Iranian Alert -- October 19, 2003 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD PING LIST

The Iranian Student Movement Up To The Minute Reports ^ | 10.19.2003 | DoctorZin

[nuconvert]

Welcome to the Thread, Downer911

[DoctorZIn]

Symantec: Israel, Iran among top bases for Internet attacks

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Sunday, October 19, 2003

A survey by Symantec reported that Middle East countries comprised six of the top ten bases for Internet attacks during the first half of 2003. And they weren't all 'rogue states.'

The top offenders included Israel as well as Iran, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.

Symantec ranked the threats according to the size of a country's Internet population base. In the survey of countries with a base of between 100,000 and 1 million, Iran came second, Kuwait, third, the UAE, fourth, Saudi Arabia, sixth, and Egypt, ninth.

Israel was cited as the biggest source of web-based attacks with an Internet user base of more than 1 million, Middle East Newsline reported.

About 80 percent of all attacks originated from systems located in 10 countries.

"The Internet is a great leveller and the issue of web security in the Middle East is no different from any other part of the world," Kevin Isaac, regional director at Symantec, said.

"Wherever there is high bandwidth availability and a proliferation of the Internet, the chances of breaches taking place are high."

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_1.html

[DoctorZIn]

British MPs Arrived in Tehran

October 19, 2003
Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting
IRIB News

Tehran -- A British parliamentary delegation, headed by the chairman of foreign affairs committee of house of commons Donald Anderson, arrived here Saturday night for bilateral talks.

Upon arrival at Mehrabad airport, Anderson said the delegation consists of six members of UK parliament that will discuss with Iranian officials the strengthening of bilateral relations and other issues of mutual interest.

Expressing hope for improvement in ties between Iran and UK, Anderson said the delegation is in Tehran for this purpose and will report the outcome of the visit to the British government.

He said that the visit would undoubtedly affect positively the diplomatic relations between the two countries adding that the members of the delegation are happy to be able to talk to Iranian officials.

Head of Iran-Britain friendship group in Iranian Majlis Akbar Alami said on Saturday that the British delegation is expected to hold meetings with him, a number of officials at Iran's Foreign Ministry as well as head of Majlis Commission for National S ecurity and Foreign Affairs Mohsen Mirdamadi.

He said Iraq issue, Iran's views on additional protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Middle East peace and human rights are among major issues to be discussed.

The British delegation will leave Tehran for London Friday morning.

http://www.iribnews.com/Full_en.asp?news_id=190609

[DoctorZIn]

Iran Pledges Nuclear Co-operation

October 19, 2003
BBC News
Jim Muir

Negotiations between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on an agreement that would allow tougher inspections of the country's nuclear facilities have come to an end in Tehran.

Iran has until the end of the month to satisfy the agency it has no plans for nuclear weapons.

Khatami wants Iran to retain its right to have nuclear technology
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has said the country would do "whatever may be necessary to solve the problem" provided its rights were assured.

The talks on an additional protocol which would impose a tougher inspection regime were very intense and lasted two days.

The chief Iranian representative, Ali Akbar Salehi, told the BBC Iran was satisfied with the clarifications the agency had provided on various aspects of the protocol.

He said the results would now be referred to the Iranian leadership for a decision which he expected would take a matter of days, but more than 24 hours.

If so, that would mean a resolution of this important aspect of the Iranian nuclear imbroglio would not be ready in time for the possible visit to Tehran by three European foreign ministers from Britain, France and Germany.

If that visit goes ahead it is expected to start late on Monday, but it depends on the ministers being sure that Iran is ready to comply with all of the IAEA's requirements.

That includes the vital issue of uranium enrichment, which the agency has asked Iran to suspend.

Asked whether Iran was ready to halt uranium enrichment plans, President Khatami said it would do "whatever may be necessary to solve the problems", providing it retained its right to have nuclear technology.

That is where the three European ministers would come in, with assurances that they would help Iran get what it needs to produce nuclear power under safeguards.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3205952.stm

[DoctorZIn]

Progress Exceeds Prognostication in Iraq

October 20, 2003
The Christian Science Monitor
Karl Zinsmeister

There is basic peace, economic bubbling, and majority Iraqi support for the path the US has cleared.

FORT BRAGG, N.C. – 'This may not be Vietnam, but boy, it sure smells like it," said Sen. Tom Harkin recently. The Iowa Democrat is but one of a host of critics in Washington politics and the media who claim that US troops and administrators are "bogged down" in Iraq.

