| June 8, 2009 | - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of Iran's presidential election. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the election results a “divine miracle,” but fraud and voter irregularities were reportedly rampant; Ahmadinejad's main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, asked the ayatollah for an investigation into the results. “They didn't rig the vote,” said an official with Iran's interior ministry, which conducted the election. “They didn't even look at the vote. They just wrote the name and put the number in front of it.” Iranians protesting the results took to the streets, where they were attacked with clubs, metal batons, baseball bats, stones, and teargas. “He ran a red light,” said Ahmadinejad of Mousavi, “and he got a traffic ticket.” During the campaign, Mousavi advocated increased engagement with the United States and accused Ahmadinejad of being “superstitious” and “brazenly staring at the camera and telling lies to the nation,” citing September 2005 footage in which Ahmadinejad discussed being surrounded by a mysterious light during an appearance at the United Nations: “I felt the atmosphere changed,” he said, claiming that, for 27 minutes, his audience did not blink. “I’m not exaggerating,” he continued, “when I’m saying they didn’t blink.”
| Source 1:
Bloomberg
Source 2:
New York Times
Source 3:
CNN
Source 4:
New York Times
Source 5:
New York Times
Source 6:
Times Online
|
| October 20, 2008 | -
Iranian authorities captured two spy pigeons near the country's uranium enrichment facility.
| Source:
AFP
|
| September 22, 2008 | - Geologists found that Iran is sinking.
| Source:
National Geographic
|
| July 28, 2008 | -
Iran executed 29 drug smugglers.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 10, 2008 | -
Iran released photos of a missile test that had been doctored to make it look as if four missiles were being launched instead of three.
| Source:
NYTimes
|
| May 5, 2008 | - U.S. military reports on the interrogation of four captured Shia militia members concluded that Hezbollah was training small groups of Iraqi insurgents in Iran. John Bolton, ex-ambassador to the United Nations, said that attacking Iran was “really the most prudent thing to do”; the Iraqi government said that it would conduct its own inquiry. “We do not want to start a conflict with Iran,” said Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. “We need our own government documentation of this interference, not from the Americans, not from the media.”
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
Reuters
Source 3:
The Christian Science Monitor
Source 4:
Fox via Thinkprogress
|
| October 15, 2007 | - A Kremlin spokeswoman said assassins are plotting to kill Vladimir Putin this week during his visit to Tehran.
| Source:
Breitbart
|
| September 26, 2007 | -
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, hailed by his countrymen as the “Socrates of the Third Millennium” for “disarming other speakers through his sharp reasoning,” gave a speech on Monday in which he claimed that Iran had no homosexuals and disavowed reports of his nuclear ambitions. “Let me tell a joke here,” Ahmadinejad said. “I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs, or testing them, making them, politically they are backward, retarded.” On Tuesday he met with Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, addressed the United Nations (where he announced that he would disregard any resolutions adopted by the Security Council), and hosted a reception at the Intercontinental Hotel that was attended by Brian Williams and Christiane Amanpour.
| Source 1:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
Source 2:
Adnkronos International
Source 3:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
Source 4:
New York Times
Source 5:
Time
|
| September 23, 2007 | -
Iran shut its border with northern Iraq after an Iranian national was detained by U.S. troops and accused of being a member of the Revolutionary Guard.
| Source:
AFP
|
| September 23, 2007 | -
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended the United Nations in New York City and gave a speech at Columbia University. “There is,” he said in an interview, “no war in the offing.”
| Source:
Herald Sun
|
| September 23, 2007 | - Both Iran and mercenary firm Blackwater USA were accused of smuggling weapons into Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, speaking from a Manhattan hotel, criticized the United States for the recent deaths of civilians at the hands of Blackwater. “Success is shared,” he said. “God forbid, failure is also shared.”
| Source:
AP
|
| September 22, 2007 | - It was reported that not long ago Vice President Dick Cheney considered asking Israel to launch missiles at an Iranian
nuclear site to kick-start a new war.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| July 12, 2007 | -
Kurdish guerrillas were fighting Iranian troops.
| Source:
IHT
|
| July 1, 2007 | - President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela visited Tehran and praised Iran's nuclear program, calling President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad his “ideological brother.”
