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539BCE
Persian king, Cyrus the Great, conquers the Babylonian
Empire and allows Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuilt the Holy
Temple. Around 43.000 Jews go back to the Promised Land. Cyrus also
returns to the Jews the Holy Vessels stolen by Babylonian king
Nebuchadnezzar after he destroyed the First Jewish Temple. |
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654CE
Muslim
Arab forces defeated Persian army in a battle of
Nahavand. This defeat brought to the end the reign of Sassanid
dynasty and with it an independence of Persia. It fell under
the control of Abbasid and Umayyad caliphs from Damascus and
Baghdad. With time Islam has replaced
Zoroastrianism. The impact on religious minorities was
profound as the social and political rights were taken away from
them. Jews were forced to wear yellow ribbons to distinguish
them from Muslims. |
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On a
Collision Course with Iran |
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Iran Watch |
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Mahmoud Ahmedinejad |
Nuclear
Explosion |
Mahmoud Ahmedinejad |
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Timeline |
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Jerusalem, Israel -
5/15/
During his address to Knesset, on
his visit to Israel,
U.S. president George W. Bush
issued a warning about the danger Iran's nuclear ambitions
present to the world:
"Permitting the
world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's
deadliest weapon would be an unforgivable betrayal of future
generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow
Iran to have a nuclear weapon".
He also added "Those
who carry out violent acts are serving only their own
desire for power. And that is why the president of Iran dreams
of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for
Israel to be wiped off the map".
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Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -
5/8/08
Political crises in Lebanon prompted the Saudi Arabia's foreign
minister, Prince Saud al-Feisal, to issue the following
statement: "If
Iran is backing or supporting the coup that took place in
Lebanon, it will have a negative impact on its relations with
all the Arab and Muslim states.
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia renews
its calls to all regional sides to respect the sovereignty and
independence of Lebanon and to desist from interfering in its
internal affairs and provoking sectarian strife".
Iranian president rejected the
accusation adding: "Iran
is the only country not interfering in Lebanon.
It is the war of the innocent people
of Lebanon against [US president] Bush's expansionism."
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Tehran, Iran -
5/8/08
Irna, the official Iranian news agency, quoted president
Ahmedinejad's comments regarding Israel's 60th anniversary:
"Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the
usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party
are seriously mistaken. Today the reason for the Zionist
regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way
to annihilation".
He also issued a warning to the neighboring Arab regimes: "If
any regional countries assist the Zionist regime, they will burn
in fire arising from nations' hatred".
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Baghdad, Iraq -
5/5/08
U.S. has supplied Iraqi government with interrogation reports
implicating that militants from Lebanese group Hezbollah have
been training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran. The report was
based on revelations of four Iraqi Shiite fighters who were
captured last year and interrogated separately. The captured
Iraqis were trained in the camps near Tehran under the
supervision of the Quds Force. Iraqi Prime-Minister Maliki
announced that Iraqis would conduct their own investigation into
Iranian meddling in Iraqi affairs. In previous meeting with
Iraqi officials the Iranians promised to play a positive role in
a development of Iraq.
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Natanz, Iran -
4/8/08
During the visit to Natanz
nuclear facility, President M. Ahmedinejad
announced that Iran was installing 6,000
new uranium enriching centrifuges and
testing a much faster version of the
device. That would represent a major
step in uranium enrichment process that
can lead to the production of fuel for a
nuclear reactor or material for nuclear
warhead. Many U.N. observers felt that
this announcement was exaggerated while
others called it a publicity stunt. Last
week Iran rejected the incentives package
offered by the Europeans in exchange for
suspension of enrichment program. Iran
claims that it's nuclear program is
interned only for peaceful purposes to
produce energy. Iran is one of the largest
producers of oil and gas in the world.
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Tehran, Iran -
3/16/08
Iranian officials declared a victory for
the conservatives in Iran's
parliamentary elections. They claimed
that the results of the elections were a
vote of confidence for the ruling
regime's stance on the nuclear issues
and their continued defiance of the
West. In turn, the United States and
Europe called the vote unfair after most
reformists were barred from running.
Iran's Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei addressed the Iranians with the
following rhetoric: " Your epic and
powerful presence overcame the enemy's
tricks and turned the enemy's
high-profile psychological war aimed at
encouraging a low turnout into a vain
bubble". But some conservatives
also showed a dissatisfaction with
President Ahmedinejad's handling of the
ailing economy and his confrontational
style.
