Tag Archives: tehran

Government Forces Clash Violently with Iranian Protesters

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Tens of thousands of democracy activists took to the streets of Tehran today chanting “death to the Dictator” and calling for an end to their Ayatollah-led “religious dictatorship.” Their chants were met with the brutal violence of Basij militiamen and anti-riot police who used steel batons, fired bullets, and dropped tear gas on the crowd. “This was the most violent protest we’ve had by far, and… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : The Blaze Discovery Date : 20/02/2011 15:50 Number of articles : 2

Government Forces Clash Violently with Iranian Protesters

The Rats Are All Scrambling – Arabs Fear Iran As Much As Israel

The vast trove of diplomatic cables leaked on Sunday, US time, by the WikiLeaks website shows that US allies in Europe and the Middle East are pushing for tough action against the Iranian nuclear threat. The international community is already pressuring Iran to drop its attempt to refine uranium, but the leaked cables published on Sunday by world newspapers show that, behind the scenes, world leaders are fearful and pessimistic. From the first memos released, it was learnt that: Advertisement: Story continues below – Israel believes the US diplomatic outreach to Iran is doomed to failure and that time is running out before military action will need to be tabled if Tehran is not to get a nuclear bomb. -Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz has “repeatedly” urged his US allies to take military action against Tehran's nuclear program and urged them to “cut off the head of the snake”. – French President Nicolas Sarkozy's top diplomatic adviser told senior US officials: “The current Iranian regime is effectively a fascist state and the time has come to decide on next steps.” Tehran insists that its nuclear program is peaceful, and has relied on Russia and China – which depends on Iranian oil shipments – to slow the tempo of diplomatic progress towards tougher sanctions. Much more at the link…. added by: jubal

First Hourglass Dolphin in 150 Years Found on New Zealand Shores

Image credit: Massey University When Dr. Karen Stockin, a marine ecologist at Massey University in New Zealand, was called in to perform an autopsy , she was expecting to find a carcass of the relatively common dusky dolphin. Instead, she was surprised to see that it was, in fact, an hourglass dolphin—the first to wash up on the shores of New Zealand in more than 150 years…. Read the full story on TreeHugger

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First Hourglass Dolphin in 150 Years Found on New Zealand Shores

Rate of Ice Cap Loss May be Slower than Feared: New Study

Photo via the Tehran Times A new study published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience suggests that the estimates for the rate of ice loss in Greenland and West Antarctica from global climate change should be significantly reduced — by as much as half. The study posits that current ice loss estimates fail to take into account a process called glacial isostatic adjustment, which involves the rebounding movement of the Earth’s crust after the last ice age. Here’s what’s happening, according… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Rate of Ice Cap Loss May be Slower than Feared: New Study

ABC News Exec Joins Left Wing Firm Which Boasts ‘Far-Reaching Role’ in Electing Obama

Emily Lenzner, Executive Director of Communications at ABC News for its DC-based shows, who spent eight months in 2007-2008 as editorial producer for This Week with George Stephanopoulos (for whom she also toiled inside the Clinton White House) , has left ABC News for Anita Dunn ‘s “strategic communications firm.” SKDKnickerbocker announced Monday she’ll be a Managing Director with the firm led by Dunn, the Obama administration’s Communications Director in 2009. SKDKnickerbocker’s “About” page boasts: We helped Barack Obama by being the only firm in America to do direct mail and television advertising for his 2008 presidential victory. We helped SEIU fight to stave off millions of dollars of healthcare cuts. Their “ Case Studies” page , which touts work for a bunch of liberal candidates, highlights “FAR-REACHING ROLE IN ELECTION: Obama for America.” That page trumpets : “No other firm had as far-reaching a role in President Obama’s election…with Anita Dunn serving as one of the top officials of the campaign and the firm producing both television advertising and direct mail for the campaign.” The firm’s press release on Lenzner hailed her revolving door spins: “A Washington native, Lenzner’s career has spanned the worlds of politics and media from the Clinton White House and New York politics to broadcast news and the entertainment and digital media industries.” Lenzner’s revolving comes a month after Jennifer Loven , an 18-year AP veteran and the wire service’s chief White House correspondent, decided to put her communications talents to work for The Glover Park Group, a DC-based “strategic communications firm” founded in 2001 by a bunch of Clinton and Gore staffers, most prominently Joe Lockhart, who found themselves unemployed after the 2000 election. (Obama-media revolving door list: Complete list, now up to 17 . Loven and Lenzner, however, are not on the list since neither worked in the Obama administration or campaign, though both are now working for firms advancing his agenda.) Lenzner’s resume, as recounted in the press release: Emily Lenzner has spent most of her career in media and politics with an expertise in strategic communications and media affairs. Most recently Emily served as the Executive Director of Media Relations for ABC News in Washington, where she was responsible for all public relations and communications for This Week with Christiane Amanpour, Nightline, and ABC’s Washington Bureau. In this role, she managed all PR for Ms. Amanpour and previously Jake Tapper and George Stephanopoulos; Nightline’s current anchors and previously Ted Koppel; as well as ABC News’ political and DC-based on-air talent. Emily took a year off from ABC to run media relations for National Public Radio in Washington, where as the number two communications executive for the network, she established new procedures to make the company’s media relations efforts more streamlined and effective. Emily returned to ABC In 2007 to serve as George Stephanopoulos’ editorial producer on This Week for eight months in 2007 and 2008 before returning to ABC’s communications department. Prior to her first tour at ABC, Emily was an account director at Fenton Communications in New York, where she managed clients, including off-shore wind power company BlueWaterWind and Russell Simmons and Andrew Cuomo’s partnership to repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws. She was the press secretary for Tom Golisano during his 2002 campaign for New York Governor… From 1995 to 1997, Emily was the associate producer for the News at Noon at KIRO TV in Seattle. Before that she served as a White House staff assistant to George Stephanopoulos, when he was senior advisor to President Bill Clinton… In 2007, the MRC’s Tim Graham tipped me, Lenzner married Peter Cherukuri , Vice President and general manager of Huffington Post’s Washington, D.C. office .