| Source:
BBCnews.com
|
| May 29, 2007 | -
Iran's
telecommunications ministry proclaimed that it will begin filtering immoral messages sent by cell phones.
| Source:
Reuters via eweek.com
|
| May 2, 2007 | - The U.N. Refugee Agency reported that more than 36,000 Afghans had been deported from Iran since late April.
| Source:
BBCnews.com
|
| April 30, 2007 | - Police in Tehran forbade barbers from giving men Western style haircuts or plucking their eyebrows.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| April 19, 2007 | - A senior U.N. inspector revealed that in the past two months Iran has doubled its capacity to enrich uranium.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| April 19, 2007 | - Senator John McCain entertained a crowd at a campaign rally in South Carolina by singing “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran” to the tune of “Barbara Ann” by the Beach Boys.
| Source:
Georgetown Times
|
| March 23, 2007 | - The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to impose new sanctions on Iran. Iranian officials claimed that American authorities had prevented President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from attending the Council meeting by delaying his visa.
| Source 1:
AP via Yahoo! News
Source 2:
BBC
|
| March 23, 2007 | - In the Iraqi territory of the Shatt al-Arab waterway, Iranian forces captured and detained 15 members of the British Royal Navy.
| Source:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
|
| March 1, 2007 | -
Senator Joe Biden (D., Del.) boasted that as president he would pull U.S. troops out of Iraq and send them to “take out the janjaweed” in Darfur, which he mistakenly placed in Somalia, not Sudan, where visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signed a cooperative agreement on the environment and said, “Zionists are the true manifestation of Satan.”
| Source 1:
PrezVid
Source 2:
Deutsche Presse-Agentur
|
| February 16, 2007 | - President George W. Bush expressed “certainty” that the Iranian government has been supplying Iraqi insurgents with weapons and extended the deployment of 3,200 soldiers so close to the end of their tour that their uniforms and supplies had already been packed for shipment.
| Source 1:
CBS4Denver
Source 2:
NYT
|
| February 2, 2007 | - Former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski warned that the White House was looking for an excuse to attack Iran.
| Source:
World Socialist Web Site
|
| January 14, 2007 | - In Venezuela, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and President Hugo Chávez embraced. “Welcome, fighter for just causes,” Chávez said.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 12, 2007 | - Americans in Erbil arrested six Iranians working at a diplomatic office.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 12, 2007 | -
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D., Del.) asserted that the authority Congress granted the Bush Administration to invade Iraq did not extend to invading Iran or Syria. “I just want to set that marker,” he said.
| Source:
Slate
|
| December 11, 2006 | -
Iran held a conference to examine whether the Holocaust happened.
| Source:
AP via CBS
|
| November 29, 2006 | -
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to the American people claiming that Jews have inordinate control over international finance, media, and culture.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 28, 2006 | -
Iran's supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that “the continuation of Iraq's occupation is not a mouthful that Americans can swallow.”
| Source:
Breitbart.com
|
| November 8, 2006 | - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned, and to replace him President Bush nominated Robert Gates, a member of the Iraq Study Group and former head of the CIA, who was investigated in 1991 by the office of the independent counsel for his role in the Iran-contra scandal, and was suspected to have passed military intelligence to Saddam Hussein's
Iraq.
| Source 1:
GlobalSecurity.org
Source 2:
Mercury News
Source 3:
The New York Times
Source 4:
BBC News
Source 5:
Newsday
|
| November 2, 2006 | -
Iran began offering cash incentives in a program designed to bring in more foreign tourists; travel agents will receive $20 for every Western vacationer but only $10 per Asian.
| Source:
CNN
|
| October 4, 2006 | -
Iranian Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei announced that intentional masturbation during Ramadan breaks the fast.
| Source:
YNetNews.com
|
| September 27, 2006 | - An expert claimed that elements of Iran's atomic strategy appear to have been borrowed from Israel.
| Source:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
|
| September 21, 2006 | -
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at the United Nations in New York, proclaimed his love for all the world's peoples, and suggested that the United States halt domestic fuel production and buy its energy from him “at a fifty percent discount.”
