Daily News Channel
No legal "bombshell" or personal scandal lies behind Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s resignation, but off-color jokes by talk-show host David Letterman contributed to her decision to step down, Palin’s attorney said Monday.
Three leading Iranian reformists who have rejected the results of last month’s election questioned the legitimacy of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government Wednesday.
In another move to crack down on information flowing out of Iran, the Islamic Republic’s judicial chief has ordered the prosecution of individuals "who cooperate with satellite television programming providers," a reformist newspaper reported Sunday. “The individuals, who in any way collaborate with these networks or are entrenched in the nucleus of organizations which are active through Internet sites, must be adequately and properly subject to legal actions
"There will be consequences" if Iran mistreats a British Embassy employee who was arrested in Tehran, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Sunday, as cracks began to appear in the Iranian leadership. “The whole of the European Union and actually the international community more broadly has been absolutely united in saying that there’s no place for this sort of intimidation or harassment and that there will be consequences if it continues,” Miliband said on a BBC Sunday morning talk show. Miliband said he is angry about the treatment of the embassy staff members but wants to keep diplomatic channels open.
A former Iranian president who backed the top opposition leader in last month’s disputed elections has delivered strong and carefully worded support of the grass-roots protest movement, saying he doubts "any wakened consciousness would be satisfied with the resulting situation." Former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani –chairman of Iran’s Assembly of Experts and a supporter of opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi was quoted on Saturday by the semi-official Iranian Labor News Agency. Rafsanjani, who heads the group responsible for appointing or removing the supreme leader, was silent and largely unseen during the first two chaotic weeks following the contested June 12 elections. But Rafsanjani — a key politician in the Islamic republic — has become increasingly vocal about the elections results that gave hardline incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad an overwhelming victory.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he wants to engage President Obama in "negotiations" before international media, a semi-official Iranian news outlet reported on Saturday.
Bloody attacks and midnight arrests, combined with a regime growing more technologically savvy, have begun stemming the flow of online information from dissidents in Iran, activists and human rights officials say. Once emboldened by their ability to dodge the government and spread news about their protests to the world, many in the youth-driven protest movement, they say, are now scared of the consequences of getting caught. “It’s absolutely chilling,” said Drewery Dyke, a member of human rights group Amnesty International’s Iran team.
A reporter for Newsweek magazine who was arrested in Tehran has confessed to doing the bidding of Western governments, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported Wednesday. Maziar Bahari, 42, made his alleged confession at a news conference Tuesday.
Saying it had completed an investigation into alleged voter irregularities, Iran’s election authority on Monday stood by its findings that gave hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad an overwhelming victory and sparked more than two weeks of chaos in the streets. There was “no tangible irregularity,” Guardian Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei told government-run Press TV after reporting that a recount of some 10 percent of the votes found no significant differences.
Five British Embassy staff arrested by Iran have been released, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday. Four others will remain in custody while an investigation continues, said spokesman Hassan Qashqavi