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Washington, U.S. -
1/7/08
Officials at Pentagon informed the press
that five Iranian speedboats approached US
Navy ships in the Straits of Hormuz
threatening to blow them up. The US said
their ships were about to to open fire
when the Iranians boats withdrew. The
speedboats are believed to belong to
Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Iranian
officials described the event as ordinary
occurrence while Condoleezza Rice called
the Iranian action "provocative and
dangerous".
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Moscow, Russia -
12/18/07
Atomstroiexport, Russia's nuclear power
equipment and service export monopoly,
delivered the first shipment of
enriched-uranium fuel rods to Iran's
Bushehr nuclear power plant. Russian
officials also said that Iranian
government has guaranteed that the fuel
would be used for the power plant and not
for nuclear weapons development. President
Bush has commented that "If the Iranians
accept that uranium for a civilian nuclear
power plant, then there’s no need for them
to learn how to enrich."
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Tehran, Iran -
12/11/07
Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinijad said
that there is no legal basis for more
sanctions against his country after a US
intelligence report concluded that Iran
stopped building the nuclear weapons. U.S.
intelligence assessment on Iran said
Tehran once had a weapons program but
shelved it in the fall of 2003.
Ahmadinijad also stood by Iran's right to
have a civilian nuclear program, including
enriching uranium.
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Tehran, Iran -
11/28/07
Iran has condemned the Annapolis peace
conference, saying it would fail to bring
any peace for the Palestinians and warning
that it will discredit Arab countries who
participated. Iran was also surprised that
Damascus participated in the gathering,
though it has stopped short of directly
criticizing its ally. President
Ahmadinijad also lashed out against Israel
with the following comments: "It is
impossible that the Zionist regime will
survive. Collapse is in the nature of this
regime because it has been created on
aggression, lying, oppression and crime".
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Tehran, Iran -
11/8/07
Iran denounced Interpol's decision to
issue wanted notices for five Iranians for
involvement in the 1994 bombing of a
Jewish center in Argentina in which 85
people were killed and over 200 wounded.
Interpol's general assembly voted to issue
the "Red Notices" seeking the extradition
of the Iranians and one Lebanese national
in connection with the bombing. Iranian
Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the
measure and accused the "Zionist regime
and some dominant power's political will"
with influencing the process.
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Tehran, Iran -
11/4/07
Thousands of Iranians nationwide
demonstrated Sunday to celebrate the 28th
anniversary of the takeover of the U.S.
Embassy by militant students, state
television reported. Demonstrators in the
capital, Tehran, including elementary
school students, gathered outside the
former U.S. Embassy, chanting
anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans.
They burned the two countries' flags and
warned Washington to learn from the
hostile incident.
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Tehran, Iran -
10/31/07
An Iranian court has sentenced Mansoor
Osanloo, a dissident labor leader, to five
years in jail. Osanloo was arrested for
"distributing statements against the
system". Rights groups say Iran this year
has launched a fresh crackdown on dissent
in the Islamic Republic, with the
authorities targeting women's rights
activists, students, journalists and labor
figures. The European Union last week said
it was "deeply concerned at the growing
repression against all groups which
exercise their right to freely express
their opinions".
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Washington, U.S. - 10/25/07
Today, the
Department of State designated two key
Iranian entities of proliferation concern:
the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and
the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces
Logistics. Part of the sanctions
are designed to make it difficult for
Iranian government agencies to support
ballistic missile research that would
accompany a nuclear device and a nuclear
program itself. The other part of the
sanctions are focused on the Quds Force,
which is an arm of the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard's core command. Quds
Force has been funneling arms to Hamas,
Hezbollah and Shia militants in Iraq.
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Tehran, Iran - 10/5/07
On Al-Quds (Arabic name for Jerusalem) Day
hundreds of thousands of
people poured into the streets of Tehran
they chanted "Death to America" and "Death
to Israel". Some protesters also burned
American and Israeli flags. State
television reported similar large rallies
in all other provincial capitals and
smaller towns across Iran. President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
addressed his nation with the following:
"The creation, continued existence and
unlimited (Western) support for this
regime is an insult to human dignity. The
occupation of Palestine is not limited to
one land. The Zionist issue is now a
global issue. The Iranian nation will not
rest until Palestine is free and criminals
punished".
