French foreign minister: France must be ready for Iran war

Interesting statement from the French...

They've also advised French firms not to business in Iran...interesting.

The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said yesterday his country had to prepare for the possibility of war against Iran over its nuclear programme, but added that he did not believe any such action was imminent.

Seeking to ratchet up the pressure on Iran, Mr Kouchner also told RTL radio and LCI television that the world's main powers should use further sanctions to show they were serious about stopping Tehran getting nuclear weapons, and said France had asked French firms not to bid for tenders in the Islamic Republic.

"We must prepare for the worst," Mr Kouchner said in an interview, adding: "The worst, sir, is war."

UN official: Iran should stop executing children

Well, duh...

Iran should immediately halt the execution of children, the U.N.'s top human rights official said Monday.

Louise Arbour, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said she met with Iranian officials during a visit to Tehran earlier this month and urged them to impose a moratorium on the execution of minors."

Even if the legislation in the books appears to permit the imposition of the death penalty on minors ... it would be imperative that they not be executed," she told journalists in Geneva.

Iran is one of the few countries in the world that executes minors, in violation of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Did Israel get green light from Turkey to target Iran?

Is it all systems go?

As the mystery continues over Syrian allegations that Israeli F-15 jets flew over its territory on Sept. 6, bombing some cities near the Turkish border, there has been increased speculation in Ankara that Tel Aviv received secret permission from the Turkish military for the fight by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) fighters.

"Israeli pilots conducted a training mission using a longer route while equipped with auxiliary fuel tanks, dropping them on their way in order to also test their maneuvering without the tanks. I am sure Israel informed the Turkish military about the mission and that it needed to enter into Turkish airspace. During the Sept. 6 event Israeli pilots were on a training mission to test their ability to reach Iran," speculated Ankara-based Western military sources.

Those speculations may also explain the Turkish Foreign Ministry’s relatively low-profile position on the issue, so far refraining from issuing a statement through which it could have sought official explanation from Israel.

More evidence of Iranian collusion in Taliban arms

The evidence continues to mount...

An Iranian arms shipment destined for the Taliban was intercepted Sept. 6 by the international force in Afghanistan in what appears to be an escalating flow of weaponry between the two former enemies, according to officials from countries in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

The shipment included armor-piercing bombs known as explosively formed projectiles, the sources said, which have been especially deadly when used as roadside bombs against foreign troops in Iraq. The NATO-led force interdicted two smaller shipments of similar weapons from Iran into southern Helmand province April 11 and May 3.

"It's not the fact that it's qualitatively different, but this was a large shipment which got people's attention," a U.S. official in Washington said of the most recent interception.

Iran steps up crackdown against 'immoral' activity

AFP reports. The full thing can be found here.

Iran is pressing on with one of its toughest moral crackdowns in years, warning tens of thousands of women over slack dress, targeting "immoral" cafes and seizing illegal satellite receivers, local media reported on Monday.

The Iranian police launched the crackdown in April in a self-declared drive to "elevate security in society" that encompassed arrests of thugs, raids on underground parties and street checks of improperly dressed individuals.

Reza Zarei, commander of police in Tehran province, said that since the drive began police in his region have handed out 113,454 warnings to women found to have infringed Iran's strict Islamic dress rules.

Two hanged in Iran cities

Two towers on Sept. 11, two hangings in Iran.

Netanyahu: squeeze Iran with sanctions

As usual, he talks sense.

"We cannot wait for them [Iran] to obtain nuclear weapons; we must prevent it now. This has to be the focus of all responsible countries," opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu said Monday.

"The military option must stay on the table, but countries like the US and some in Europe must squeeze Iran with sanctions, voluntary sanctions - not through the UN," Netanyahu said at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism's Seventh Annual Conference at IDC Herzliya.

"The UN is paralyzed from launching effective sanctions. They can do a lot to bring economic pressure on the Iranian regime," he added.

Netanyahu suggested to "focus on the 20 to 30 European countries that prop up the Iranian oil and gas sector."

Israel hit Syrian base financed by Iran

Saw this just now:

JERUSALEM - Israeli warplanes last week bombed and destroyed a northern Syrian missile base that was financed by Iran, an Arab Israeli newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Citing anonymous Israeli sources, the Assennara newspaper said that Israeli jets “bombed in northern Syria a Syrian-Iranian missile base financed by Iran... It appears that the base was completely destroyed.”

Syria on Tuesday lodged a formal complaint with the United Nations over the “flagrant violation” of its airspace last Thursday, during which it said its air defences opened fire on Israeli warplanes flying over the northeast of the country.

Israeli officials have refused to comment on the report, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert “specifically instructed ministers not to talk about the incident related to Syria at all,” one senior Israeli government official said.

A US defence official said on Tuesday that Israel had launched an air strike well inside Syria, apparently to send Damascus a message not to rearm Shiite Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

The official did not know the target of the strike.

“The Israelis are trying to tell the Syrians: “Don’t support a resurgence of Hezbollah in Lebanon.’”

I'm back

Sorry for the long absence. Things at work have been a bit hectic, but there we go...

Stories to folllow...

Dresdner stops doing business in Iran, but not without protest

That's good news, especially considering it's a large German bank. The whole article can be found here, with excerpts below.

And the Islamic Republic's central bank is protesting...

Dresdner Bank has decided to wind up its remaining business in Iran, a spokesman for the German bank said on Tuesday.

"We are winding down our business in, with and to Iran," the spokesman said, adding that the administrative costs of doing business in Iran had become too high.

Dresdner, part of German insurer Allianz, has been scaling back its activity in Iran for months.

Recent hangings in Iran

• Iran: Three prisoners hanged in Shiraz and Zahedan
• Iran: Eight hanged in Saveh, Naqadeh, and Zahedan

Video: John Bolton wants the US to hit Iran

US chides allies for trade deals with Tehran

The full thing can be found here.

America's allies must do more to cut commercial and energy ties with Iran if the international campaign to halt Tehran's nuclear-weapons programs is to succeed, a top State Department official said yesterday.

R. Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, said the U.S.-led drive to sanction Iran's economy through the United Nations is being undercut when allies in Europe, Turkey, India, Japan and South Korea continue to make lucrative trade deals and even offer credits to businesses trading with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The United States lost its major holdings in Iran after the 1979 revolution and has had only very limited trading since, Mr. Burns said.

Good article on Green gone too far

The full thing can be found here. It starts like this, but wait 'till you get to the criticisms!

I believe people should be environmentally conscious. I believe people should make every rational effort to protect and preserve our planet's environment, conserve non-renewable resources, discover and use energy sources and raw materials that minimise pollution, and which are renewable or recyclable. That's just common sense.

But what I'm finding increasingly annoying are "Green" busy-bodies whose remonstrations are so irrational that they risk turning the average person off being 'green' at all. A case in point.

The current issue of Gay Times has a feature where three well-known personalities are subjected to a "Green Audit". While writer Julia Hailes - author of The New Green Consumer Guide - makes a few sensible recommendations, the overall impression is that she'd prefer it if we all returned to stone age living (and pre the discovery of fire, at that!).

She visited the homes of Paul O'Grady, Peter Tatchell, and Kristian Digby. Her suggestions for improvement generally made me laugh out loud, as I expect they would most people. That is not the desired effect, I'm quite sure...

The real 'revolution'