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Posted 8/3/2007 @ 10:49:1 GMTTension Rises in Iran Over Women's RightsTEHRAN -- Uncommonly high tensions between law enforcement officials and human rights activists ahead of today's annual commemoration of International Women's Day have led to dozens of arrests here in the capital. more By Los Angeles Times

Posted 8/3/2007 @ 10:41:57 GMTFormer Iranian Defense Official Talks to Western IntelligenceA former Iranian deputy defense minister who once commanded the Revolutionary Guard has left his country and is cooperating with Western intelligence agencies, providing information on Hezbollah and Iran's ties to the organization, according to a senior U.S. official. more By The Washington Post

Posted 8/3/2007 @ 0:45:34 GMTCountry Reports on Human Rights PracticesThe Islamic Republic of Iran, with a population of approximately 68 million, is a constitutional, theocratic republic in which Shi'a Muslim clergy dominate the key power structures. Article Four of the constitution states that "All laws and regulations…shall be based on Islamic principles." Government legitimacy is based on the twin pillars of popular sovereignty (Article Six) and the rule of the Supreme Jurisconsulate, or Supreme Leader (Article Five). more By The U.S. State Department

Posted 6/3/2007 @ 10:52:12 GMTTime for Iranians to Engage IraniansTo engage or attack? This is the question gripping pundits on U.S.-Iranian relations as the United Nations deadline for Iran's compliance on its nuclear program has come and gone, and as U.S. officials plan to take part in talks on Iraq's future that may include Iranian representatives. more By The Baltimore Sun

Posted 8/3/2007 @ 0:25:49 GMTEU Offers Olive Branch to Iran on Nuclear IssueThe European Union urged Iran on Wednesday to take up an offer to suspend its nuclear enrichment in return for suspending sanctions on Tehran. "We therefore urge Iran to take up the offer of double suspension, as endorsed recently by the director general," French ambassador Francois-Xavier Deniau said, speaking for the three EU powers mediating in the nuclear standoff. more By Agence France Presse

Posted 7/3/2007 @ 21:4:16 GMTIran Accuses US and Israel of Threatening Military AttacksIran took the US, Israel and the UN Security Council to task on Wednesday, accusing Washington and Jerusalem of threatening military attacks on its nuclear facilities and saying Security Council pressure on Tehran was illegal. more By The Associated Press

Posted 7/3/2007 @ 20:36:20 GMTBush Rediscovers DiplomacyWASHINGTON -- A caustic former U.S. ambassador named Chas Freeman compiled a volume he called "The Diplomat's Dictionary.'' It included several memorable definitions, including "Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggie' till you can find a rock,'' and "Diplomacy is letting someone else have your way.'' more By The Washington Post

Posted 7/3/2007 @ 16:41:4 GMTIran to Ration Gasoline, Raise Price By 20%TEHRAN -- The Iranian Parliament decided Wednesday to ration gasoline, starting in May, the official IRNA news agency reported. more By Dow Jones Newswires

Posted 7/3/2007 @ 14:23:32 GMTIran in BooksIran may seem like a difficult country for Americans to get to know. It has been almost three decades since Washington and Tehran have had diplomatic relations. The Islamic Republic gives few Americans visas and, counting all diplomats and businessmen and their spouses, only about 3,000 Westerners live among the seventy million Iranians.[1] more By Middle East Quarterly

Posted 7/3/2007 @ 14:16:56 GMTIran: Teachers Stage Rally in Front of ParliamentThousands of teachers staged a rally on Tuesday in front of the Majlis, the Iranian parliament, in Tehran asking Iranian education minister Mahmoud Farshidi to step down, their salaries to be raised and that colleagues fired for political reasons be reinstated. The protest, the second in just a week by teachers, was called by 30 teachers' unions. Last Saturday, an estimated 50,000 professors protested, threatening to block mid-term exams and to strike until their fired colleagues, as many as 1,500 only in Kurdistan, were given their jobs back. more By AKI

Posted 7/3/2007 @ 14:10:12 GMTImproved Iranian Surface Missiles for Palestinian Hamas and Jihad IslamiAccording to DEBKAfile’s military sources, the two missiles which reached the southern part of Ashkelon Tuesday, March 6, were range-finding exercises for the new weapons. more By DEBKAfile

Posted 7/3/2007 @ 14:4:25 GMTUS Foriegn Policy Pragmatists in Driving SeatAs the US looks back at four years of failed efforts to pacify Iraq, more evidence is emerging of the dysfunctional state of the Bush administration's decision-making process back in 2003 and how, according to former officials and analysts, those unresolved failings continue to affect wider foreign policy. more By The Financial Times

Posted 7/3/2007 @ 13:56:22 GMTIranian Secrets on the Loose?Ali Reza Askari, a former aide to the Iranian defense minister and a retired general with long service in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has been missing since Feb. 7. He reportedly was last seen in Istanbul. After his disappearance, Arab newspapers quickly fingered Mossad and the CIA for his assassination or kidnapping. Iranian officials made similar claims. On Tuesday, the independent Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat offered a different explanation: Askari had defected, turning himself over to U.S. agents in Turkey. more By Stratfor