Arab view of Iranian elecions

The following may be more significant than we think:

 

"The shadow of threat has been removed forever from over the head of the Iranian nation … I announce officially today that the Iranian nation is a real and genuine superpower."

"Superpower" usually means atomic power. Does it mean Ahmadinejad knows that Iran will soon have the bomb as well as a means of delivery?? That could be much more interesting new than Iranian elections.

 

Ami Isseroff

 

Between Khatami and Ahmadinejad
Al-Hayat     Manually Created     - 11/02/09//

 

In the speech he delivered yesterday at a closing ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reviewed his four-year tenure which he seeks to renew in June. He said, "The shadow of threat has been removed forever from over the head of the Iranian nation … I announce officially today that the Iranian nation is a real and genuine superpower." This is the foundation of his coming presidential campaign even though he has not announced his candidacy yet, leaving it for sources close to him to talk on his behalf.

 

Two days prior to this announcement, former President Khatami (1997-2005) decided to run for presidency. He ascribed his decision to "the historical tendency of the Iranian people to attain freedom, independence, and justice," which he pledged to realize if he wins in free and transparent elections.

 

As such, we are ahead of two visions for Iran. Yet, Ahmadinejad will not be the only conservative candidate; Speaker of the Iranian Shura Council and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, a key candidate whom Ahmadinejad defeated, has not given his final word yet. Likewise, Khatami will not be the only reformist candidate; Former Speaker Mehdi Karroubi has almost declared his candidacy, while Mir Hussein Mousawi is also likely to do so.

 

The first vision focuses on Iran's power (with consequent regional roles), while the second rests on freedom, justice, and independence (with it tipping the balance in favor of a domestic agenda). So are we ahead of an electoral campaign, the results of which reflect the Iranians' ability to choose between Iran "the superpower" and Iran the freedom and justice? This wager may perhaps renew interest in the Iranian elections. Were it not for Khatami's candidacy, the campaign would be boring, settled in favor of Ahmadinejad who is supported by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the military establishment.

 

But can Khatami win the elections? Will he succeed where he failed in his two previous terms?

 

In 1997, a wave of students, youths, and women brought Khatami to power. Until 2005, the president was unable to meet any of their demands. Instead, the students were repressed on their campuses by Hezbollah groups, the student military wing of the "Revolutionary Guard"- with the president failing to protect them. He had even repeatedly criticized their movement. Thus, the frustration that plagued this group of voters will presumably dampen their enthusiasm to vote for Khatami as they did twice earlier. 

 

Khatami's calculated openness to the West backfired at home. His openness was depicted as submission and carelessness for the national unity and Iranian dignity. In addition to his image as a reluctant domestically weak president who is unable to make decisive decisions, Khatami was portrayed as a president who jeopardized Iran's international and regional role. This was the case when the reformist had an influential voice in the Shura Council and Local Councils that are fully controlled by the conservatives and which can thwart any reformist project Khatami's government might draft if he wins.

 

But the roots of the president's impotency in Iran do not stem from the results of the elections, but rather lie in the constitutional nature of the regime whereby the religious establishment tightens its grip on the country, alongside the social and military establishment, which are all affiliated to the supreme leader, the constitutional source of all decisions. In order for the president to be powerful, he must represent these institutions, as the case is with Ahmadinejad today, despite his poor economic performance -  with inflation exceeding 30% and unemployment soaring high, up to 60% in some regions. While this outcome is consensually ascribed to the costly military programs, random investment in oil resources, and the inability to handle the economy's mechanisms, the western sanctions on the backdrop of Iran's nuclear program have also contributed to the crisis.

 

In a second possible tenure, Ahmadinejad will unlikely propose other visions. Thus, the wager of the presidential elections is only a caricature of democracy and pluralism, as noted by Larijani after Khatami announced his candidacy.

 

 

Iran: Seven Baha'i charged as spies for Israel

For more about Iranian persecution of Bahai see Human rights in Iran and Israel and download the presentation:

 A Tale of two Shrines.