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ABC News Exec Joins Left Wing Firm Which Boasts ‘Far-Reaching Role’ in Electing Obama

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell Relays Iranian State Spin on Today

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reporting live from Tehran on Tuesday’s Today show, on the American hikers held hostage in Iran, relayed Iranian government spin, that the Ground Zero mosque protest and controversial Koran “desecrations” have “added to the tension here, the anti-American spirit.” Spurred by a question from substitute anchor Carl Quintanilla about the protests in New York city, Mitchell actually held up one of the state-owned newspapers and relayed that “if the government needed any excuse to drum up more anti-American fever,” they have it, as she noted “all the headlines” in Iran are about the “desecration” and “burning” threats of the Koran. The following segment was aired on the September 14 Today show: CARL QUINTANILLA: But we begin this morning, in Iran, where tense negotiations are underway to free one of the three American hikers detained there for more than a year. NBC’s chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell is in Tehran. Andrea, good morning. ANDREA MITCHELL: Good morning, Carl. As you say it’s been tense, feverish negotiations led by Swiss diplomats here representing the United States and an Iranian lawyer retained by the Shourd family, trying to win her release, trying to get prosecutors to relent on their demand for that bail, $500,000. And it’s been a roller coaster, as you point out. There were plans to release her, then those were retracted. So they’re waiting to see, but there are some signals today that she could be released at any time. And they are, of course, hoping for that to happen. Carl? QUINTANILLA: Andrea the discussions about this, this potential release, the discussions in this country about the would be mosque near Ground Zero, what has all of that done to the political climate there, where you are? MITCHELL: Well it has really added to the tension here, the anti-American spirit. And, in fact, if the government needed any excuse to try drum to up more anti-American fever, you can see the state owned newspapers today, all the headlines are about the desecration threat, the burning threat and also what happened in Washington last weekend, on 9/11, when some pages were torn out of Koran, out of the holy book. That has inflamed the anger here and they are planning big protests today. Carl? QUINTANILLA: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell in Tehran. Andrea, thank you for that.

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NBC’s Andrea Mitchell Relays Iranian State Spin on Today