| Source:
BBC News
|
| September 6, 2006 | - Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami predicted that “prudence and wisdom” would prevail and that the United States would not attack Iran.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| September 5, 2006 | - The White House warned of a “WMD-terrorism nexus” emanating from Iran.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 31, 2006 | -
Iran ignored a U.N. Security Council deadline for suspending its uranium-enrichment activities.
| Source:
UPI
|
| August 29, 2006 | -
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad challenged U.S. President George Bush to a televised debate.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| August 26, 2006 | - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, speaking at the opening ceremony for a power plant that could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons, said his country was “not a threat to anybody, even the Zionist regime which is a definite enemy.”
| Source:
BBC
|
| August 14, 2006 | -
Iran was launching missiles at Kurds and cracking down on “decadent” satellite dishes. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed the country would continue to pursue its nuclear program “forcefully,” and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the United States “should be disarmed.”
| Source:
Middle East Times
|
| August 13, 2006 | -
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was writing a blog.
| Source 1:
Times Online
Source 2:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
|
| July 24, 2006 | - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran predicted that Israel had “pushed the button of its own destruction.”
| Source 1:
The Australian
Source 2:
NY Times
Source 3:
NY Times
Source 4:
National Post
|
| July 18, 2006 | - Ehud Olmert, prime minister of Israel, said Hezbollah's war on Israel was a ruse to divert attention from Iran's
nuclear weapons program. Kayhan, an Iranian news daily, replied that it only “wish[ed] Israel's lies were true.”
| Source:
BBC
|
| June 18, 2006 | - It was revealed that in 2003 the Bush Administration refused an offer by Iran to end Iranian support of Palestinian
terror organizations and recognize Israel in exchange for an end to sanctions and permission to peacefully develop its nuclear program.
| Source:
The Jerusalem Post
|
| June 6, 2006 | - Javier Solana, Europe's foreign-policy director, formally offered Iran a package of incentives designed to persuade the Islamic state to give up its nuclear ambitions; that same day, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran restarted its uranium-enrichment program.
| Source 1:
New York Times
Source 2:
New York Times
|
| June 4, 2006 | - An earthquake in Iran killed one little girl.
| Source:
Daily Times
|
| June 2, 2006 | - The United States announced that it would join 5 other nations in demanding that Iran immediately suspend uranium-enrichment activities, although the country would in the future be allowed to develop some civilian nuclear technologies. Iran said it would refuse to engage in talks unless all conditions were dropped, and Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the United States could endanger its oil supply if it makes a “wrong move” toward Iran.
| Source 1:
The Washington Post
Source 2:
AP
Source 3:
The Daily Star
|
| May 31, 2006 | -
Iran's military was reported to have planned a campaign of decentralized guerilla warfare in the event of a U.S. invasion.
| Source:
The Washington Times
|
| May 19, 2006 | -
Iran, despite reports to the contrary, was not making non-Muslims wear badges.
| Source:
The National Post
|
| May 12, 2006 | - The International Atomic Energy Agency found evidence that Iran possesses highly enriched uranium.
| Source:
AP via Yahoo! News
|
| May 8, 2006 | -
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to President Bush seeking to improve relations between Iran and the United States; the White House denounced the letter but would not confirm whether the President had read it.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| May 8, 2006 | - The head of the Iranian Physical Education Organization banned effeminate-looking athletes.
| Source:
Breitbart.com
|
| May 1, 2006 | -
Iran, under criticism for its nuclear program, accused the United States of using "illegitimate and open threats to use force against the Islamic Republic of Iran."
| Source:
BBC News
|
| April 17, 2006 | - The Iranian government promised to give $50 million to the Palestinian Authority, now controlled by Hamas, which let it be known that it would recognize Israel's right to exist if the Jewish state were to withdraw from the entire West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.
| Source 1:
CNN.com
Source 2:
Democracy Now!
|
| April 11, 2006 | -
Iran announced that it had successfully produced low-grade enriched uranium; to celebrate, men in traditional dress danced with uranium samples.
| Source:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
|
| April 10, 2006 | - The Bush Administration continued to plan a major air attack on Iran; a highly placed government consultant said that President George W. Bush believes that "saving Iran is going to be his legacy."
