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Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran – “The Process of Uranium Enrichment is the Sovereign Right of Any Country”
Chief Iranian nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, left, arrives for talks at the Golden Ring Hotel in Moscow, Wednesday, March 1, 2006. Iran and Russia appeared at loggerheads Wednesday as they launched a fresh round of talks on the Kremlin’s offer of a deal on uranium enrichment aimed to ease Western fears that Tehran is forging ahead with efforts to build an atomic bomb.
ASSociated Press: Iran Refuses to Back Down in Nuke Talks
Iran refused to back down Wednesday in crucial talks on Russia’s offer to enrich uranium for Tehran, but negotiators agreed to resume discussions Thursday on a plan meant to ease Western fears Iran wants to build an atomic bomb.
The chief Iranian nuclear negotiator also said his country did not intend to agree to Russian demands to impose another moratorium on uranium enrichment activity.
“I want to say that the process of enrichment is the sovereign right of any country,” Ali Larijani said after nearly five hours of talks in a Moscow hotel. “You should not take away this right from nations which have a peaceful nuclear program, which consequently, includes also enrichment.”
This has been Iran’s position since the world community started negotaiting with them years ago. Iran wishes to continue uranium enrichment so they can divert material for their nuclear weapons program.
Who are they trying to FOOL?
That drew an immediate response from the United States, which fears Iran will use enrichment to make uranium for a weapons program. Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said Larijani’s declaration was “a move in the wrong direction” and cause for concern.
Iran’s decision was “one of the reasons why, after trying to resolve this issue through negotiations and through a good and reasonable proposal from Russia, we’re having to go to the (U.N.) Security Council,” Ereli said.
And what do the Russians really think?
Russia’s top diplomat reiterated Moscow’s call for Iran to return to a moratorium on enriching uranium as a condition for going forward with the Kremlin plan.
“What is necessary is for Iran to come back to the moratorium, to accept the joint venture proposal as a package that would be supported by the members of the governors’ board of the IAEA,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Budapest, where President Vladimir Putin was on a state visit.
The Vienna-based IAEA board of governors is to discuss the Iranian nuclear issue on Monday, and it could start a process leading to punishment by the U.N. Security Council, which has the authority to impose sanctions on Iran.
The United Nations Security Council will NEVER vote economic sanctions on Iran. China will VETO such a motion.
The ball remains in the Iranian MULLAHS’ court.
Iran must stand down their nuclear program……..
Previous:
Iran Nuclear Watch: IAEA Report – “Iran DETERMINED to Expand Uranium Enrichmentâ€
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran and Russia Have Reached a “BASIC†Agreement on Uranium Enrichment
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran WILL Retaliate Against Israel Nuclear Facility
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Iran Nuclear Watch: Jacques Chirac Says France’s Stance on Iran Unchanged
Iran Nuclear Watch: France Accuses Iran of Clandestine Military Nuclear Activity
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran’s Ambassador to Portugal Questions HolocaustIran Nuclear Watch: Iran OWNS Russia and China Vetoes on United Nations Security Council
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Begins Small Scale Uranium Enrichment While Russia and France Oppose
Iran Nuclear Watch: Talks with Russia PostponedIran Nuclear Watch: Iran Reaffirms Commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
Iran Nuclear Watch: United States Preparing Military Strikes Against Iran Nucear Sites
Iran Nuclear Watch: Natanz Uranium Processing Plant has RestartedIran Nuclear Watch: “MYTH†of the Holcaust Redux
Iran Watch: Iran Paper Holds Holocaust Cartoons ContestIran Watch: Iran Paper Plans Holocaust Cartoons
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Tells IAEA to Remove Surveillance Cameras and Seals From Nuclear Sites
Iran Nuclear Watch: Russia Warns Against Iran Conflict
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Ends Cooperation With IAEA and Resumes Uranium EnrichmentIran Nuclear Watch: IAEA Reports Iran to United Nations Security Council
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Threatens Full-Scale Enrichment Work
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Says BACK OFF Or…Iran Nuclear Watch: Bush – United States Will Defend Israel Against Iran
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Will Resist “Bully Nationsâ€
Iran Watch: Bush: Iran ‘Held Hostage’ by Clerical Elite
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Documents Point to Nuclear Warheads
Iran Nuclear Watch: Iran Threatens End of Diplomacy
Iran Nuclear Watch: Permanent Five Say IAEA Must Report Iran to U.N. Security CouncilThe Natanz uranium enrichment complex in Natanz is pictured in this January 2, 2006 satellite image.
Technorati Tags: Iran, Russia, China, SergeiLavrov, UnitedNations, UnitedNationsSecurityCouncil, ZhouWenzhong, NicholasBurns, EuropeanUnion, MahmoudAhmadinejad, ManouchehrMottaki, JacquesChirac, Chirac, France, Iran, Nuclearweapons, nuclear, AbdulQadeerKhan, AliLarijani, CondoleezzaRice, JohnBolton, RezaVaidi, GholamHosseinMohseniEjehei, SergeiKiriyenko
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Muhammad Caricature Watch: Manifesto Against ISLAMISM – Updated
The Muhammad Caricatures. The individual caricatures are here.
