Newswires: Iran | WOMBLES - News, Information for anarchist direct action

Prevent another Holocaust...BOMB IRAN! (by Latuff)

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:07:00 +0000

Copyleft artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff.

Basr Interviews Shahrzad Mojab on the Women's Movement in Iran

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:42:39 +0000

The following excerpts are from an interview by the Iranian student’s newspaper Bazr (issue 45-February 2010) with Shahrzad Mojab. This long interview is on the current political and social situation in Iran. The section excerpted here concerns the woman question and the role of Iranian women in the recent struggle that we are reprinting on the occasion of 8th March, International Women’s Day. Shahrzad Mojab is an Iranian women activist and researcher who left Iran in 1983. She is the author of numerous papers and books on Iranian women, Kurdish women, and women in war zones. Mojab is currently a professor at the University of Toronto in Canada. Translation by A WorldTo Win News Service.

Peak oil, gas, prices, and supplies - Mar 11

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:31:07 +0000

-Is East Africa the Next Frontier for Oil?-'Market can absorb spare Saudi capacity' - Al Falih-Royal Dutch Shell halts gasoline sales to Iran-Traders bet on higher gasoline prices-How a 22-year-old student uncovered peak oil fraud read more

Better U.S. Net Rules for Iran, Cuba and Syria

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:42:52 +0000

The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced on Monday key amendments to the regulation of United States sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Sudan. The new provisions give a blanket license for the export of "certain services and software incident to the exchange of personal communications over the Internet, such as instant messaging, chat and email, social networking, sharing of photos and movies, web browsing, and blogging, provided that such services are publicly available at no cost to the user." This clarification is just what EFF called for last June, and will go a long way to allay concerns that online service providers based in the U.S. cannot offer their services in those countries. Previously, despite the well-known freedom-enhancing capabilities of services like Twitter and Facebook in repressive regimes like Iran, it was unclear whether those companies could even offer their services there without falling foul of the United State's broad prohibition on the export of goods and services to these regimes. This was not a hypothetical concern: other services that were useful for dissidents to communicate and organize, like Microsoft, and Google's instant messaging clients had previously been blocked from being used in these very countries -- not by the repressive states, but by companies themselves, cautious of violating sanctions. While the change in the letter of the law is clearly positive, perhaps just as important is the signal this sends about the administration's new guiding policy on global Internet freedom. Previously, cautious companies, afraid of running afoul of OFAC, have frequently forbidden or blocked all use in sanctioned countries, even when the letter of the law did not require such draconian steps. You can see this institutionally paranoid language, and its inevitable results, in Bluehost's terms of service, which pre-emptively prohibits all citizens of sanctioned countries from even applying to use their hosting facilities (a policy which lead them to shamefully throwing innocent Zimbabwean activists off their service last year). Now we are moving (slowly) to a new, and better default, where technologists and their lawyers might assume that free Internet services that facilitate free expression and association need not be blocked pre-emptively for anyone, anywhere. The Obama administration has shown with these changes that it would prefer to move toward that end. Have we got there yet? Is it what export law now says? While we wait for export regulation experts to sweat the details, the answer is still far too hazy for comfort. While the State and Treasury departments have fixed much that was wrong with Iranian, Cuban and Sudanese sanctions, there are still regulations on, for instance, Zimbabwe, Syria and North Korea for techies and their lawyers to worry about, and those sanctions still inhibit making software generally available. We also would like to see more clarity about collaborative software development locations, like Sourceforge. We hope that this administration backs up these first steps with a continuing review of export rules, and pro-actively works to reassure Internet companies that they are free to build an open Internet for everyone, without expecting a knock on the door from their own government.

Iran Is A Threat To Peace! Iran Is A Threat To Peace! (by Latuff)

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 05:34:00 +0000

Copyleft artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff.

dpa: Turkish soldier killed in explosion near Iraq border

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A soldier was killed Tuesday by an explosion in Turkey's restive southeast region, Turkish media has reported. The explosion in the Hakkari region, reportedly caused by a bomb set off by remote control, injured three other soldiers. Another soldier was killed Monday by an explosion in the same area, near Turkey's border with Iraq and Iran.

Solidarity with Women in Iran

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:42:00 +0000

More than 50 men and women, mainly Iranians, took part in a protest organised by the 8 March Women's Organsiation (Iran-Afghanistan) to mark International Women's Day. They protested at the Iranian Embassy against the 31 years of anti-women Islamic laws and repression and calling for an end to the Islamic regime in Iran before marching to Trafalgar Square for a rally. London 07/03/2010

Stop the removal of Benjamin!

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:42:09 +0000

Please help Hussein Karimyon (Benjamin) Home Office Ref K1307066/2 Hussein Karimyon, known as Benjamin to his friends, is a 37-year old Iranian human rights campaigner. Detained buy the UK Border Agency and facing imminent deportation, he urgently needs your help and solidarity. See below for model letters. Hussein is an Iranian who had to flee his country after [...]

International Womens Day; mass demonstrations against Hijab Tehran 1979

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 15:24:00 +0000

demonstrations for womens rights in Iran 1979

U.S. Enriches Companies Defying Its Policy on Iran

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:48:22 +0000

Some related reading: IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation by Edwin Black Wall Street & the Rise of Hitler by Antony C. Sutton Spider’s Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq by Alan Friedman Via: New York Times: The federal government has awarded more than $107 [...]

Bloomberg: Seven Dead, 50 Wounded in Iraq Election Eve Blast

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

A car bomb near a Shiite Muslim shrine in Iraq’s holy city of Najaf killed seven people today, including four Iranians, and injured at least 50 people, police said.