Monday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 1.30.2005:

The Major Strike in Tehran the MSM ignores, an update.

• Rooz Online reported that between 300 to 400 striking bus drivers and their families were arrested in Tehran, with little or no media coverage.
• No Sweat reported that thousands of the striking workers were beaten up by security forces but that in solidarity with the strikers, many residents of Tehran refused to board the buses.

More Iranian Regime Deception.

• The Telegraph reported that Iran has formed a top secret team of nuclear specialists to infiltrate the IAEA to obtain information on the work of IAEA inspectors.
• Michael Sheridan, The Times reported that North Korea is negotiating to sell the Iranians plutonium.

Ahmadinjad's Holocaust Offensive.

• The Times of India reported that Iran called on British Prime Minister Tony Blair to attend its scheduled Holocaust conference in Tehran.
• Ha'aretz reported that Iran accused the "Zionist regime" of "routinely attempting to exploit the suffering of the Jewish people.

Latest News on the road to the IAEA meeting, Thursday.

• EUbusiness reported that now Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi is saying: "The Russian proposal is a good package."
• The New York Times reported that Iran has finally given inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency access to the razed military site at Lavisan.
• Reuters reported that Iran insisted the only solution to its nuclear dispute with the West was negotiations.
• Reuters reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that "Iran threatens not only the Jewish state but the entire democratic world."
• Dow Jones Newswires reported that IAEA Chief ElBaradei met with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and earlier with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and then commented that his session with Straw was "very good."
• Reuters reported that a panel on Iran at the Davos forum identified three options: diplomacy, Iraq-style "regime change", and doing nothing and hoping for the best.

The New York Times get's it.

• The New York Times reported that while Ahmadinejad has been the subject of many jokes across Iran, he is consolidating his power and he has threatened to wipe not just Israel off the map, but America, too.

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

• Bijan Kian, United Press International argued that in the art of diplomacy Iran is out maneuvering the West.
• Shervin Omidvar, Rooz Online reported that last week, after Rafsanjani attended the “decisive meeting” on the nuclear issue, he immediately went to Qom and held private meetings with each grand ayatollah.
• Hamed Irani, Rooz Online reported that the radical Baseej forces in Iran believe the return of the absent Imam (12th Shiite Imam) is imminent.
• IranMania reported that a group of Iranian soldiers kidnapped near the border with Pakistan nearly two months ago was freed.
• And finally, Ebrahim Nabavi, Rooz Online published the Iranian satirist latest: If Ahmadinejad Ruled the World.