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Tehran, Iran - 9/2/07
Iran has reached its long-sought goal of
running 3,000 centrifuges to enrich
uranium for its nuclear program, Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced
Sunday in a report on state media. The
U.N. Security Council had threatened a
third round of sanctions against the
country if it did not freeze the uranium
enrichment program.
A senior Iranian envoy has warned the US
and its allies against pushing for new UN
Security Council sanctions against his
country, suggesting Tehran could retaliate
by ending its co-operation with UN
inspectors probing its nuclear program.
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Manama, Bahrein - 7/12/07
Bahraini press condemned the comments printed in the prominent
Iranian newspaper Kayhan about Iran's claims to this tiny Gulf
archipelago. Earlier in a week a managing director of Kayhan,
Hossein Shariatmadari, who is appointed by Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had written that "public demand in Bahrain
is the reunification of this province with it's motherland,
Islamic Iran". He also added that "such indisputable right for
Iran and the people of this province can not be overlooked".
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Tehran, Iran - 6/29/07
The rationing announcement from the oil ministry ignited violent
protests. Enraged Iranians revolted by burning gas stations,
looting government-owned businesses and rioting. Senior government
officials, initially tried to play down the riots, but later had
to admit to attacks on dozens of gas stations, government
buildings, government banks, police vehicles, mass transit buses
and chain stores. The chief of gas stations of Iran told the
state-run media that nearly 30 percent of all gas stations in the
country were destroyed or severely damaged.
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Tehran, Iran - 5/26/07
Iran said on Saturday that it has uncovered spy rings organized by
the United States and its Western allies, claiming on state-run
television that the Intelligence Ministry "has succeeded in
identifying and striking blows at several spy networks comprised
of infiltrating elements from the Iraqi occupiers in western,
southwestern and central Iran." No details were provided.
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Tehran, Iran - 5/13/07
Iranian authorities confirmed that that they
detained a prominent Iranian-American academic Haleh
Esfandiari, director of the Middle East Program at the
Washington-based Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. She has been
held at Tehran's notorious Evin Prison since early May and charged
with seeking to topple the government in Tehran. She traveled to
Iran in December to visit her 93-year-old mother. Several other
Iranian-Americans who have also been prohibited from leaving Iran
in recent months are: Parnaz Azima, who works for the U.S.-funded
Radio Farda; Ali Shakeri, a founding board member at the
University of California, Irvine's Center for Citizen
Peace-building; Kian Tajbakhsh, a consultant working for George
Soros' Open Society Institute.
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Tehran, Iran - 4/27/07
Islamic authorities issued warnings that women who refuse to wear
a veil and otherwise adhere to the strict Islamic dress code will
be arrested and banished from the capital. The morality police is
on the lookout for women wearing head scarves deemed too colorful
or small. Already more then 3200 women were officially warned and
200 arrested. Police are also cracking down on barbers giving
Western-style haircuts and shop owners wearing T-shirts with
English slogans.
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Tehran, Iran - 4/15/07
The Iranian Supreme Court has vacated the murder convictions of a
group of serial killers because their victims were engaging in
un-Islamic activities, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported.
The men were convicted for a series of grisly killings in the
southeastern city of Kerman in 2002. The accused,
who were all members of an Islamic paramilitary force, told the
court their understanding of the teachings of one Islamic cleric
allowed them to kill immoral people if they had ignored two
warnings to stop their bad behaviour . At least 18 people
were killed on the murder spree, but the men were only tried for
five of the deaths. Some of the victims were stoned, others were
suffocated and at least one man was buried alive.
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Tehran, Iran - 4/9/07
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced
that his country was now capable of producing nuclear fuel on an
'industrial scale' in an expansion of the uranium enrichment
program that the United Nations has demanded it halt. Ahmadinejad
did not specify how many centrifuges were now operational as he
spoke at a ceremony at the facility, marking the one-year
anniversary of Iran's first success in enriching small amounts of
uranium.
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Tehran, Iran - 4/4/07
In a surprise
announcement on Iran's state television, president Mahmoud
Ahmedinejad has announced that he pardoned 15 British soldiers
taken captive by the Iranians 11 days earlier. In the lengthy
speech Ahmedinejad
criticised Britain’s attitude to the diplomatic row
before pausing to award the medal of honor to the Iranian guards
who captured the sailors on March 23. He also said "although Iran
has the right to prosecute them by following the model of the
prophet the 15 people were pardoned and their freedom given as a
gift to the British people".