Having covered the war as an embedded reporter, having conducted the first national poll of the Iraqi people (in concert with Zogby International), and having remained in close touch with the military men and women who are temporarily the princes running the land of the Tigris and Euphrates, I believe this gloomy view is incomplete and inaccurate.

Let's start by remembering the traumas that never befell us in Iraq.

Not only was the war itself vastly less bloody and difficult than some predicted, but its aftermath has also been quieter. We were told by prewar prognosticators to expect a refugee flood, a food crisis, destruction of the oil fields, and public-health disasters. We were warned that Iraq's multifarious ethnic and religious groups would be at one another's throats. Environmental catastrophes, chemical poisonings, and dam breaks were predicted. It was said Turkey might occupy the north, that Israel could strike from the south, that the Arab "street" was likely to resist.

None of these things happened. Nor have other predicted troubles materialized. When 300,000 mourners gathered for the funeral of assassinated Shiite spiritual leader Bakr al Hakim, they didn't rampage, or call for vengeance against Sunnis, or lash out against the US authorities. They and their leaders showed the political maturity to let the official investigation into the leader's murder proceed.

Whatever the setbacks, we must remember that much of this war has been a case of the dog that didn't bark.

That is not to whitewash the fact that painful low-intensity conflict is still smoldering, producing casualties equivalent to the hot-war phase.

The man I photographed in combat for the cover of my new book about the Iraq war, an 82nd Airborne Ranger named Sean Shields, has been bombed in his Humvee twice in a month. Localized resistance in the Sunni triangle is real. But Sean isn't discouraged: He believes he's doing historic work to stabilize one of the most dangerous spots on our planet. He and other soldiers I hear from believe they're making great progress in setting Iraq on the path of a more normal, decent nation.

Here are some signs they're right:

• Stores are bustling, traffic is busy, and most services have now exceeded their prewar levels. A new currency went into circulation last week.

• Large cities, home to millions - like Basra, Mosul, and Kirkuk - and vast swaths of countryside in the north and south, are stable, basically peaceful, beginning to bubble economically, and grateful to coalition forces who've set them on a new path.

• More than 170 newspapers are being published in Iraq, and broadcast media proliferate.

• The Iraqi Governing Council has been well received by the country's many factions and ethno-religious groups. Sixty-one percent of Iraqis polled by Gallup in September view the council favorably. And by 50 to 14 percent they say it is doing a better, rather than worse, job than it was two months ago.

• For the first time, localities have their own town councils. A working court system has been set up. And a constitution is being hashed out.

• In addition to the 140,000 US troops providing security, there are about 25,000 soldiers from other countries, and 60,000 Iraqi police and guards on the job - with many thousands more in the training pipeline.

• Nearly all schools and universities are open; hundreds have been rehabbed into their best shape in years by soldiers.

• Iraq's interim economic leaders recently committed the country to a wide-open, investment-friendly market economy. The prosperity and global connectivity this should bring will be the ultimate guarantee of Iraq's modernity and moderation.

• Oil production has passed 1 million barrelsper day, and is heading toward 2 million.

• Iraqi public opinion is more moderate than suggested by the anecdotal temperature-takings in press reports. Four entirely different polls have been conducted in Iraq, and their remarkably congruent results show that the majority of Iraqis are optimistic about their future, and believe ousting Saddam Hussein was worth any hardships that have resulted.

The four-city survey in August by The American Enterprise, a magazine I edit, suggests that the three nightmare scenarios for Iraq - a Baathist revival, an Iran-style theocracy, and a swing toward Al Qaeda - are very unlikely, given current Iraqi views. And contrary to media reports of boiling public resentment, all of these polls show that two-thirds of Iraqis want US troops to stay for at least another year.

• Meanwhile, the pouncing raids that US forces initiated two months ago have hurt the guerrillas. More than 1,000 fighters have been arrested and many others killed. The bounty paid by ex-Baathists toinduce attacks on American soldiers has had to be increased from $1,000 to $5,000 to find takers.

• Most critically, the US is now on offense, rather than defense, in the war on terror. With a shock being applied to the seedbeds of Middle Eastern violence, the US homeland has been blessedly quiet for two years.

My friend Christopher Hitchens - who like me, numerous congressmen, and other recent visitors to Iraq witnessed what he calls "ecstatic displays" toward Americans by grateful Iraqis - characterizes what is taking place in Iraq today as "a social and political revolution."

