Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Aug. 07 Women will not be included in the cabinet of Irans new hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a leading ultra-conservative figure said on Sunday.
Hamid-Reza Taraghi, a central committee member of the Motalefeh Party, told a state-run news agency, The circumstances for women to be ministers in the cabinet do not exist, but probably they can become deputies.
Women not permitted in cabinet of Irans new president
Syria president in Iran for talks with new counterpart
AFP: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s leading Arab
ally, arrived in Tehran Sunday for talks with his newly sworn-in counterpart Mahmood Ahmadinejad, state radio said.
It was the first visit by a foreign leader since Ahmadinejad took the oath of office Saturday.
Iranian woman barred from work following husband’s complaint
AFP: A Tehran court has barred a young woman from working after her estranged husband complained she was only
allowed to be a housewife, local media reported Sunday. The female half of the unnamed couple left her husband and started working two years ago because he “deceived me and treated me badly”, she told the court.
Security tight at Kurdish town on strike in Iran
Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Aug. 07 Irans State Security Forces and agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security have been on heightened alert on Sunday in the Kurdish town of Bukan, northwest Iran, following a general strike in the central bazaar and in many shops, residents reported. The general strike was in protest to authorities violent crackdown on the restive Kurdish population in western Iran. Over the past month, there have been continuous anti-government protests in Irans Kurdish region.
Security tight at Kurdish town on strike in Iran
Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Aug. 07 Irans State Security Forces and agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security have been on heightened alert on Sunday in the Kurdish town of Bukan, northwest Iran, following a general strike in the central bazaar and in many shops, residents reported. The general strike was in protest to authorities violent crackdown on the restive Kurdish population in western Iran. Over the past month, there have been continuous anti-government protests in Irans Kurdish region.
Iran unconcerned about Security Council referral
Reuters: Iran on Sunday reiterated plans to resume uranium conversion this week and said it was unconcerned about referral of its nuclear case to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. “Although we think referral of Iran’s case
to the Security Council would be unlawful and politically motivated, if one day they refer Iran’s case…we won’t be
worried in the least,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi.
EU won’t intimidate us over uranium, says Iranian leader
Sunday Telegraph: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed that Iran would not be intimidated by the West over its nuclear
ambitions as he was formally sworn in as the country’s president yesterday. Hopes of finding a diplomatic solution to the crisis were dashed when Iran rejected a European Union package of incentives in return for scrapping its uranium enrichment programme.
France urges Iran to study EU proposals carefully
Reuters: French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy urged Iran on Saturday to study carefully the European Union’s offer
of incentives in return for a suspension of its nuclear fuel work, after Tehran rejected the offer. “Faced with the first, negative reactions from Iran, I urge its leaders to give themselves the time to examine these proposals with care,” Douste-Blazy told Le Journal du Dimanche in an early release of an interview to run on Sunday.
Iraqi Kurds rally to support Iranian brethren
AFP: More than 400 Iraqi Kurds gathered Saturday to protest recent clashes in neighbouring Iran’s northwest Kurdish region as police opened fire to disperse the crowd, an AFP correspondent reported. Carrying anti-Iran banners and shouting slogans condemning the Islamic republic, the demonstrators gathered in the centre of the northern Kurdish town of Suleimaniyah, 330 kilometers (205 miles) north of Baghdad.
Paramilitary vigilantes given police role in Iran
Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Aug. 06 The head of police in the province of Isfahan, central Iran, said in a gathering on
Saturday that members of the Bassij, paramilitary vigilantes loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, were authorised to assist the police in cracking down on dissent.