Published in today’s Indland Jyllands-Posten (Denmark):
MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism
After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.
We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.
The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.
Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man’s domination of woman, the Islamists’ domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.
We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of “Islamophobia”, an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatisation of its believers.
We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.
We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.
12 signatures
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Chahla Chafiq
Caroline Fourest
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Irshad Manji
Mehdi Mozaffari
Maryam Namazie
Taslima Nasreen
Salman Rushdie
Antoine Sfeir
Philippe Val
Ibn WarraqUPDATE:
The German blog Politically Incorrect has translated and published the manifesto in German, along with a graphic of the signatories:
Thanks to Michelle Malkin who has A MANIFESTO AGAINST ISLAMISM
Danish blogger Agora reports: The manifesto “will be brought in the French weekly Charlie Hebdo tomorrow, Wednesday. Charlie Hebdo has urged other papers to print it, as a show of solidarity.”
Show Sammenhold! Spread the word far and wide.
Early blog reax:
Rusty Shackleford: “Add my name.”
Atlas Shrugged: “Heads are gonna roll…no pun intended.”
No Pasaran!: File under freedom
Stockholm Spectator: Riots to follow, no doubt
Vince Aut Morire: I’ll Take Your Fatwa And Raise You A Manifesto
Johan Norberg: Against the New TotalitariansOk, Michelle, Flap is in!
SOLIDARITYThe twelve brave individuals who signed the MANIFESTO:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, from somilian origin, is member of Dutch parliement, member of the liberal party VVD. Writter of the film Submission which caused the assasination of Theo Van Gogh by an islamist in november 2004, she lives under police protection.Chahla Chafiq
Chahla Chafiq, writer from iranian origin, exiled in France is a novelist and an essayist. She’s the author of “Le nouvel homme islamiste , la prison politique en Iran ” (2002). She also wrote novels such as “Chemins et brouillard” (2005).Caroline Fourest
Essayist, editor in chief of Prochoix (a review who defend liberties against dogmatic and integrist ideologies), author of several reference books on « laicité » and fanatism : Tirs Croisés : la laïcité à l’épreuve des intégrismes juif, chrétien et musulman (with Fiammetta Venner), Frère Tariq : discours, stratégie et méthode de Tariq Ramadan, et la Tentation obscurantiste (Grasset, 2005). She receieved the National prize of laicité in 2005.Bernard-Henri Lévy
French philosoph, born in Algeria, engaged against all the XXth century « ism » (Fascism, antisemitism, totalitarism, terrorism), he is the author of La Barbarie à visage humain, L’Idéologie française, La Pureté dangereuse, and more recently American Vertigo.Irshad Manji
Irshad Manji is a Fellow at Yale University and the internationally best-selling author of “The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim’s Call for Reform in Her Faith” (en francais: “Musulmane Mais Libre”). She speaks out for free expression based on the Koran itself. Née en Ouganda, elle a fui ce pays avec sa famille musulmane d’origine indienne à l’âge de quatre ans et vit maintenant au Canada, où ses émissions et ses livres connaissent un énorme succès.Mehdi Mozaffari
Mehdi Mozaffari, professor from iranian origin and exiled in Denmark, is the author of several articles and books on islam and islamism such as : Authority in Islam: From Muhammad to Khomeini, Fatwa: Violence and Discourtesy and Glaobalization and Civilizations.Maryam Namazie
Writer, TV International English producer; Director of the Worker-communist Party of Iran’s International Relations; and 2005 winner of the National Secular Society’s Secularist of the Year award.Taslima Nasreen
Taslima Nasreen is born in Bangladesh. Doctor, her positions defending women and minorities brought her in trouble with a comittee of integrist called « Destroy Taslima » and to be persecuted as « apostate »Salman Rushdie
Salman Rushdie is the author of nine novels, including Midnight’s Children, The Satanic Verses and, most recently, Shalimar the Clown. He has received many literary awards, including the Booker Prize, the Whitbread Prize for Best Novel, Germany’s Author of the Year Award, the European Union’s Aristeion Prize, the Budapest Grand Prize for Literature, the Premio Mantova, and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature. He is a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et Lettres, an Honorary Professor in the Humanities at M.I.T., and the president of PEN American Center. His books have been translated into over 40 languages.Philippe Val
Director of publication of Charlie Hebdo (Leftwing french newspaper who have republished the cartoons on the prophet Muhammad by solidarity with the danish citizens targeted by islamists).
