AP: Iran is using Islamic religious organizations in Israel as a cover to run Israeli Arab agents in the country, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said yesterday. He did not elaborate.
Sharon’s accusation came amid Israel’s increasingly vocal concern over Iran’s nuclear development program, which, Jerusalem says, is aimed at producing nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge, saying it is intended for electricity generation.
PM: Iran is running Arab agents in Israel
Iran Hard-Liners Drafting Uranium Bill
AP: Iran Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament is drafting a bill that would force the reformist government to resume uranium enrichment – a necessary step toward producing nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons – over the objections of the international community.
Iran cancels music concerts under hard-line pressure
Reuters: Iranian authorities have cancelled several musical concerts organised by European embassies after religious hardliners warned the Islamic state against the “corrupting” influence of Western culture.
Analysts said the concert cancellations reflected a new political climate in Iran where religious hardliners now firmly have the upper hand over the pro-reform allies of moderate President Mohammad Khatami.
Iran doing ‘a lot of meddling’ in Iraq: Rumsfeld
AFP: Iran is sending money and arms into neighboring Iraq to try to influence the outcome of elections there in January, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday.
Iran, as a predominantly Shiite country that fought a war with Iraq in the 1980s, has a big interest in what happens in Iraq,
he said.
Vice president submits resignation in Iran
AFP: One of Iran’s most outspoken reformists, Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi, announced he had submitted his resignation from the increasingly isolated pro-reform government.
“It is up to the president to approve this decision,” Abtahi told the student news agency ISNA on Monday …
Increased unemployment for hundreds of thousands of workers
Iran Focus: Tehran, Oct. 4 – The executive director of the Khaneyeh Karegar (House of Workers) in an interview with
the Iranian state-run wire service admitted that hundreds of thousands of workers are presently unemployed.
Ali Tarshavand accused senior officials of the Iranian governments inner circle of being at the centre of enormous corruption.
Iraqi Interior Minister: Armed Iranian fighters arrested in Samarra
Iran Focus: Baghdad, Oct. 4 – The Interim Iraqi Interior Minister stated that armed Iranian agents have been arrested among rebels fighting in the city of Samarra. The Al-Hurriya TV aired footage of Falah Naqib who accused Iran of backing insurgents in this presently volatile region of Iraq.
Iraqi Interior Minister: Armed Iranian fighters arrested in Samarra
Iran Focus: Baghdad, Oct. 4 – The Interim Iraqi Interior Minister stated that armed Iranian agents have been arrested among rebels fighting in the city of Samarra. The Al-Hurriya TV aired footage of Falah Naqib who accused Iran of backing insurgents in this presently volatile region of Iraq.
Iran may halt snap nuclear inspection if parliament approves: official
Xinhuanet: Iran said on Sunday that it might halt snap UN inspections on its nuclear sites if its parliament approved it,
the official IRNA news agency reported. “If the Majlis (parliament) passes the bill like that and it is approved by the Guardian Council, the government will naturally follow it,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi was quoted
as saying.
Iran, Pakistan and nukes
Washington Times: The International AtomicEnergy Agency (IAEA) is currently investigating Iran’s nuclear program, especially the possibility that Pakistan helped it with substantial transfers of technology and materials in the past. There has been no conclusive evidence so far, except for a piece of evidence that Pakistan had supplied designs for an advanced centrifuge called P-2 to Iran in 1995.