 

 

Last update - 18:17 11/02/2009       
Iran charges 7 members of Baha'i faith with spying for Israel
By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent

 

Seven people belonging to the Baha'i faith are scheduled to stand trial in Iran over charges of "spying for Israel," among other charges, the Iranian ISNA news agency reported Wednesday.

 

The news agency quoted Tehran's Deputy General Prosecutor Hassan Hadad as saying that the seven defendants also face charges of "desecrating Islam and campaigning against an Islamic republic."

 

The deputy prosecutor and the news agency did not specify the nature of the espionage the seven are suspected of having engaged in.
 
The disciples of the Baha'i faith, founded in 1863, are considered infidels in Iran and are subject to persecution which has gained momentum since the rise of the Islamic Republic 30 years ago. At the end of 2008 it was reported that Iran had hanged a Baha'i man on charges of adultery and rape. Approximately a month ago, the secretary of human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi had been arrested on charges that she had maintain contact with members of the Baha'i faith, and suspicion that she herself may have been a member.

 

In May of last year, Haaretz reported that Iran had held six Baha'i members on similar charges, but it was not clear whether the seven were the same Baha'I leaders arrested in 2008.

 

The European Union reiterated its deep concern over "the ongoing systematic discrimination and the persecution of the Iranian Baha'is."

Iran: No arms for Hamas on docked ship

Iran: No arms for Hamas on docked ship

Feb. 11, 2009
Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman on Wednesday denied reports that a ship detained off Cyprus was carrying Iranian weapons destined for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said that Cypriot authorities had inquired about the ship's cargo but accusations that weapons were on board were baseless.

Cypriot Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou said Tuesday that the ship had breached a UN ban on Iranian arms exports but refused to specify what had been found on the Cypriot-flagged Monchegorsk.

Cyprus inspected the Monchegorsk twice after it arrived Jan. 29.

The US military stopped the ship last month in the Red Sea and said it found artillery shells and other arms on board, but it could not legally detain the ship.

Iran: We're not running out of uranium

Teheran denies running out of uranium
Feb. 11, 2009
Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST

 

Iran said Wednesday that it was not running out of raw uranium or seeking to buy uranium concentrate from abroad to sustain its ambitious nuclear program.

 

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said reports that Iran's raw uranium stockpile was running out was only "media speculation without any scientific basis."

 

An Atomic Energy Organization of Iran official also said Iran has its own uranium mines to extract ore, which are sufficient and there is no shortage. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

 

The Times of London has reported that Western powers believe Iran is running short of raw uranium and its stockpile could be exhausted within months. The paper reported last month that Western countries were trying to dissuade major uranium producers from selling the ore to Iran.

 

Iran's own principal source of uranium is the Saghand mine in the center of the country, which has the capacity to produce 132,000 tons of ore per year. Located about 300 miles south of Teheran, the mine consists of an open pit with minimal reserves and a deep mine. It has a a total estimated uranium ore reserve of 1.73 million tons.

 

Iran also has had a considerable stock of yellow cake, acquired from South Africa in the 1970s under the former US-backed shah's original civil nuclear power program.

 

Uranium ore extracted from a mine such as Saghand is first reprocessed into uranium ore concentrate, known as yellowcake. In the next stage, yellowcake is turned into UF-4, a preliminary stage before being reprocessed into uranium hexafluoride gas, known as UF-6. Iran does this reprocessing at its Uranium Conversion Facility in Isfahan.

 

In the next stage, the gas is injected into centrifuges - machines that spun at supersonic speeds to purify uranium. Iran says it has 5,000 centrifuges operating in its Natanz uranium enrichment plant in central Iran.

 

Uranium enriched to a low degree is used to make fuel for a nuclear power reactor - but highly enriched uranium can be used to make bombs.

 

The US and some of its allies accuse Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons, but Teheran denies the charges saying its nuclear program is geared toward generating electricity - not weapons.

