Thursday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 8.18.2005:

Iran Made Thousands of Centrifuges, Breaking Pledge, Exiles Say

Alex Morales, Bloomberg:

Iran has continued to produce centrifuges, which are used in the uranium enrichment process, in contravention of a November 2004 agreement with the U.K., France and Germany to suspend all such activities, the exiled opposition National Council for Resistance in Iran said. ...

“In several secret locations, including several sites around Tehran, the regime is working round-the-clock to build centrifuges,'' Hossein Abedini, a member of the NCRI's Foreign Affairs Committee, told reporters. ``Thousands of these machines have already been built and are ready for use,'' in work that has been ``non-stop throughout the past few months.'' READ MORE

Here are a few other news items you may have missed.

• Feedster.com ranked this blog # 67 among the top 500 blogs.
• Gooya News reported that there will be a vigil in support of Iranian political prisoners, especially Akbar Ganji, in Paris on Friday.
• Persian Journal reported that Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the withdrawal was a victory for legitimate Palestinian resistance.
• Uriah Kriegel, Tech Central Station reported that genuine revolutions are the result of widespread dissatisfaction so strongly suppressed that it eventually erupts.
• The New York Sun reported that if President Bush permits Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to come to America to address the United Nations it will dishearten the freedom fighters in Iran.
• Iranian.ws reported that the government of Iran has banned the use of Blogrolling.com and has ordered all Iranian ISPs to block and filter the blog rolling service.
• IranMania.com reported that Iranian dissident journalist Akbar Ganji has "officially" ended his hunger strike.
• Shahram Kholdi, ScanIranic translated Iranian hardline bios of Ahmadinehad's cabinet. Part two is here. He argues it is a wartime cabinet.
• Iran Focus reported on a recent scientific study that found 71 percent of teenagers in Iran suffer from depression.
• The New York Times reported that Ms. Rice said of the the recent IAEA statement: We had agreed in advance with the Europeans that we would seek a strong statement. This would be a two-step process.
• The Economist reported that theoretically, the Security Council could take a whole range of measures to against Iran: from selective visa bans for those involved in its nuclear program, through embargoes of various kinds, to tough economic sanctions. The UN is not the only recourse.
• UK Presidency of EU 2005, Presse 208 published the EU's Declaration on Iran's Unilateral Resumption of Nuke Activity.
• The Wall Street Journal reported that officials in Iran have threatened that they might stop the flow of tankers through the crucial Strait of Hormuz.
• Deutsche Welle reported that while Germans are worried about US President Bush's unwillingness to rule out military action against Iran, they said the US and Europe should concentrate on supporting Iran's democracy movement.
• Arnaud de Borchgrave, The Washington Times reported that if the U.S. and/or Israel decide to launch air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities some 46 Iranian infantry and missile brigades are poised near the common border to move into Iraq.
• And finally, Bamahang Productions reported that for the first time, underground music from Iran became available for Digital Download over the internet.