| Source:
The New Yorker
|
| March 31, 2006 | - Earthquakes in western Iran damaged 330 villages and killed 70 people.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| March 8, 2006 | - The U.S. State Department issued a report criticizing human rights abuses in China, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba. It also criticized the rights records of Jordan and Egypt, two countries where the United States has sent detainees to be interrogated. The report noted that the United States' "own journey towards liberty and justice for all has been long and difficult," and is "far from complete."
| Source 1:
The New York Times
Source 2:
The Independent
|
| February 12, 2006 | -
Iran, said security analysts, will be ready to retaliate with commando squads, global terrorist attacks, and long-range Shahab 3 missiles if its nuclear facilities are attacked.
| Source:
The Boston Globe
|
| February 10, 2006 | - Riots over blasphemous cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad broke out in India, Indonesia, Kashmir, Palestine, Thailand, the autonomous Somali region of Puntland, and Afghanistan—where 11 demonstrators were killed, at least 4 of them by NATO troops. A Taliban commander offered 100 kilograms of gold to anyone who killed those responsible for the cartoons. Other anti-Muhammad-cartoon protests were held in London and Philadelphia. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called on newspapers to stop re-publishing the drawings, and U.S. President George W. Bush condemned the riots but also criticized publishers. "With freedom," said the President, "comes the responsibility to be thoughtful about others." An Iranian newspaper announced that it would publish cartoons mocking the Holocaust. Flemming Rose, the Danish newspaper editor who published the original caricatures of Muhammad, said that he'd like to re-publish the Holocaust cartoons and was subsequently put on leave by his boss. Danes were increasingly concerned that their country would be singled out for terrorist attacks. "We make fun of everything here," said a carpenter in Copenhagen. "One shouldn't take it so seriously."
| Source 1:
Arab News
Source 2:
Al Jazeera
Source 3:
BBC News
Source 4:
Channel 4
Source 5:
ReviewJournal.com
Source 6:
CBC News
Source 7:
Al Jazeera
Source 8:
ABC News Online
Source 9:
Bloomberg News
|
| February 5, 2006 | - Riots erupted over newspaper cartoons, printed first in Denmark and subsequently throughout Europe, that caricatured the prophet Muhammad. Demonstrators rallied in Syria, where they attacked the Danish and Norwegian embassies, and in Lebanon, where they set the Danish embassy on fire. "They should have respected our religion," said a Lebanese protester. Iran recalled its ambassador from Denmark, and protesters outside the United Nations in New York City chanted, "shame, shame."
| Source 1:
BBC News
Source 2:
Newsday
|
| February 4, 2006 | - The IAEA voted to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council because of Iran's nuclear program; Venezuela, Cuba, and Syria voted against the measure. Prior to the vote, Egypt proposed to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone, but that proposal was rejected by the United States because it would interfere with Israel's weapons program.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| January 15, 2006 | -
U.S. senators insisted that attacking Iran must remain an option.
| Source:
Boston.com
|
| December 19, 2005 | -
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered that all western music be banned from state-controlled radio and TV stations.
| Source:
AP
|
| December 14, 2005 | -
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the Holocaust was a myth.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| December 6, 2005 | - In Iran a military plane crashed into an apartment building, killing at least 115 people, most of them journalists.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| December 4, 2005 | -
Russia confirmed plans to sell $1 billion worth of surface-to-air missiles and other weapons hardware to Iran.
| Source:
The Sydney Morning Herald
|
| November 28, 2005 | -
Earthquakes struck Iran and China.
| Source:
The Arizona Daily Star
|
| October 29, 2005 | -
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the face of the map." Iran later said that it did not intend to invade Israel. "Westerners are free to comment," clarified Ahmadinejad, "but their reactions are invalid."
| Source:
BBC News
|
| October 5, 2005 | -
Britain accused the Iranian Revolutionary Guard of providing Iraqi Shiite groups with the technology to carry out bombing attacks.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| September 5, 2005 | - Fifty-five countries offered aid to the United Stateswith the disaster created by Hurricane Katrina. Cuba offered 1,100 doctors, Iran offered humanitarian aid, China offered $5 million, and Venezuela offered fuel at a reduced cost. The United States was performing a “needs assessment” to decide whose help to accept.