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Tehran, Iran - 3/24/07
The
Iranian military questioned 15 detained British soldiers, who were
transferred to Tehran, and said they confessed to illegally
entering the country's territorial waters as Iran accused Britain
of "blatant aggression." The British sailors had just
searched a merchant ship when they and their two inflatable boats
were intercepted by Iranian vessels Friday at around 10:30 a.m.
near the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway. The Iranian vessels
surrounded them and escorted them away at gunpoint.
We demand the
immediate release of the British soldiers," Frank-Walter
Steinmeier, foreign minister of Germany which holds the EU
presidency, said on Saturday.
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Busheir, Iran - 3/13/07
Iran's top nuclear negotiator deplored Russia's decision not to
ship nuclear fuel to Iran as agreed, a move that delays the start
of Iran's Bushier nuclear power plant. Russia's federal nuclear
agency, Rosatom, said it was postponing the March shipment of
nuclear fuel to Iran because the country made no payments since
January 17. Iranians rejected the link between the U.N. demands to
suspend the uranium enrichment and Russia's decision to delay fuel
shipments.
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Khartoum, Sudan - 3/1/07
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad condemned the "enemy's
schemes against the Sudanese people and it's government" in a show
of solidarity with Sudan. He also added that "there is no place in
the world that suffers from divisions unless American or Zionist
fingerprints are seen there". In return the Sudanese president,
Omar al-Bashir publicly announced that he fully supports the
Iranian nuclear program.
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Zahedan, Iran - 2/14/07
A car loaded with explosives blew up near the bus carrying members
of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards in southeastern Iran, killing
18 of them. The passenger car stopped in the middle of the road at
around 6:30 a.m. in Ahmadabad district on the outskirts of Zahedan.
After the bus stopped, the car's occupants fled and the vehicle
exploded. Zahedan, which lies near Iran's borders with Pakistan
and Afghanistan, has been the scene of clashes between police and
drug smugglers in the past.
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Tehran, Iran - 2/8/07
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned the United
States that Iran would retaliate against American interests
worldwide if it was attacked. Ayatollah Khamenei also brushed off
the effect of the U.N. sanctions against Iran as insignificant. He
added that "the United States and some other countries have
imposed sanctions on Iran for many years now, but we achieved
great scientific and technological progress under such
circumstances. So they cannot scare this great nation with
sanctions.”
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Davos, Switzerland - World Economic Forum - 1/26/07
The head of IAEA, Mohammed El-Baradei, announced that sometime
next month Iran expects to begin a process of installing 3000
centrifuges in their underground nuclear facility in Natanz. Iran
is believed to have a grand plan of installing a total of 54,000
centrifuges which would pave a way to the large scale uranium
enrichment that will allow a mass production of the nuclear
weapons.
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Tehran, Iran - 12/23/06
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad condemned the U.N.
resolution aimed at restricting the Iranian nuclear program from
enriching uranium. Ahmedinejad promised that those who backed
the sanctions will soon "regret this superficial act". He called
the resolution a "piece of torn paper" and vowed to continue
with the uranium enrichment at the accelerated pace. Ali
Larijani, Iranian chief negotiator, added that they are planning
to install 3,000 centrifuges by March of 2007 in their Natanz
nuclear plant.
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Tehran, Iran - 12/18/06
Iranian Foreign Ministry
declared that Iran will continue its nuclear program
even if United Nations will impose sanctions on them.
Iran can face penalties for its refusal to cease uranium
enrichment, a process that lead to the development of
the nuclear bomb.
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Tehran, Iran - 12/22/06
The United Nations Security
Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions against Iran.
The resolution bans the import and export of materials
and technology used in uranium enrichment and reprocessing
and puts a freeze on the the assets of 22 Iranian officials and
institutions linked to the country's most controversial nuclear
programs.
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Tehran, Iran - 12/18/06
Iranian Foreign Ministry
declared that Iran will continue its nuclear program
even if United Nations will impose sanctions on them.
Iran can face penalties for its refusal to cease uranium
enrichment, a process that lead to the development of
the nuclear bomb.
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Tehran, Iran - 12/18/06
Iranian Foreign Ministry
declared that Iran will continue its nuclear program
even if United Nations will impose sanctions on them.
