News from Iran

Rhetoric of war

Iran's nuclear stance is under fire from the UN - again, reports Jonathan Miller.

Iran's instransigence over its nuclear programme is 'unacceptable', said President Bush - and Britain has confirmed it's discussing 'further diplomatic measures' with its allies.

This as a report from the international nuclear watchdog accuses Iran of ignoring calls to suspend its uranium enrichment - instead, accelerating its activities.

Despite the threat of sanctions - Tehran remains defiant - President Ahmandinejad insisting 'we don't give a damn' about UN resolutions.

The 30 days Iran's had to answer questions has just left more questions unanswered.

Why Ahmadinejad is willing to end female sports ban

Women should be allowed into sports stadiums for the first time, reversing the Islamic Republic's code preventing them watching men playing sports in big venues, says President Ahmadinejad according to a report in Iran News Daily.

Why? Apparently to create a purer society. "The presence of women and families in public places promotes chastity," Ahmadinejad is quoting as saying.

"The best stands should be allocated to women and families in the stadiums in which national and important matches are being held," the President added.

While women have sometimes been allowed into smaller venues to watch male sports such as basketball and volleyball they have been barred from bigger events such as international football events. At those internationals, female fans of foreign opponents have been granted access inside the stadium.

In March, female football fans who'd bought tickets for a match at Tehran's Azadi stadium were attacked by security forces.

See also:

The football team's No. 1 fan

"Jews must go back to Europe"

"Let them return to their own lands," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the press yesterday returning to one of his favourite themes - the Jews of Israel.

Addressing foreign journalists, he said: "You have created a problem in Palestine and must solve it yourselves," he added.

In  response a number of bloggers have been quick to point out that Iran's president has conveniently ignored "the fact that a majority of Israel's Jewish population didn't come from Europe and has no ties to that continent".

Iran-Focus also reports Ahmadinejad's call to end Germany's war reparations dating back to World War II. The money was going to a “bunch of Zionists to suppress the Palestinian people”, he added.

Cleaning up Iran's text messages

The Government has been cracking down on text messaging, reports Shahram Rafiizadeh, who blogs under the name Rooz.

"Text messaging with political content, especially making fun of government officials has been rising in number and volume," says the Rooz blog. It's stll a new service in Iran - But it's already surpassed the popularity of the Internet.

It's not popular with everyone, though. President Admadinejad is keen to clean up what he sees as unacceptable use of text messaging, perhaps because some of those messages involve jokes about his personal hygiene.

Four arrests were made in connection with prohibited text messages, Rooz reports, the second time people in Iran have been arrested for unacceptable use of SMS.

Read the full report here. (Via A Daily Breifing on Iran)

US plans to bomb Iran: Reaction

The report in Sunday's New Yorker, that the US has intensified planning for a major air attack on Iran generated an enormous response in traditional media and the Blogosphere. But few Iranian English-language bloggers, in Iran or elsewhere, tackled the issue.

One of the few who did was Mr Behi.

"I am starting to believe that we are living in a haphazard time of human history! Can still not be live what I hear about the talks of using nuclear weapons against Iran's nuclear sites! Hey, do you hear me? We are people down here! Can you understand that?"

The football team's No. 1 fan

One of the perks of being President is free tickets to the World Cup - as long as your country qualifies for the finals, that is. So it's not surprising that, according to reports, President Ahmadinejad is keen to support his team in Germany.

He's an avid keen soccer fan, by all accounts, and the head of Iran's Football Federation told the Reuters news agency that the President was planning to make the trip.

But surely that won't be allowed, at least until the whole rumpus about nuclear weapons is sorted out? There's also the matter of Ahmadinejad questioning whether the Holocaust ever happened. Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany.

Putting the financial squeeze on Iran

News from a front we don't hear much about – America's financial battle with Iran.

The Telegraph newspaper reports that Dana Rohrabacher, a US congressman who chairs an investigation into offshore banking and terrorism, has turned his wrath onto the Swiss bank UBS.

UBS has admitted supplying Iran, as well as Cuba, Libya and Saddam Hussein's Iraq with dollars obtained through a US Federal Reserve scheme in the 1990s, and paid a $100m fine, the paper said.

Rohrabacher is convinced there's more to discover. "There's another layer to the onion, and you can smell it. I simply do not believe that UBS would have taken such a risk unless there was something else going on," he told the paper.