| Source:
News.com.au
|
| August 20, 2005 | - Peter Schoomaker, the Army's top general, revealed that the United States was developing a plan to keep at least 100,000 soldiers in Iraq through 2009. Senator Chuck Hagel (R., Nebr.) called the plan "complete folly." "It would further destabilize the Middle East," he said. "It would give Iran more influence, it would hurt Israel, it would put our allies over there in Saudi Arabia and Jordan in a terrible position."
| Source 1:
AP
Source 2:
AP
|
| August 10, 2005 | -
Iran decided to start producing enriched uranium.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| August 8, 2005 | -
Iran rejected a plan put forth by the European Union that would have limited its ability to manufacture weapons-grade uranium.
| Source:
The Australian
|
| June 30, 2005 | - It was uncertain whether Iran's new president had been involved in taking fifty-two Americans hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 or not.
| Source:
AP
|
| June 29, 2005 | -
Iran sentenced a man to have his eyes surgically removed.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| June 13, 2005 | - Bombs killed ten people in Iran; an Iranian official blamed the United States.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| June 10, 2005 | -
Iranian companies were planning to build bicycle factories in Venezuela.
| Source:
Islamic Republic News Agency
|
| April 21, 2005 | - In Tehran, around 400 Iranians signed up to become suicide bombers. “As a Muslim, it is my duty,” said a mother of two, “to sacrifice my life for oppressed Palestinian
children.”
| Source:
Reuters
|
| March 18, 2005 | -
Ukraine revealed that, between 1999 and 2001, local arms dealers had smuggled eighteen nuclear-capable Kh-55 cruise missiles to Iran and China.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| March 13, 2005 | -
Israel was preparing to attack Iran's
nuclear facilities with helicopters, guns, and dogs.
| Source:
Times Online
|
| February 28, 2005 | -
Russia agreed to sell nuclear fuel to Iran.
| Source:
LA Times
|
| February 22, 2005 | - An earthquake in southeast Iran killed six hundred people.
| Source:
ReliefWeb
|
| February 21, 2005 | - And the Iranian military was preparing for an attack by the United States.
| Source:
SFGate
|
| February 17, 2005 | -
Syria and Iran announced that they would form a “common front” to face mutual threats, but Syria's ambassador to the U.S. said that this had nothing to do with the United States.
| Source:
Daily Times
|
| February 15, 2005 | - Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that U.S. policies on Iran and North Korea are inconsistent, and that no evidence exists to implicate Iran in the development of nuclear weapons.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| February 13, 2005 | - It was discovered that the United States has been sending unmanned drones to spy on Iran's
nuclear facilities since April 2004.
| Source:
Chicago Tribune
|
| January 29, 2005 | - and a special dinner was organized to promote dialogue between the U.S. and Iran; the idea backfired when Senator Joseph Biden, the American representative, showed up an hour and a half late, and wine was served to the Muslim guests.
| Source:
CNN
|
| January 17, 2005 | -
United States Special Forces teams were conducting secret missions in Iran.
| Source:
Guardian
|
| December 6, 2004 | -
Iranian officials suggested that their country's enrichment of uranium was accelerated to instigate offers of economic incentives from the West.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 30, 2004 | - The International Atomic Energy Agency voted to accept Iran's promises that it was halting its nuclear weapons program.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 11, 2004 | - At the beginning of the week, Iran was working hard to convert 37 metric tons of milled yellowcake uranium into enough uranium hexaflouride for five nuclear weapons.
| Source:
Jane's
|
| August 11, 2004 | -
Iran tested a new long-range ballistic missile.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| June 27, 2004 | - An Iranian mother claimed to have given birth to a frog.
| Source:
BBC
|
| June 24, 2004 | - L. Paul Bremer, the American proconsul in Iraq, in one of his final acts before handing over "sovereignty" to Iraq's new interim government, decreed that American forces will remain immune from prosecution by Iraqi courts for crimes against Iraqi citizens or destruction of property. It was noted that a similar grant of immunity in Iran in the 1960s had unfortunate consequences. "Our honor has been trampled underfoot; the dignity of Iran has been destroyed," said the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1964. He said that the order "reduced the Iranian people to a level lower than that of an American dog."