Iran can face penalties for its refusal to cease uranium
enrichment, a process that lead to the development of
the nuclear bomb.
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Tehran, Iran - 12/12/06
President Mahmoud
Ahmedinejad welcomed the participants of the Holocaust
conference in his office. We told them that "the Zionist
regime will disappear soon, the same way Soviet Union
disappeared. Thus humanity will achieve freedom".
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Tehran, Iran - 12/11/06
Iran opened up a 2-day
Holocaust conference. Among the speakers were the former
KKK leader David Duke, who said in his speech that the
gas chambers, used to exterminate the Jews did not
exist. French academic Robert Faurisson said that the
Holocaust was a myth created to justify the creation of
State of Israel. Also in attendance were the members of
anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jewish sects. The Iranian
hosts welcomed the guests with an exhibition aimed at
denying the Holocaust. |
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Tehran, Iran - 12/8/06
While visiting Iran,
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh spoke during the
Friday prayer address
at
Tehran University. He
vowed that his Hamas-led government will never recognize Israel.
He also said "We will not give up on our jihadist movement until
full liberation of Jerusalem. We are standing by Islamic
Republic of Iran, and with this country we will resist American
and Zionist pressures"
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Tehran, Iran - 12/6/06
The
Iranian authorities announced plans for an international
conference on the Holocaust. The conference is to be held on
12/11 and 12/12/06 and would include over sixty scholars from
thirty countries. Iranian authorities repeatedly accused the
Jews of distorting the history and exaggerating the number of
victims. One of the topics of the conference is whether the gas
chambers were actually used by the Nazis. Iranian Foreign
Ministry is sponsoring the event through its Institute for
Political and International studies.
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Buenos Aries, Argentina - 11/10/06
Judge
Rodolfo Corral said he had ordered the "international
capture" of former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight
others for their role in the bombing of the AMIA Jewish Center in
Buenos Aires.
Judge Corral was also seeking the
help of Interpol in his effort.
On
July 18, 1994 a car
bomb destroyed the 7-story building, the cultural center for
Argentinean Jews. At least 85 people died and more then 200 were
injured.
Alberto Nisman,
the lead prosecutor, said last month that the decision to attack
the centre "was undertaken in 1993 by the highest authorities" of
the Iranian government at the time, and that the actual attack was
perpetrated by Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah. Along with
Rafsanjani he named former intelligence chief Ali Fallahijan,
former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati and former Hezbollah
security chief.
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Tehran, Iran - 10/24/06
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei said the following while
addressing Iranians on public television: "All nations should be
vigilant, Our nation, the Lebanese, Palestinian and the Iraqi
nations should retain the national unity. They should be cautious
not to make a move which is in line with the fulfillment of the
new hostile treacherous plots of the Americans and Zionists"
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Tehran, Iran - 10/20/06
President
Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad issued the following warning to the Europeans
during the Jerusalem Day rally:
"You should
know that the rage of people is boiling and its like an ocean that
is welling up. Once its storm begins blowing, it will go beyond
the borders of Lebanon and Palestine, and it will hurt European
countries.”
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Tehran, Iran - 9/6/06
Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, has urged students to push for
a purge of liberal and secular teachers from universities.
"Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal
and secular lecturers are present in the universities," the
official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted him as saying during
a meeting with students.
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Tehran, Iran - 8/31/06
An
Iranian student and democracy activist has died in jail while on
hunger strike, Iran's justice minister has said.
Akbar Mohammadi,
who was arrested for taking part in pro-democracy demonstrations
in 1999. Mohammadi was
originally sentenced to death as a "mohareb", or "one who wages
war against God", for his part in the protests, in which tens of
thousands of people took to the streets after police and
vigilantes attacked a peaceful campus rally in support of press
freedoms.
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Tehran, Iran - 8/14/06
An international
contest of cartoons on the Holocaust has opened in Tehran in
response to the cartoons published in a Danish newspaper in
September of 2005. The exhibition shows few hundred entries
contributed by the artists from Iran and other countries.
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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia-
8/3/06
During the emergency
meeting of Muslim leaders president Ahmedinejad said in his
speech: "Although the main
solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime, at this
stage an immediate cease-fire must be implemented".
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Tehran, Iran -
7/29/06
Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has ordered government and cultural
bodies to use modified Persian words to replace foreign words that
have crept into the language, such as "pizzas" which will now be
known as "elastic loaves."
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