How should the world deal with Iran?,What is at stake over Iran's nuclear programme?
Iran says it has put its first rocket into space, heightening tension ahead of a UN meeting on possible sanctions.

On Saturday, US Vice-President Dick Cheney renewed a warning that the use of force could be an option if Iran continues to defy the West over uranium enrichment.

Iran insists that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.

What do you think of Iran's claim about launching a rocket into space? What is Iran is trying to achieve with its nuclear programme? Do you live in Iran? How should the international community deal with Tehran's defiance?

well you cannot hold people back by dumping down a country,if they have the brains to do it,it is human advancement.The west is a moral wasteland trying to dtay relevant by holding back other people in evil ways.If it wasnt for the US the west would be ancient history and asia top dog. Their plan is to suddenly dump dollars on the world economy to destroy the us ecomony.and they have them to do it.Wait and see !!

Iran is only a threat to one country? Try telling that to the Gulf states - the Emirates, plus Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and even Lebanon. Don't automatically assume that the Middle eastern states are all buddy-buddy with everyone - they're the ones who feel threatened by Iran. For all America's recent faults, with this they are trying to maintain a semblance of order in the region.

Iran is one of the one of the most oil rich countries on the planet, what on earth do they want nuclear power for?

Because they are deeply concerned about global warming and undestand that oil/coal and other fossil fules must remain buried where they are ... or maybe they have another reason.

Other countries in the middle east are also planning nuclear power plants for when they run out of oil. One only needs to read Aljeeza English once in awhile.

We in Canada have had power plants since the 1960's but have not made nukes like the U.K. and others. We did whoever sell plants to India which still has electrical power problems but they have Nukes...lol. Others are totally against nuclear like the South Pacific which found out all about Nukes thanks to the French testing-1960's

Doesn't it make sense that somebody explain to us specifically what it takes to make a nuclear weapon, how they are made? And what we know what Iran is currently capable of doing? Are they so advanced and capable of pulling this off?
War is serious business. Wouldn't it be sensible to know exactly why war is evenly being discussed now? And not a couple of years ago?

Perhaps if Israel negotiated to give up it's nuclear arsenal in exchange for Iran not developing theirs, it would defuse the tension in the region.

Russia's disappearing languages,Northern Russia is home to more than 40 indigenous peoples, all of whom have their own language. But many of them are on the brink of extinction.


Many of Russia's indigenous people have given up traditional lifestyles and moved to towns
Fayina Lekhanova has a broad face with a flat nose and dark, deep-set eyes. She looks exactly like the Eskimos I remember from the books I read as a child but, as she explains, the Eskimos are just one of dozens of tribes indigenous to Russia's far north.
The vast expanse of the Russian Federation, from the Kola Peninsula in the north west to the Sea of Chukotka in the north east, is home to 41 indigenous peoples.

They have evocative names like the Saami, the Nganasan, the Itelmen, the Ulchi and the Tuvinian Todzhins. The area they have traditionally inhabited makes up more than half of the entire territory of Russia.

But today their numbers are dwindling, and their languages are dying out. Some have never even been written down.


Nomadic tradition

Fayina is an Evenk, from Russia's Far East.


Like many of the country's indigenous people, the Evenks were traditionally migrant groups, travelling across huge areas as they hunted and fished.

In summer and winter alike, they lived in yurts, or tents made of thick felt, and they wore reindeer skins to stave off the extreme cold.

Fayina is also a volunteer at a group that supports Russia's 200,000 ethnic groups. As an Evenk, she says, she is one of the luckier ones.

There are more than 30,000 Evenks living across Siberia and, although only about a fifth of them speak their native language, it is taught in schools. "My language is probably safe for the moment," she says, "but the Kereks, for example, aren't so fortunate. There are fewer than 30 of them left.


We try to keep our culture alive with concerts and festivals but with every passing year more of our roots fade away Vera Tuzakova.

"We thought there were just eight, but some scientists recently found a group of about 20 travelling across the tundra and the taiga. They all spoke Kerek but, once they have gone, there will be no one left speaking the language."

In most of the tribes, she says, it is now only the older generation that still speaks the language. Over the last few decades, many of Russia's indigenous people have given up their traditional lifestyles and moved to towns and cities instead.

Soviet education programme

But Rodion Sulyandzige, the director of the support group, says that the rigorous education programme of the Soviet period is also to blame for the demise of so many languages.


"At the beginning of the school year, the authorities would round up all the children of the native tribes and pack them off to boarding schools," he told me.

"They had no contact with their parents or their families, and so they quickly lost their mother tongues and picked up Russian instead."

He says, sadly, that he himself was a victim of the scheme. Although he is an Udege from Primorye, near the Sea of Japan, he knows just a few words of his native language.

"Imagine what it was like for these children to come home at the end of the school year and not be able to speak to their parents," he says.

"Of course, I agree that the children needed to be given an education, but I think we're only now beginning to realise what a terrible mistake it was to have done it like that."


'Hope rests with teachers'

And then I speak to Vera Tuzakova, a Selkup, from the Tomsk region in Siberia.

She sings me a moving song in Selkup about the native villages that have disappeared - Laskina and Mumusheva and others - leaving behind just the birds' nests in the trees.

"We try to keep our culture alive with concerts and festivals," she tells me. "But with every passing year, more of our roots fade away."