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| June 2, 2004 | - Ahmad Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile who once sat next to Laura Bush at a State of the Union address, was accused of telling an Iranian intelligence agent that the United States had broken Iran's secret communications code.
| Source:
Nelson Report
|
| April 5, 2004 | - The Treasury Department indicated that scholarly publications might be able to edit articles produced by evil countries such as Iran, Cuba, Libya, or North Korea without risking fines of up to $500,000 and ten years in prison.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| March 28, 2004 | - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, speaking of Pakistan's
nuclear-weapons trafficking, said, "I do not believe that there's any evidence or any suggestion that President Musharraf was involved." Musharraf, for his part, denied that he had made a deal with the Americans to crack down on Al Qaeda in return for lenient treatment for selling nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya, Iran, and others; he also denied that his country's proliferation had done much harm. "If I hand over a missile or a bomb to any extremist, believe me, he can do nothing about it," Musharraf said. "He cannot explode it."
| Source:
Reuters
|
| February 28, 2004 | - Treasury Department officials have declared that it is a criminal offense to edit writings from countries under a trade embargo, such as Cuba or Iran.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 9, 2004 | -
Prince Charles visited Iraq and Iran.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| February 6, 2004 | - The Bush Administration praised Pakistan after General Pervez Musharraf pardoned Abdul Qadeer Khan, the nuclear scientist who took the blame for selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea; Khan claimed that no one in the government or in the military was aware of his activities.
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| February 2, 2004 | - One hundred twenty-four members of Iran's
parliament resigned to protest the disqualification of more than 2,000 moderate candidates by the conservative Guardian Council.
| Source:
Guardian
|
| December 27, 2003 | - Most of Bam, an Iranian city, was destroyed in a massive earthquake; between 20,000 and 40,000 people were lying dead in the rubble.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| October 28, 2003 | - The Bush Administration indicated that it has no plans for a "regime change" in Iran.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 10, 2003 | - Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian lawyer and human rights activist, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| September 29, 2003 | - Vladimir Putin visited President Bush at Camp David; "Pootie-Poot," as he is known by the president, refused to cancel Russia's $800 million contract to build a commercial nuclear reactor for Iran.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 26, 2003 | - Two Iranian intelligence officers were charged with "semi-intentionally" causing the death of a Canadian photojournalist.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| July 30, 2003 | - In Iraq, the occupation government detained two Iranians who had identified themselves as journalists.
Said an occupation official: "They were detained for doing things that we do not consider journalism."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| July 19, 2003 | -
United Nations weapons inspectors said they had found traces of enriched uranium in samples taken in Iran.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| June 19, 2003 | -
President Bush declared that the world will not tolerate nuclear weapons in Iran.
"Iran would be dangerous," he said, "if they have a nuclear weapon."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 19, 2003 | - The International Atomic Energy Agency reprimanded Iran for its refusal to comply with an agreement on nuclear safeguards and called for the country to accept stricter inspections.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| June 18, 2003 | - Several Iranians set themselves on fire to protest the arrest in Paris of 165 members of the People's Mujahedeen, an Iranian opposition group.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| May 30, 2003 | - The Defense Department was said to be in favor of a massive covert operation to overthrow the Iranian government.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| May 30, 2003 | - President George W. Bush did not quite deny reports of a possible American attack on Iran: "We've had all kinds of reports that we're going to use force in Syria and now some are, I guess, saying force in Iran, force here and force there.
This is pure speculation.
We used force in Iraq after a long, long period of diplomacy."
| Source:
UPI
|
| May 27, 2003 | - Neoconservatives both in and out of the Bush Administration were pressing for a policy of "regime change" in Iran.
| Source:
Inter Press Service, Yahoo News
|
| May 27, 2003 | -
Iran announced the arrest of several suspected Al Qaeda members; the White House said that the arrests were "insufficient."
| Source:
Reuters
|
| May 3, 2003 | - India said it would reestablish diplomatic relations with Pakistan, Nepal opened negotiations with its rebels, the United States made a truce with an Iranian-backed guerrilla army in Iraq, and mercenaries in Ivory Coast murdered a rebel leader who told them to lay down their weapons.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 29, 2003 | -
The North Koreans admitted they already have nuclear weapons and may test, export, or use them depending on U.S. actions; Donald Rumsfeld thought this might present an opportunity for another “regime change.” The U.S. warned Iran not to meddle in Iraq's political affairs and accused the country of sending agents into the south to promote an Iranian model of government; to counter the damage, troops and intelligence officers were asking Iraqi clerics to please issue fatwas in support of the American administration of the country.