Daily Kos Granny: We Deserve Many More 9/11s for Our Shabby Imperialism

Taking in the current furor over the tiny-church-of-Koran-bonfires story, The Washington Post front page today strangely suggested “Debate may drown out quite 9/11 reflections,” with “post-attack unity lost.” Does anyone remember any 9/11 anniversaries after the first one that were all about “unity” and were free of partisanship? The blog Daily Kos was lobbing bombs at “right-wing white guys” Wednesday. In her praise of the new book-length rant “American Taliban” by top Kosmonaut Markos Moutlisas, “Hippie grandmother” Jane Stillwater pleaded, “Right-Wing white guys, it’s time for you to stop acting like General Custer.” You have no idea how lucky we are that this tactic of “bringing the war home” has not happened in America except only once so far. We have been just plain LUCKY so far — that Middle Easterners, Latin Americans, Africans and Asians haven’t dragged any more of Eisenhower’s or Johnson’s or Nixon’s or Reagan’s or Bush’s or Obama’s wars out of the streets of cities like Saigon, Mogadishu, Gaza, San Salvador, East Timor, Santiago, Shanghai, Baghdad, Tehran, Brazzaville, Port-au-Prince and Kabul and into the streets of our American cities. We have been very lucky that, so far, we have only suffered just one 9-11 — when you consider the many past decades of America’s habitual and continual shabby treatment of “Others” all over the world. You Right-Wingers may not care what happens to yourselves as a result of your constant agitation and hate, but please stop putting MY life in danger. “Just one 9/11” does seem to ignore the other terrorist attacks — World Trade Center I, the Khobar Towers, the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the USS Cole, Fort Hood, and so on — whose death counts weren’t as enormous. Conservatives are apparently itching for all of America to be incinerated by terrorist attacks with their “Aryan lynch mob mentality”: By creating all of these new categories of people to hate and categorizing over half of all Americans as belonging to “The Other,” Teabaggers and other right-wingers are in reality starting to put most of the rest of us “white guys” in danger. How’s that old joke go? When the Lone Ranger and Tonto are surrounded by Indians, the Lone Ranger turns to Tonto and says, “What are we going to do now!” And Tonto replies, “What do you mean ‘we’, White Man?” In a demographically changing America, it doesn’t make any sense at all for America’s right-wing self-appointed “white men” to go around aggressively alienating their neighbors. How do you think that’s gonna play out a few years down the road when “The “Other” (including browns, blacks, gays, women, Jews, Muslims, Asians, poor people, etc.), those whom the right-wing white-man demographic seems to hate so much, is firmly in the majority? Not so good. Being a “White” person myself, I certainly don’t look forward to seeing over half of my country turning against me in the next several years. Just cut it out, right-wing white guys! You simply cannot afford to go around doing the Wounded Knee thing any more. Or the Amos ‘n’ Andy thing. Or the Tanforan or Manzanar thing. Or the Ground Zero Mosque thing either. Who was it that said, “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you”? Obviously it was no one whose example you appear to follow or respect. Further, the right-wing’s current Aryan lynch mob mentality is only effective when public opinion is on its side. And the tide of public opinion is turning — because, ultimately, no one likes nasty. Public opinion may be turning slowly — but it IS turning. And you guys are gonna get caught in the undertow. Don’t drag me down with you. Not only that, but this right-wing “White is Right” lynch-mob mentality isn’t just affecting us here stateside. There’s a whole “Other” world out there beyond our borders that is being effected as well. And while there are only three million of “us” here in America. there are over six billion of “Them” out there Beyond the Pale. So please stop wildly waving that red flag around, guys — because you have definitely attracted the attention of a whole stampede of rather pissed-off bulls that are starting to charge right at you (and at me too!) You think that “Ground Zero” in New York was bad? You appear to be practically pleading to turn all of America into “Ground Zero” too. (Hat tip: Kathryn Street)

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Daily Kos Granny: We Deserve Many More 9/11s for Our Shabby Imperialism

Iran Paying Taliban for Dead US Soldiers

At least five Iranian companies stationed in Afghanistan are covertly funding Taliban militants, paying them salaries of $233 a month with a $1,000 bonus for killing an American soldier, according to the Sunday Times of London. Blowing up a US military vehicle is worth $6,000, making insurgents better paid than any Afghan police officer or soldier. “Iran will never stop funding us, because Americans are dangerous for them as well,” said a Taliban treasurer, who travels from the mountainous Wardak province to an Iranian construction company that operates out of Kabul to pick up the cash. “The money we get is not dirty. It is for jihad,” he said. The treasurer said he has picked up almost $79,000 in the past six months. Afghan intelligence and Taliban sources told the Times that the firms — set up with foreign aid money within the past six months — provide cash for a network of district Taliban treasurers to pay battlefield expenses and bonuses for killing the enemy and destroying their vehicles. The Iranian companies win contracts to supply materials and logistics to Afghans involved in reconstruction. The money often comes in the form of aid from foreign donors. Profits are transferred through poorly regulated Afghan banks — including Kabul Bank, which is partly owned by President Hamid Karzai's brother Mahmood — to Tehran and Dubai. From there, the money returns to Afghanistan through the informal Islamic banking system known as hawala. “This means the companies involved in funding the insurgency can cover their tracks easily. It makes it harder for us to trace the cash flow,” a senior Afghan intelligence official said. He said the Iranian companies had been formed with the intention of winning contracts funded by foreign aid so that donors' cash could be channeled into the insurgency. The Iranian embassy in Kabul refused to respond to the allegations. Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/wanted_iran_bounty_on_us_heroes_hjfBi… http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/wanted_iran_bounty_on_us_heroes_hjfBi… added by: ibrake4rappers13

Woman Sentenced to Death by Stoning Reportedly Appears on Iranian Television

According to a report on Robert Mackey's NYT blog The Lede, the woman who had previously been sentenced to stoning for adultrey has been tortured and beaten into now confessing to murder. Way to go Iran…yeah, let's hear it for more justice sharia style. “My colleague William Yong reported from Tehran last week that “Iran appears to be answering international criticism of its handling of the case” by changing its description of Ms. Ashtiani’s crime from adultery to murder.” http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/iran-broadcasts-confession-from-woma… added by: Incredulous

The Iranian Culture Ministry Doesn’t Like Your Haircut

“the multicolored mohawks, rockstar-inspired ponytails, and unkempt mullets popping up around Tehran recently seem to have been the final straw: the Culture Ministry has now banned a number of “decadent Western cuts” and issued a catalogue of permissible hairdos from which male salon-goers must choose.” added by: joshuaheller