 

The UN Security Council has slapped three rounds of economic sanctions on Iran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

 

Meanwhile, Qashqavi also said Wednesday that the US needs to stop making "baseless" accusations against Iran in order to pave the way for talks between the two adversaries.

 

He said US President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments Tuesday that Iran would welcome talks with the United States based on mutual respect meant the US must stop leveling accusations against Iran.

 

But Qashqavi said that US President Barack Obama should be given some time to take steps toward better relations.

 

Anti-Semitism - alive and well in Australia?

 A sinister hatred kept alive when we turn a blind eye

 

Frank Devine | February 06, 2009
Article from:  The Australian

 

IT is improbable that I could bring myself to stay for long, if at all, in the same room with somebody who had described Jews as "real motherf--king bastards." Apart from this piece of abuse, Maqsood Alsham, an asylum seeker from Bangladesh, has described the Gaza invasion by Israel as a worse atrocity than the Holocaust.

 

Yet three universities - Sydney, Macquarie and the Sydney University of Technology - continued their support of a conference organised by Maqsood to debate whether Israel should be tried by the International Court of Justice for the invasion.

 

In an early defence, Maqsood ingenuously whinged: "Is it anything wrong to have a private conversation? This is not my public view."

 

But to hold and express such views privately or publicy is to put oneself beyond the pale.

 

The English Catholic schismatic "bishop" Richard Williamson has done that with his dogmatic assertions that "only 200,000 to 300,000 Jews" died under Nazi persecution and none in gas chambers.

 

Only 200,000 or 300,000 men, women and children murdered for the crime of being Jews! How trivial a transgression!

 

Williamson reiterated this view on Swedish TV just prior to Pope Benedict's lifting last week the excommunication orders imposed on Williamson and three other "bishops" of the breakaway Society of Pius IX, founded by the French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in rebellion against some of the conclusions of Vatican Council II.

 

Not being skilled at reading the minds of popes, I'm inclined to accept the official explanation that Benedict, having responsibility for preserving church unity, seeks to draw the Society of Pius IX back into the Catholic communion. The Pope's personality also makes it plausible that he cancelled the excommunication order, imposed on the four bishops by Paul VI in 1988, out of compassion for the individuals.

 

But Williamson! Great fools have achieved episcopal rank before, and you don't have to search widely to suspect their contemporary presence. Williamson is a special case, however.

 

Apart from his attempted trivialisation of the Holocaust, he has called Jews "the enemies of Christ" and claimed that they "aim at world dominion". (He also believes the US government engineered John F. Kennedy's assassination and that women shouldn't attend universities.)

 

The Pius IX Society superior, "bishop" Bernard Fellay, has told the Pope he has forbidden Williamson to speak out publicly about any historical or political question.

 

But who would want to listen to such a man speaking out in any circumstances on any subject? Unless, of course, he was able to pass himself off as a bishop and a man now in good standing with the Catholic Church.

 

At least, living in Sydney, where The Age does not home deliver, I am spared the temptation to provide the hospitality of my doorstep to a newspaper that publishes a column (by one David Backman) blaming Israel's "utter inability to transform the Palestinians from enemies into friends" for "the bombs on London's public transport, bombs in bars in Bali and even the loss of the World Trade Centre in New York".

 

Backman tosses in a loonily non sequitur anecdote about how unpopular young Israeli backpackers are in Nepal because of being "rude, arrogant and arguing over trifling sums of money".

 

The allegation of arguing over trifling sums of money was, for me, the killer strike: the hate-filled stereotype of the avaricious, grasping Jew.

 

It brought back an imbedded memory of a long-ago poker game, during which a friend called John, whose surname doesn't matter, and a friend called Wally, whose surname does, battled it out for a pot of about 50 quid: double a journalist's weekly wage at the time. Wally had the cards and, with a joyful whoop, reached out to gather in the pile of coins and notes.

 

"You bloody Jew Ginsberg sorry Wally," John blurted. It came out in a single sentence. John's face turned scarlet with shame.

 

The poker game finished after a few desultory hands. It couldn't continue. Though, happily, no friendships were lost, we were all aware of having approached the brink of something unspeakable.