| |
| April 29, 2003 | -
An Iranian fatwa warned that the Great Satan “will incite lust by allowing easy access to stimulating satellite channels.”
| |
| April 29, 2003 | -
You have the right to anything.” The senator went on to reassure voters that “I have no problem with homosexuality” but “I have a problem with homosexual acts.” An Iranian film actress was sentenced to public flogging for kissing a male director on the forehead at an awards ceremony.
| |
| April 22, 2003 | -
President Bush was anxious for the U.N.
to lift the 12-year-old sanctions against Iraq, so that its oil could be sold to help pay for the country's rebuilding, but the six nations that border Iraq — Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Kuwait, and Jordan — argued that sanctions should not be removed until a legitimate government, formed by Iraqis, was in place.
| |
| February 25, 2003 | -
Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, traveled to Iran to inspect a nuclear facility that American officials claim is part of a secret nuclear-weapons program.
| |
| February 18, 2003 | -
Congress agreed to restrict funding for the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project, a massive domestic surveillance scheme run by Iran-Contra conspirator John Poindexter.
The agreement bans the use of the program on Americans but permits the government to use it on foreigners both inside and outside the United States.
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| January 14, 2003 | -
One unnamed American official said that the administration was pursuing “steady, steely diplomacy” against North Korea, which declared that new economic sanctions would be treated as a “declaration of war.” Iran's Guardian Council rejected for the third time a bill banning the torture of prisoners.
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| December 31, 2002 | -
Iran abolished stoning as a punishment for female adulterers, and 47 Iranian video dealers were sentenced to be lashed for renting obscene films.
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| December 24, 2002 | -
Iran's morality police arrested a barber for giving short haircuts to girls seeking to pass as boys.
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| December 17, 2002 | -
A newspaper columnist reported personal information about John Poindexter, the Iran-Contra conspirator in charge of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project, including his private phone number, his address, the amount he paid for his home, and the fact that it is covered with artificial siding; others then posted satellite photos of Poindexter's home on the Internet, and hackers posted details about his local Verizon telephone switch.
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| December 10, 2002 | -
Elliot Abrams, a convicted Iran-Contra conspirator who was pardoned by President Bush the Elder, was selected to be the director of Middle Eastern affairs at the White House.
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| December 10, 2002 | -
Iranian authorities arrested three pollsters for conducting flawed opinion polls.
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| November 26, 2002 | -
Protests continued in Iran against the death sentence of a reformist scholar, who was also sentenced to 8 years in prison, 74 lashes, and a 10-year ban from teaching for saying that Muslims should not blindly follow religious leaders like monkeys.
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| November 26, 2002 | -
In response to a question about Iran-Contra star John Poindexter and
his Total Information Awareness project, Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld had the following to say: “And then there was the office
of strategic influence. You may recall that. And 'oh my goodness
gracious isn't that terrible, Henny Penny the sky is going to fall.' I
went down that next day and said fine, if you want to savage this
thing, fine I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You can have
the name, but I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be
done and I have. What was intended to be done by that office is being
done by that office, NOT by that office in other ways.” Rumsfeld
also said that “the Soviet Union is continuing to make nuclear
weapons, I mean the Russians.”
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| November 12, 2002 | -
It was reported that Admiral John M. Poindexter, who was convicted in the Iran-Contra affair in 1990 but later acquitted on a technicality, joined the Bush Administration earlier this year as head of the Office of Information Awareness at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Poindexter is in charge of a new system called Total Information Awareness, which would permit the military to spy on the civilian population of the United States without search warrants by scanning personal information such as email, credit-card statements, banking and medical records, and travel documents for patterns that suggest criminal or terrorist activities.
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| October 22, 2002 | -
An Iranian cleric declared a jihad on dog owners: “I demand the judiciary arrest all dogs with long, medium, or short legs together with their long-legged owners.”
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| October 15, 2002 | -
Several people died in rioting in Bombay that broke out as a result of Jerry Falwell's comments that the prophet Muhammad was a terrorist, prompting a leading Iranian cleric to declare that Jerry Falwell is a “mercenary” who must be killed for his blasphemy.
