Friday's Daily Briefing on Iran

DoctorZin reports, 3.03.2006:

State Department Creates an Iran Office.

• Ken Timmerman, The Foundation for Democracy in Iran reported that the State Department has created, a long over due, special office to promote democracy-promotion in Iran.
• CNN News reported that the U.S. State Department is creating a special Office of Iran Affairs and a senior official said the office is being created "to facilitate a change in Iranian policies and actions."
  

The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds hearing on Iran, but not about the Iran Freedom & Support Act. Call your Senator!

• The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on Iran. But they still need to take up the issue of the Iran Freedom & Support Act. Call your Senators and ask them to support of this important bill today.
• Senator Santorum's Office released the text of the statement of Senator Rick Santorum to Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the need to support the Iran Freedom & Support Act.

Iran Desperate to signup more Suicide Bombers.

• Iran Press News reported that Khamnei's newspaper, has called for an increase in the number of suicide-bombing registrations centers for volunteers prepared to carry out missions in western countries.
• Iran Focus reported that a state-organized group which avowedly trains suicide bombers has launched a website where Jihadists can now apply online.
• Mehran Riazaty reported that Hassan Abassi, Ahmadinejad’s chief strategic counselor, said of martyrs: “Only certain people deserve to participate in the suicide operations.” He added: “America means enemy, and enemy means Satan.”

Reza Pahlavi calls on Iranians to Unite.

• The Financial Times reported that Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the former Shah of Iran called on Iran’s fractious opposition groups to unite against the Islamic regime.

Iran wants another meeting with Europe.

• The New York Times reported that in a surprise development, the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany have agreed to meet with Iran's top nuclear negotiator to discuss what Iran is describing as new ideas to break the impasse over its nuclear program.
  

Iran's Dissidents & Unrest.

• Iran Press News reported that Monday, the spokesman of the striking bus union in Tehran was arrested and summarily transferred to Evin prison.
• Mail & Guardian Online reported two men convicted of carrying out a deadly a bomb attack in Iran's restive oil city of Ahvaz were executed in public early on Thursday.
• Fibre 2 Fashion reported that textile workers blocked a major highway from the city of Isfahan to Tehran to protest against non-payment of their salaries.
• Iran Press News reported that Bina Darab-Zand, activist political prisoner, in a letter to the warden of Evin prison, refused any more visitors due to the humiliating abuse they receive.

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

• Roya Hakakian, The Wall Street Journal argued that the Iranian regime is using the nuclear crisis to divert global attention to the country's many domestic problems, giving the ruling clerics free rein to devastate opposition with all the brutality they can muster.
• Iran Press News that Dr. Hadi Ghanimi-Fard, an Employment and Labor authority in Iran told ILNA, said: "In Iran there are no opportunities for prosperity for an employer, factory-owner, job creator, job or worker."
• Iran Press News reported that Ali Zodsar, a member of the Majlis (the Islamic Parliaments Assembly) told reporters: "The Russians and the British are much worse than Americans."
• Iran Focus reported that Ahmadinejad declared in Malaysia that Islam will be the dominant power in the “near future.”