Giuliani blasts Obama's stance on Iran
Fmr. N.Y. Mayor Rudy Giuliani attends an anti-Iranian protest near the U.N. and says President Obama has betrayed the Iranian people.
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Post by: Filed under: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad • President Barack Obama • United Nations |
Iran denies reports of grenade lobbed at Ahmadinejad's convoy
Reza Sayah
CNN
Iran denied reports of a grenade exploding near the convoy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during his visit to a western Iranian city Wednesday.
The semi-official Fars News Agency and several other outlets had reported the incident, in which Ahmadinejad was unhurt.
But the media department at Iran's presidential office denied there was an attack. Media advisor Ali Akbar Javanfekr told CNN that the grenade was a toy firecracker and accused international journalists of blowing the story out of proportion.
"This was someone playing with a firecracker, the kind children play with, the kind you use when you want to celebrate," Javanfekr said. "This was a toy and there were no injuries but the western media took and made it bigger than it is."
Despite the denial, there was an account about the incident on Raja news, a rightist website linked to some members of parliament that has in the past both supported and criticized Ahmadinejad.
The site reported there had been a grenade attack and quoted the Fars news account. Someone lobbed a homemade grenade just after the president's motorcade went by, Fars reported.
The suspect was arrested, according to both reports.
Watchdog: Iran may be working on nuclear warhead
CNN
Iran may be working on secretly developing a nuclear warhead for a missile, the head of the United Nations' nuclear watchdog agency said Thursday in a draft report.
It's the first time that the the International Atomic Energy Agency has issued such a strong warning about current Iranian nuclear activities.
The statement is in an IAEA draft report obtained by CNN. The report, dated Thursday, has not yet been approved by the board of governors of the IAEA.
Iran silences journalists with jail
Jean Francois Julliard
Special to CNN
Early last week, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini reportedly said Iran's celebrations commemorating the Islamic revolution would stun the world. It is difficult to believe anything Iran could do at this point could surprise the world.
The protests after the June election led to an unprecedented campaign of intimidation and arrests. Freedom of expression had been seriously undermined by the regime even before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election. Journalists and bloggers were regularly arrested and harassed for discussing topics like women's rights or issues involving ethnic minorities.
News organizations with ties to the reformist movement were fined, suspended or even shut down for criticizing government policies. But in spite of these measures, there remained a functioning press. If reformist publications were limited in their criticism of the government, conservative outlets were rarely the target of censorship or harassment.
Iran marks revolution anniversary amid ongoing dissent
Reza Sayah
CNN
Iran will this week celebrate the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution - a day that marked the end of the country's western-backed monarchy and the start of an Islamic republic.
Some experts say the revolution was also a catalyst for the spread of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Middle East and South Asia.
This key date in Iran's history comes amid protests by the opposition after last year's disputed presidential election won by incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The so-called Green Movement has been protesting for social justice, freedom and democracy in demonstrations throughout the country since the June polls - using slogans that are often identical to those heard during the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Interactive: U.S., Iran hold 'face to face' nuke talks
CNN
Two "senior officials" from the United States and Iran "had a meeting on the margins" of the Geneva talks on Iran's nuclear program, U.S. spokesman Robert Wood told CNN on Thursday.
Wood wouldn't say who sat down on the sidelines of the discussion, but the encounter is regarded as the first face to face discussion between Iran and the United States over the nuclear issue.
William J. Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, is leading the U.S. delegation, and Saeed Jalili, Iran's nuclear negotiator, is representing his country at the meeting.
The Geneva talks coincide with the recent revelation that Iran was building a second uranium enrichment facility near the city of Qom.
Click here to keep reading and find out more about Iran's nuclear sites.
Katie Couric's Sarah Palin moment?
Hamid Dabashi
Special to CNN
One of the most memorable episodes of the U.S. presidential election of 2008 was the much-publicized September 2008 interview that CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric did with Republican vice presidential candidate and then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Quite a number of embarrassing revelations dawned on the American presidential election scene after that interview, including the fact that the person potentially a heartbeat away from U.S. presidency could not name a single newspaper or magazine that she regularly read.
The interview turned out to be so crucial a piece in the course of the presidential campaign that it garnered for Couric the much coveted Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Television Political Journalism, with the judges considering that interview a "defining moment in the 2008 presidential campaign."
As fate would have it exactly a year after that fateful interview, Katie Couric was destined to have an embarrassing Sarah Palin moment of her own.
In the course of a much anticipated interview with the belligerent Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Couric raised the all-important murder of Neda Aqa Soltan while discussing post-election violence in Iran - which Ahmadinejad dismissed as an unfortunate event that he said occurred because of chaos instigated by the United States and United Kingdom.
Will get-tough approach with Iran work this week?
John King | BIO
CNN Chief National Correspondent
Anchor, State of the Union
It is a week that will see a potentially defining test in the health care debate, and yet those negotiations are likely to be overshadowed by a set in which Iran has a seat at the table and at which the administration's new claim of leverage in the nuclear standoff with Iran will be put to the test.
"Prove it," was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's to-the-point refrain when asked on the CBS program "Face the Nation" about Iran's claims its newly disclosed underground nuclear facility was for peaceful purposes and that the international outrage was much ado about nothing.
Ahmadinejad stung by Obama's nuke revelation
Massimo Calabresi
Time
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has warned President Barack Obama against pressing Tehran about new revelations that Iran has been constructing a secret uranium-enrichment plant. "If I were Obama's adviser, I would definitely advise him to refrain making this statement because it is definitely a mistake," Ahmadinejad told TIME in New York on Friday. "It would definitively be a mistake." His comment came as President Obama, speaking at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, made a dramatic announcement that Iran has been constructing a second uranium-enrichment facility whose existence had been kept secret in violation of the non-proliferation agreements to which Tehran is a signatory.
Flanked by Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown and France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, Obama warned that Iran would be held accountable if it failed to live up to its international obligations. Fearing imminent disclosure of the plant being built into a mountain near the seminary city of Qom, the Iranians had earlier this week written to the International Atomic Energy Agency to confirm its existence.
Iran's conductor on the crazy train
Tom Foreman | Bio
AC360° Correspondent
I once received an anonymous call at the height of a major trial. A deep baritone, with a measured cadence of confidence spoke. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know who else to call. I believe I have proof of jury tampering.”
“Really?” I responded, my ears pricking up like Spock on a date.
He went on for several minutes describing how the deliberations had been apparently slanted for acquittal by one juror. His information seemed rock solid, his knowledge of the case thorough. Then the bombshell. “How is this happening?” I asked.
“He’s using below-the-horizon surveillance and mind control particle beams.”
That’s the problem with some lunatics. They are unreliably zany. One minute they can be talking about authentic issues in an informed and reasonable way; and the next moment their eyes grow wide, and they lean forward to add, “And it’s all the Jews’ fault!” Such is the case with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran. This week in front of the United Nations he displayed precisely the qualities that most concern the sane leaders of other countries, notably the United States.
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