That's no overstatement. Maj. Pete Wilhelm, with the 82nd Airborne in Baghdad, recently described how US forces are nurturing the first shoots of democracy in the Fertile Crescent: "We set up a Neighborhood Advisory Council representative of each neighborhood, and they voted on a leader who attends the city advisory council. Early on, the meetings would last four hours, and it would seem as though no progress was being made. The whole concept of a 'vote' came hard and slow. We have gradually transitioned the burden of the agenda into the hands of the representatives, renovated the meeting hall with AC, and pushed the autopilot button. The meetings are down to an hour and a half, and we just keep the ball in play and act as referees. We are making great strides at grass-roots democracy."

After a recent trip to the country, Mr. Hitchens agrees, saying, "I saw persuasive evidence of the unleashing of real politics in Iraq, and of the highly positive effect of same."

All of this has been accomplished in less than six months from the fall of Baghdad. Keep in mind that Germany - a much more advanced nation that already had a democratic tradition - didn't hold elections until four years after World War II ended. Gen. Douglas MacArthur progressed less rapidly in Japan.

Certainly, there remains an enormous amount to fix in Iraq. But there is something unseemly about the impatience of today's pundits, their insistence on instant recovery, and what my colleague Michael Barone calls the media's "zero defect standard."

US soldiers and administrators are turning a tide of history and culture in the Middle East. If Americans show some patience, they'll gaze upon many heartening transformations in Iraq a few months and years from now.

• Karl Zinsmeister, editor in chief of The American Enterprise magazine, is the author of the new book, 'Boots on the Ground: A Month with the 82nd Airborne in the Battle for Iraq.' He was in Iraq in April.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1020/p09s01-coop.html?entryBottomStory

[PhilDragoo]

She exudes the quiet confidence of some-
one who knows time is on her side.

[PhilDragoo]

Iraq is a major Muslim nation. It would be odd if the Muslim world simply turned its back to it at this crucial time.

What is not mentioned in this analysis is the issue of democracy.

The Islamic autocracies do not wish the Islamic democracy to succeed.

That, and they largely despise the Great Satan.

With both feet planted firmly in the past, they bravely turn their backs on the future.

It is their loss, and Iraq should not consider it any loss to its fortunes.

[Pan_Yans Wife]

You have freepmail

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[nuconvert]

"That includes the vital issue of uranium enrichment, which the agency has asked Iran to suspend."

Since they have a stockpile already, they'll
probably give in on this to make themselves
look good. Like they're really "cooperating".

[nuconvert]

Great post

[nuconvert]

'She exudes the quiet confidence of some-
one who knows time is on her side."

Yes, she does.
Thanks for the pic.

[F14 Pilot]

Iran Ebadi plans legal centre for human rights violations

Deepika global
20th October, 2003.

Teheran, Oct 20 (DPA) Iran's Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi plans to create a legal centre in Iran for following up human rights violations, the Teheran press reported.

The daily Yass-e No reported that Ebadi's main aim is to allow the people to voice their protests directly to an office affiliated to Iran's Lawyer Association.

According to the plan, the problems would first be evaluated inside the country without first being referred to international organizations such as United Nations' offices in Teheran.

Ebadi was quoted by the daily as saying that while international organizations should be respected, it would still be wiser to refer first to an internal centre and try to solve the relevant problems nationally.

Observers believe that with the Nobel Peace Prize in her professional record, Ebadi hopes to have more acknowledgement by the Islamic establishment in her fight for children, women and especially human rights.

Ebadi said after her return earlier this week from Paris that she would respect the country's laws and not engage herself directly in politics. But already many intellectuals and human rights activists have called for her nomination at the 2005 presidential elections.

Ebadi had told the students' news agency ISNA Saturday that all political groups, with whatever stance they have, should move hand- in-hand towards building up Iran.

The 56-year-old secular dissident also called for the immediate release of all political prisoners, suitable venues for runaway children and social security for women who have no income of their own.

http://www.deepikaglobal.com/latestnews.asp?ncode=8138

[DoctorZIn]

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[windchime]

Bump!

[blackie]

Free the Iranian people ~ now!

[PhilDragoo]

Ebadi was quoted by the daily as saying that while international organizations should be respected, it would still be wiser to refer first to an internal centre and try to solve the relevant problems nationally.

If the mullahs insist upon stonewalling, their "failure to communicate" will have unsettling consequences on their own survival.