The bed of the Zayandeh River in Isfahan, 16 February 2013 Photo: Milan Rai
In Isfahan, the swan boats are hooded. Just like our swan boats on the pond in Hastings, they are in their winter sleep, nestled together along the river bank under their red and blue PVC coats. It is seven years since I visited Isfahan. In May 2006, the white swans were being pedalled among the fountains in the Zayandeh River below the many-arched Kadju Bridge.
The roller-skaters are…
Young people are challenging restrictions on physical contact Photo: Milan Rai
A threatened regime
Despite the regime’s defiant bravado, the 34th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution last month was a grim affair. Internationally, the country remains at loggerheads with the US and its partners. Iran’s pivotal ally Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has lost control over much of the country, threatening Iran’s vital overland supply route…
Susan Spencer, Patrick Bonner, Milan Rai, Emily Johns & Lois Mastrangelo (l-r) demonstrate for peace on Kadju Bridge, Isfahan, Iran, on 17 February. Photo: JNV
The latest round of negotiations on the Iranian nuclear crisis ended with modest progress, and a firm warning from the United States that: ‘the window for a diplomatic solution simply cannot by definition remain open indefinitely’ (secretary of state John Kerry, 4 March).
At the talks in Almaty…
Peace News: Firstly, a question that relates to the tension between the US and Iran and the threat of war. How does the persistent threat of war against Iran impact on its behaviour in the international sphere? How should the US and other nations—namely, the allies of the US like the UK—conduct international affairs with Iran to reduce this animosity?
Shirin Ebadi: Do you mean with Israel?
PN: Well, namely by the US and other allies of the US.
SE: America has never…
Shredded Truth: CIA Documents — After the Iranian revolution, Iranian students seized the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979. Although US intelligence officials had shredded confidential documents as the building was being occupied, many of these memos
After a long phoney war, it seems likely that in the next 12 months there will be a serious confrontation between the US, the UK…
They will be meeting officials, civil society groups and ordinary folk in different parts of the country. On their return they will be publishing a pamphlet about Iran, incorporating Emily’s art work from this trip and from her 2007 delegation to Iran.
The trip will cost over £2,000 each – donations to help cover the costs of travel and accommodation are very welcome.
This is a Justice Not Vengeance delegation.
TALKS
To contact Emily and Mil to book a talk in your…
Your attempt to apply the lessons of the Cuban missile crisis to the situation with Iran [PN 2550] omits an important piece of the jigsaw: Israel.
Would we really be on the brink of a catastrophe were it not for Mr Netanyahu’s attempt to push Obama into a corner, and on the very eve of the elections lead him by the nose with his synthetic hysteria, his ridiculous bomb cartoon and ‘red lines’?
As US-led economic sanctions tighten around its economy, the Iranian government is once again indicating its willingness to negotiate a compromise over its nuclear programme.
On 12 October, foreign ministry spokesperson Ramin Mehmanparast said: 'Iran is ready to show flexibility to remove concerns within a legal framework' - he added: 'but such measures should be reciprocal'.
…
Back in June, a former US presidential advisor and Harvard University professor, Graham Allison, described the current confrontation with Iran as 'a Cuban missile crisis in slow motion': 'Events are moving, seemingly inexorably, toward a showdown in which the US president will be forced to choose between ordering a military attack and acquiescing to a nuclear-armed Iran'.
(In fact…
The diplomatic signs before Baghdad had been positive, as Iran indicated its willingness to give way on two major stumbling blocks: allowing inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to check a suspect base, and freezing the enrichment of uranium to 20%, widely regarded as dangerously close to weapons-grade (90%).
In Baghdad, Iran learned that in return for these major concessions, it was being offered very little. ‘Giving spare parts for civilian aircraft is…
Iran is entering a dangerous period.
We know that there is a realistic way out of the crisis: transferring ownership and management of Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities to an international consortium, as advocated by retired US and British diplomats, and endorsed by a variety of Iranian officials and politicians.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: if the west’s real concern is preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, the consortium is the way to go.…
On 4 February, in cities around the world, anti-war protesters, marching to the common message, ‘No war, no sanctions, no intervention, no assassinations,’ led a day of mass action against a possible war in Iran.
The wordwide protests were organised by over 60 anti-war, pacifist and human rights groups.
In the US, the largest protest took place in New York, as a group of 500 marched from Manhattan’s Times Square to the US mission to the United Nations and then to the Israeli…
Progressive circles in the US have been furiously debating violence recently, after a forceful attack on the Black Bloc by radical journalist Chris Hedges. Hedges described ‘Black Bloc anarchists’ as ‘the cancer of the Occupy movement’: ‘obstructionist’ and ‘deeply intolerant but stupid’.
This brought an equally fierce riposte from radical anthropologist David Graeber, a long-time anarchist and Black Bloc participant, a co-founder of Occupy Wall Street and coauthor of what he…
Thanks for a depressingly informative article re: Iran and the wind up to potential attacks there (PN 2540-41).
Electricity pylon, Iran. DRAWING: Emily Johns
Threatening headlines in early November raised the prospect of Israeli and/or western military action against Iran; propaganda organised around the publication of a report on Iran’s nuclear power programme by the international atomic energy agency (IAEA) on 8 November.
While the IAEA report broke new rhetorical ground in declaring the UN agency’s “serious concerns” about “possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme”, it…
