11/3/02
The modern face of Iran
Iran's slow journey out of isolation and into the modern, more Westernised world is gathering pace. BBC world affairs correspondent Bridget Kendall discovers a nation of contradictions. - 11/3/02
Turkey's economic rollercoaster
Dismay over economic prospects has quickly given way to euphoria, but Turkey's history suggests upset is rarely far away -BBC - 11/2/02
Illegal oil lines Saddam’s pockets
U.S. looks the other way on vast network -Borzou Daragahi, MSNBC - 11/2/02
Mistry cancels U.S. tour over racial profiling
Rohinton Mistry (an Indian-born Canadian), one of Canada's most celebrated authors, has cancelled his U.S. book tour, complaining that he has faced "unbearable" humiliation as a result of racial profiling in American airports. -Globe & Mail - 11/2/02
Dam on the Tigris puts Assyrian past under threat
As war looms again over Iraq, the country's archaeologists have appealed for international help to salvage the ruins of the ancient Assyrian empire before a dam to plug the river Tigris swamps them in 2007. -Financial Times - 11/2/02
Iran takes 173-ton share in world's total saffron output
Iran produces 173 tons of the world's 210-ton saffron output a year, announced the Governor General of Khorasan Province Seyed Hassan Rasouli here on Saturday. - 11/2/02
Genghis Khan Exhibition Opens in New York
In the West, the name Genghis Khan evokes the image of the Mongols' ruthless conquest of much of the known world in the 13th century. But a visit to an exhibition opening this month at New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art shows the fearsome leader left behind more than a legacy of mayhem and destruction. -VOA - 11/2/02
Warning on U.S. travel stays, for now
Canada's foreign affairs department won't lift a warning about the risks of travelling to the United States until the U.S. puts in writing a pledge not to fingerprint and photograph Canadians who were born in a handful of Middle Eastern and Muslim countries. -Toronto Star, Canada - 11/2/02
The rhetoric remains the same but Iran is trying to change
The revolutionary dynamo that stoked the zeal of the Muslim world and sent a wave of fear rumbling through the West would appear to have run down. -Telegraph, UK - 11/2/02
Eshkevari appeals "parallel" court ruling
Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari has appealed against a "parallel" court ruling which sentenced him last month to seven years in prison for attending a Berlin conference and "insulting Islamic sanctities" as well as "spreading lies", he told IRNA here Saturday. - 11/2/02
Rafsanjani: Rumsfeld will take hope of Iran regime change to hell
Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani here Friday hit out at the US defense secretary for predicting an early overthrow of the Islamic Republic, saying Donald Rumsfeld will take such a hope into hell. - 11/2/02
Passions run deep under the Iranian chador as young lovers outfox the hardline clerics
At first glance, the Islamic strictures forbidding unchaperoned contact between unmarried Iranian men and women are being rigidly respected. But on closer examination one can see the "third generation of the revolution" as the young are often called, are busy with a strange new dating ritual. -Independent - 11/2/02
Iran shuts down second polling institute
Two reformists researchers from institute of studies, opinion surveys arrested, no reason given for arrests. -Middle East Online - 11/2/02
Iran's long power struggle nears climax
Iran's military commanders are giving public warnings of the external US threat, but internally their focus is on the danger of civil unrest as the Islamic republic's domestic power struggle approaches what both sides are calling the end-game. -Financial Times - 11/2/02
Russia trains its sights on the world's arms trade
At first glance, the list of overseas offices of Roso-boronexport, Russia's principal arms exporter, looks like a roll call of US president George W Bush's "axis of evil". The agency has representatives in the capitals of regimes long ostracised by the west, from Iran and Iraq to North Korea, via Syria and Libya. -Financial Times - 11/1/02
Fifty Afghan women die daily in pregnancy -U.N.
Fifty women die in Afghanistan each day of complications related to pregnancy, even though nearly all the deaths are preventable, the United Nations said on Thursday. -Reuters - 11/1/02
Russian and U.S. economies desire opposite outcome in Iraq
Iraq has 110 billion barrels of oil reserves, second largest only to Saudi Arabia. Iraq's granting of large oil deals to politically important countries is cutting American companies out. -Yellow Times - 11/1/02
Iraqi opposition talks may lead to provisional government
Iraq's fractured opposition groups are expected to hold their biggest gathering in a decade when they meet in mid-November for talks that could lead to the formation of a provisional government, according to Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). -Financial Times - 11/1/02
Portuguese co offers to buy Israel-Iranian EAPC
Sources inform “Globes” that the Iranian government recently held negotiations to sell its 50% stake in Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Co. (EAPC) to the Portuguese World Bank. -Globes Online, Israel - 11/1/02
Iraq colors Kurdish campaign in Turkey's national election
A Kurdish party could win representation for the first time Sunday, analysts say. -Christian Science Monitor - 11/1/02
U.S. to exempt Canada from travel law: Graham
The United States seems to be exempting Canada from a law targeting selected foreign visitors for fingerprinting and photos. Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham says American Ambassador Paul Cellucci has assured him Canadians with valid passports will be treated as Canadians -- regardless of their place of birth. -CTV, Canada - 11/1/02
World Bank arm again delays considering Iran loan
The World Bank's private- sector financing arm has again delayed the consideration of an investment in Iran that would have been its first for the country since 1974. -Reuters - 11/1/02
Khatami winds up Spain visit
Iranian leader leaves Spain after defending image of Islam, blaming US for strengthening appeal of bin Laden. -Middle East Online - 11/1/02
The beautiful and deadly Tehran-Chalous road
Another road accident has just been added to the huge pile of accidents in Iran. A tragic accident on Tehran-Chalous road has left three people dead, among them two prominent members of the parliament, and has left another parliamentarian injured. This provoked me to share my recent experience driving on Tehran-Chalous road. (+photos) -Ali Moayedian - 11/1/02
'Something to say'
Iranian filmmaker Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, a member of the 26th Cairo Film Festival's jury, speaks with Hani Mustafa -Al Ahram, Egypt - 11/1/02
"Great Satan" scares few in modern Iran
"The incident over the poll (about Iran-U.S. relations) is a classic example of the conservatives in denial," said Ali Ansari, a lecturer in Middle East history at Durham University, England. Unlike other countries in the region, "the people on the street in Iran are not anti-American. The anti-U.S. slogans are totally out of tune with the people." -Reuters - 11/1/02
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