Western powers set new deadline for Iran: July 12th.

Tuesday, July 4, 2006.
Western powers set new deadline for Iran: July 12th.

• Yahoo News reported that western powers have set July 12 as a deadline for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and agree to talks on its nuclear program or face the threat of U.N. Security Council sanctions. [Yeah right. When? When hell freezes over?]

Iran responds: Suspension, Not on Iran Agenda!

• ISNA reported that Iran's National Security Council Strategic deputy called the West's continue haste and pressure on Iran to answer the proposed nuclear proposal, suspicious. "Iran will not suspend its nuclear activities and believes that there is no need for negotiations... ."

Karen Hughes kills Bush's US broadcasting nominee who sought a return to the principles that proved so effective during the Cold War.

• Joel Mowbray, The Washington Times reported that in a stunning move, Karen Hughes sided with the Democratic members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors earlier this month in shooting down the Republicans' preferred candidate to head up U.S. radio services who would like to return to the principles that proved so effective during the Cold War, namely targeting key decision makers with serious programming laced with the values and ideals inherent to free societies. What's up with Karen?

Ganji asks West to join him in a hunger strike, if prisoners are not released.

• Radio Free Europe reported that dissident Iranian journalist Akbar Ganji has threatened to organize a hunger-strike "movement" in several Western cities if the government does not release three Iranian political prisoners and has called on all freedom-loving Iranians and human rights defenders to join him.

Poll: Iranian support for its nuclear program has its limits.

• Michael Herzog, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy published a report on a recent Iranian public opinion poll on Iran's Nuclear Program that shows there is much more debate among the populace than conventional wisdom would report.

US Adm: We should support the Iranian people to take back their country.

• Adm. James Lyons, The Washington Times reminded us that over the past 25 years, the regime founded by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini has declared war on the United States several times, the only real solution is the elimination of the current Khamenei regime. How? He argued that we should help the Iranian people eliminate the current regime and take Iran back.

Iran's plans to ration gasoline carry big risks for the regime.

• The Washington Times reported that while Iran plans to halt gasoline imports and introduce rationing, similar attempts to lift subsidies on key commodities in other countries have sparked widespread unrest.
• Reuters reported that cheap fuel is seen as a national right inside of Iran. Drivers are bitter about the government's assertion that rationing could be imminent. This report explains how this crisis came to be.

Iran's leader orders privatization of Iranian businesses.

• The Financial Times reported that Iran issued an executive order for the privatization of 80 per cent of several state-owned companies. But it is unlikely to succeed without massive foreign investment.

Iranian Press: "Zionists" no longer feel safe anywhere in the world.

• Mehran Riazaty reported that the editor of a hard-line Iranian daily Keyhan newspaper, Hossein Shariatmadari, said a new front should be opened against Israel so that "Zionists" no longer feel safe anywhere in the world.

Iran warns India and Pakistan: we can sell our natural gas to Europe.

• Gulf Times reported that Iran won’t discount the price of its natural gas due to flow through a proposed pipeline to Pakistan and India because of global demand. Europe wants to purchase it instead. Hmmm.

Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

• Rooz Online reported that a week after the banning of the Student Association of Amir Kabir University (a major university student organization in Iran) the student crackdown has been rising. He reported on the many protests throughout Iran.
• Rooz Online reported on the signing of an agreement for $7 billion between Iran’s Oil Ministry and a firm belonging to the elite Passdaran Revolutionary Guards Corps, now the largest business and economic trust in the country. Many fear this new arrangement may again produce the same kind of criminal activities that took place in the past.
• Rooz Online reported that even though the leader of the Islamic regime recently formed the Foreign Relations Council of Iran, the actual wording used by the leader regarding the formation of this center is to ‘assist long-term decision" making, not actual decision-making or any executive functions.

Category: Iran.
- posted by Rosemary Welch@7:05 PM