Ibn Warraq
Ibn Warraq , author notably of Why I am Not a Muslim ; Leaving Islam : Apostates Speak Out ; and The Origins of the Koran , is at present Research Fellow at a New York Institute conducting philological and historical research into the Origins of Islam and its Holy Book.Antoine Sfeir :
Born in Lebanon, christian, Antoine Sfeir choosed french nationality to live in an universalist and « laïc » (real secular) country. He is the director of Les cahiers de l’Orient and has published several reference books on islamism such as Les réseaux d’Allah (2001) et Liberté, égalité, Islam : la République face au communautarisme (2005).Spread the Word……
Write and ask these newspapers to print and sign the Manifesto:
New York Times
Washington PostOh, and don’t bet the farm on a favorable reply………
Previous:
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Pakistani Children – “Hang Those Who Insulted the Prophetâ€
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Protests Continue in Pakistan
Muhammad Caricature Watch: “Death to Americaâ€Muhammad Caricature Watch: German Court Convicts Man for Insulting Islam
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Malaysia Reprimands Newspaper for Lampoon Muhammad Caricature Cartoon
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Protesters Rally in Pakistan and Iraq
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Christian Anti-Muslim Riot in Nigeria Turns Deadly
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Islamic Radicals Call for More Protests
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Map of Cartoon Riots After the Publication of Caricatures of MuhammadMuhammad Caricature Watch: Saudi Papers Print Danish Editor’s Apology
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Weekend Protests in Pakistan “Spinning Out of Controlâ€
Muhammad Caricature Watch: London Protest of Muhammad Caricatures Draws 15,000
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Nigerian Muslims Protesting Muhammad Caricatures Attack Christians and Burn Churches
Muhammad Caricature Watch: “Roses of the Prophet Muhammad.â€Muhammad Caricature Watch: For the MORONS Who Defaced My Site
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Abu Ghraib Image Hypocrisy FLAP
Muhammad Caricature Watch: The FLAP Over Publication of Muhammad Caricatures on the Internet
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Thousands of Protesters Rampage in 2 Pakistani Cities
Cox & Forkum on the Muhammad Caricatures: Overboard
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Pakistan Police Gas Students Protesting CaricaturesMuhammad Caricature Watch: Condolezza Rice – Muslim Outrage Could “Spin Out of Controlâ€
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Denmark Withdraws Diplomats from Iran and Indonesia
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Thousands Protest Against Prophet Drawings
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Muslim Leaders Urge Calm
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Are Extemists Fanning Caricature Outrage?Muhammad Caricature Watch: Egypt and the Muhammad Caricatures
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Condoleezza Rice – Iran and Syria Stoking Anger – The Response
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Condoleezza Rice – Iran and Syria Stoking AngerCox & Forkum: Western Dhimmitude
Muhammad Caricature Watch: French Weekly Charlie Hebdo Reprints Muhammad Caricatures
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Demonstrators Attack Norwegian Embassy in Tehran, IranMuhammad Caricature Watch: 4 Killed In Afghanistan in Caricature Bloodshed
Muhammad Caricature Watch: A Right to Blasphemy
Muhammad Caricature Watch: New Protests Erupt Around the World
Muhammad Caricature Watch: The False Cartoons and Danish Imams
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Angry Demonstrators Set Danish Consulate in Beirut AblazeMuhammad Caricature Watch: Syrian Protesters Set Danish Embassy Ablaze Over Cartoon
Muhammad Caricature Watch: Protests Over Muhammad Drawings IntensifyMuhammad Caricature Watch: Anger Over Cartoons of Muhammad Escalates
Day by Day by Chris Muir on CNN
Day by Day by Chris Muir on Muhammad Caricatures
Cox & Forkum: Publication of Caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad by a Danish Newspaper
Technorati Tags: Jyllands-Posten, ProphetMuhammad, Islam, Muhammadcaricatures
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President Bush Watch: Confident Bin Laden WILL Be Captured
President Bush holds a news conference with Afghanistan’s leader Hamid Karzai after making a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Wednesday March 1, 2006, flying here secretly to support its fledging government in the face of rising violence from al-Qaida and Taliban militants.
ASSociated Press: Bush Confident Bin Laden Will Be Captured
President Bush, on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, said Wednesday he remains confident
Osama bin Laden “will be brought to justice” despite a so-far futile five-year hunt.“People all over the world are watching the experience here in Afghanistan,” Bush said as he stood side-by-side with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Amid extremely tight security, Bush made the surprise visit in Afghanistan at the onset of a scheduled visit to India and Pakistan.
“It’s a thrill to come to a country which is dedicating itself to the dignity of every person who lives here,” said Bush said, making his first visit to Afghanistan.
For his part, Karzai greeted Bush as “our great friend, our great supporter, a man who helped us liberate.”
Liberate……
You betcha!
And Bush has the courage of his convictions by going to this dangerous part of the world to visit two countries that he “TURNED” to be American allies in the Global War on Terror.
Stay tuned…….
Technorati Tags: GeorgeWBush, PresidentBush, OsamaBinLaden, Afghanistan, HamidKarzai
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Day By Day by Chris Muir