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| October 1, 2002 | -
Iranian authorities arrested about 60 people for attending a “depraved party” in Shiraz where women and men were dancing together and some were drinking.
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| August 20, 2002 | -
“And we don't think it's appropriate for the European Union to prevent other countries from signing them.” Senior military officers revealed to the press that the Reagan Administration continued to provide military support to Iraq during its war with Iran even after the administration learned that Iraq was using chemical weapons; Iraq's past use of chemical weapons has been cited repeatedly by President Bush as justification for an invasion.
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| August 6, 2002 | -
Iran's Education Ministry decreed that students and teachers in girls' schools may remove their veils in the classroom; Jomhuri-e-Islami, a conservative newspaper, denounced the ruling: “The aim of this plan is to encourage nudity.” A Canadian man successfully killed a mountain lion that attacked him from behind, badly injuring his head and face, by using a small folding pocket knife.
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| July 23, 2002 | -
An Iranian carpenter convicted of murder was sentenced to be thrown off a cliff in a sack.
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| March 12, 2002 | -
The document describes situations in which nuclear weapons might be used in a first strike on Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, or North Korea.
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| February 5, 2002 | -
President Bush, in his first State of the Union address, identified Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an “axis of evil.”
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| January 22, 2002 | -
Iran's supreme ayatollah pardoned a liberal member of parliament who was convicted of “insulting the judiciary.” A Nigerian woman who was sentenced to death by stoning for committing adultery will have to wait two months for her appeal to be heard while the judges make their annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
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| January 15, 2002 | -
President Bush warned Iran not to stir up trouble in Afghanistan, a country with which Iran shares a border and a common Persian history: “Iran must be a contributor in the war against terror,” Bush said.
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| December 4, 2001 | - American officials declared that they were “on a roll” and that the next targets in the crusade against terrorism were Saddam Hussein, Hamas, and the Hezbollah network in Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.
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| November 13, 2001 | - Twenty Iranian dissidents were being tried for allegedly attempting to overthrow the government.
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| October 9, 2001 | - In Iran, a missing 16-month-old baby was found after three days in the den of a female bear; the bear apparently breast-fed the baby, who was in good health.
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| August 28, 2001 | -
Iranian
police launched a crackdown on “flagrant manifestations of corruption,” including selling pet dogs, playing loud music, and displaying women's underwear in shop windows.
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| June 19, 2001 | - Mohammad Khatami was reelected president of Iran with 78 percent of the vote.
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| May 22, 2001 | - There were reports that an Iranian woman would be stoned to death for killing her husband, who was buried next to a cow's skull in a fruit garden.
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| March 20, 2001 | -
Russia said it would again sell arms to Iran, causing some Russians to wonder whether the weapons would end up in the hands of Islamic
terrorists within their own borders.
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| March 20, 2001 | -
Iranian president Mohammad Khatami called for more democracy and freedom; within hours, Iranian security forces arrested forty pro-democracy activists.
| |
| March 6, 2001 | - Important clerics in Egypt, Pakistan, and Iran pointed out that the Mullah's interpretation of the Koran was incorrect. Mawlawi Qudratullah Jamal, the Taliban's minister of information and culture, replied that it was “not a big issue,” that the statues were “objects only made of mud or stone.” After announcing that the destruction of the Buddhas had begun, Jamal noted that “it is easier to destroy than to build.”
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| February 13, 2001 | - Political violence continued in Afghanistan, China, Colombia, Congo, Ecuador, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Kashmir, Liberia, Nigeria, Palestine, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, and elsewhere.
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| January 16, 2001 | - An Iranian court sentenced several people, including a prominent journalist, to long prison terms for attending a conference in Germany that was deemed “un-Islamic” because a bare-armed woman danced there and a male protestor took off his clothes.
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| August 15, 2000 | -
Iranian conservatives closed the country's last reformist newspaper.
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| August 15, 2000 | -
Iranian reformers pressed forward with a bill that would raise to nine the legal age at which young girls may marry.
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| July 25, 2000 | - The Iranian
education minister announced that henceforth school girls would be allowed to wear “bright, happy colors such as light blue, beige, pink, light green and yellow.”
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