 

When I was 14, my father took me, to further my education, to a newsreel about Belsen concentration camp. The scenes of bulldozers pushing emaciated bodies into mass graves horrified me but the greatest horror was in the eyes and faces of the survivors, who had been to a place beyond nightmare and hell.

 

Given to adolescent self-romanticising, I felt, as a non-Jew, guilty about these sights. The guilt has not vanished. Whenever I read, reluctantly, about the Holocaust, I ask myself if I would be brave enough to resist officially sanctioned persecution of my neighbours because of their race.

 

Not being sure, I feel pain and shame when people such as Maqsood Alsham, David Backman and Richard Williamson get away with their sinister calumnies.

Hooray for Cyprus - enforcing sanctions against Iran

Remember that the US navy intercepted an Iranian ship (this one?) but let it go.

 

Last update - 18:17 07/02/2009       
UN: Cargo of Iranian ship seized en route to Gaza violates resolution 1747
By The Associated Press

The sanctions department of the United Nations Security Council on Saturday informed Cyprus that the cargo of the Iranian ship seized en route to Gaza in late January violates UNSC resolution 1747, which forbids the trafficking of weapons with Iran.

 

The ship will not be returned to Iran, Cypriot officials said Saturday, but they refused to say what exactly was found onboard the boat or whether the cargo contravened UN resolutions.

 

Cyprus inspected the Monchegorsk twice after it arrivedafter it arrived Jan. 29 under suspicion of ferrying weapons from Iran to Hamas fighters in Gaza. The U.S. military stopped the ship last month in the Red Sea, and said it found artillery shells and other arms aboard. But it could not legally detain the ship, which continued to Port Said, Egypt, and then to Cyprus.
 
Authorities will decide what to do with the cargo once they have finished searching the ship, Cyprus' President Dimitris Christofias said, without
saying how long that could take.

 

One option could be to confiscate the cargo, the president said. But Cyprus has ruled out sending the shipment back to Iran, Christofias' adviser George Iacovou said Saturday, according to state-run CyBC radio.

 

Christofias said Cyprus had received clear guidance from the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee on whether the cargo breached sanctions barring Iran from sending arms abroad, but he refused to give any details or say what was advised.

 

The Cyprus-flagged ship is now anchored off the port of Limassol under tight security.

 

Cyprus is also consulting with the UN Security Council on the issue, government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said.

 

"The Cyprus Republic will do what it must do and will decide very soon," Stefanou told a news briefing.

UN suspends aid to Gaza following Hamas theft

UNRWA
Press Release
East Jerusalem
06 Feb 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

UNRWA SUSPENDS IMPORTS INTO GAZA FOLLOWING AID THEFT

UNRWA NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE PUBLICATION

Jerusalem (UNRWA): The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, has suspended all imports of aid into the Gaza Strip following the confiscation of hundreds of tons of food aid.

During the night of 05 Feb 10 truckloads of flour and rice were taken from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom Crossing into Gaza. They had been  imported from Egypt for collection by UNRWA today. The food was taken away by trucks contracted by the Ministry of Social Affairs. Two hundred metric tones of rice and one hundred metric tons of flour were taken.

UNRWA's suspension of imports will remain in effect until the aid is returned and the Agency is given credible assurances from the Hamas government in Gaza that there will be no repeat of these thefts.

This is the second incident in 3 days, on Tuesday 03 Feb, three thousand five hundred blankets and over four hundred food parcels were taken at gun point from a distribution store in Beach Camp, Gaza. UNRWA has demanded the return of this aid as well

Ends

For more information please contact:
Christopher Gunness
UNRWA Spokesperson
Mobile: +972-(0)54-240-2659
Office: +972-(0)2-589-0267

Sami Mshasha
UNRWA Arabic Spokesperson
Mobile: +972-(0)54-216-8295
Office: +972 (0)2-589-0724

Isabel de la Cruz
Public Information Officer
(m) 054 240 2630