Ahmadinejad unleashes new tirade against rivals

Ahmadinejad unleashes new tirade against rivals

Wednesday 10 June 2009
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has lashed out at rival candidates in an increasingly testy campaign ahead of presidential elections on Friday. Former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi, a reformist, is seen as Ahmadinejad's main challenger.
http://www.france24.com/en/20090610-iran-presidential-election-rafsanjani-slams-ahmedinejad-slur-campaign-mousavi

Iran's unfinished revolution

Friday 03 April 2009
(Source France24)
Iranians flocked en masse to celebrate thirty years since the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the Shah's regime. But unlike their elders, some young Iranians seized on the occasion to go for a hike, taking their hookah pipe with them.
Iran. The name invokes countless images of a country that is stubborn, Islamic, revolutionary, isolated; but also proud, educated, modern and dynamic. The true face of modern-day Iran eludes most Westerners. FRANCE 24's Sophie Claudet and Alexandra Renard report from a country of a thousand and one contradictions.
Thirty years ago, in February 1979, in the full glare of the world's media, the Ayatolla Khomeini flew back from exile in France, and overthrew Iran's Western-backed Shah.
Iran's shift from monarchic to religious leadership was sudden, violent, and irrevocable. And this year's anniversary celebrations for the revolution have been intense.
Like every year, tens of thousands of Iranians gathered to commemorate the anniversary by singing revolutionary songs. Businesses and schools are shut, and many families make it a day out.
The father of the revolution, the Ayatollah Khomeini, is still celebrated as a hero, and the popular slogans “Down with Israel, down with the USA” are still on the crowd’s lips, even while President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that "the Iranian nation is ready for talks [with Washington], based on mutual respect."
People who have gathered to celebrate the revolution’s anniversary seem less concerned with their president’s current diplomatic efforts, than with honouring the past.
http://www.france24.com/en/20090403-iran-unfinished-islamic-revolution-youth-reporters-anniversary-30-years