Fayina says her greatest hope for saving the dozens of languages on the verge of disappearing rests with the teachers.

"It's hard because there are very few books for them to teach from, so they have to be creative," she says.

"And their wages are appalling - they earn just 1,300 roubles ($50) a month. But if we can teach the children, they can teach their parents, and in that way we might preserve some of our mother tongues for a little longer."

Otherwise, she says, in just a few years many of the world's oldest languages could be lost forever.

From Our Own Correspondent was broadcast on Saturday, 24 February, 2007 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4. Please check the programme schedules for World Service transmission times.

US forces release Iraq leader's son,Despite a security operation, Baghdad has seen no
let-up in deadly attacks on civilians , US troops detained the eldest son of Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, Iraq's most influential Shia politician, for nearly 12 hours on Friday before releasing him, according to officials.

Ammar al-Hakim was taken into custody at the Zirbatyah crossing point between Iran and Iraq along with his security guards, Jamal al-Sagheer, his father's secretary, said.
Al-Hakim's father is leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Iraq's largest political group.

Ammar heads a charity dedicated to the memory of his uncle, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, who was killed in a car bombing in 2003.
Shia reaction to the detention was quick and sharp.

'Unacceptable'

Hamid Majid Moussa, an Iraqi minister, told Al-Furat television: "What happened is unacceptable and an apology must be offered ... The Iraqi government and the American forces must put an end to such transgressions."

In Basra, about 300 SCIRI supporters protested against the detention.


Ammar al-Hakim, who was detained by US
forces on Friday, heads a charity [AFP]
"No, no to America," they chanted. "No, no to Satan."

Hameed Moalah, a Shia minister close to al-Hakim, said he was not sure what message Washington was trying to send, "but it is certainly a negative one".

Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, issued a rapid apology.

He said: "I am sorry about the arrest. We don't know the circumstances of the arrest and we are investigating and we don't mean any disrespect to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim or his family."

Al-Hakim's bloc carries the strongest voice in the 275-seat parliament.

It also maintains very close ties to Iran, which has hosted the elder al-Hakim and other SCIRI officials before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

'Imposing order'

To reinforce US worries about Iraq's stability, Jack Keane, a top Pentagon envoy and a retired army general, acknowledged that the "violence is too high" for Iraqi forces to handle alone.

US officials said four US soldiers were killed on Thursday in combat in Anbar province, but did not give specific locations or circumstances for the deaths.

"Has any of the Bush Iraq plans worked other than causing the worst destruction?"

A US soldier was injured when a roadside bomb exploded in the southern Iraqi city of Diwaniya.

In the southern city of Basra, police said they arrested Issa Abdul-Razzaq Ahmed, a suspected Sunni fighter.

Mohammed al-Moussawi, a provincial police commander, said that Ahmed, 22, is on Iraqi interior ministry's most-wanted list, accused of financing and recruiting fighters.

Meanwhile, Sunni clerics used their Friday sermons to demand justice for two women who were allegedly raped by the mainly Shia led security forces.

Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, the self-proclaimed al-Qaeda leader in Iraq, has called on his followers to step up attacks on Iraqi security forces to avenge the rapes in Baghdad and the northern town of Tal Afar near the Syrian border.

"Go ahead with God's blessing and engulf their checkpoints in fire, destroy their homes, and spill their blood to flow as streams," he said in an audio tape released on the internet.

Mounting casualties

According to the Associated Press, at least 1,897 Iraqi civilians had been wounded as of Friday.

The actual number of casualties is believed to be far higher as many go unreported and dangerous conditions in Iraq make it difficult to collect and verify information.

In Ramadi, medical sources at a hospital said that 26 Iraqis, including four women and a child, were killed in a US air strike on one of the city's neighbourhood.

In Baghdad, Iraqi police found 14 unidentified bodies on Thursday.

In the northern city of Mosul, 10 bodies, one of an army captain, were found while another four bodies were found in Kirkuk.

Israeli Leader Willing to Meet Again With Abbas, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel said today that he was willing to meet “again and again” with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. But the Israeli leader also made clear that serious peace negotiations are unlikely unless the Palestinian government is willing to recognize Israel.

Speaking two days after a meeting with Mr. Abbas and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Olmert said he expected to maintain a steady dialogue with the Palestinian leader, who favors peace talks with Israel.

But Mr. Olmert stressed that Israel would not deal with a Palestinian unity government that does not meet the conditions set by Israel and the so-called quartet.

The quartet, consisting of the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, was meeting in Berlin this evening to review the recent developments, including the internal Palestinian agreement to form a unity government.

The new Palestinian government is to include Mr. Abbas’s Fatah movement as well as the radical Islamic movement Hamas. While the government and its program are still in the making, Hamas will continue to be the strongest faction and it has rejected demands that it recognize Israel and forswear violence.

“Israel will not be able to maintain any kind of formal or practical contact with a government that does not accept explicitly the principles of the quartet,” Mr. Olmert said at a news conference with foreign journalists. “The agreement signed between Fatah and Hamas does not promise any change in the basic policy toward Israel.”

“However, at the same time, I made it clear that I will not cut my contacts” with Mr. Abbas. Mr. Olmert said. “We will have to meet together again and again.”

The United States and other quartet members are seeking to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations that collapsed six years ago, shortly after the beginning of a Palestinian uprising.

But the effort has been complicated by recent Palestinian infighting and the role of Hamas, which won the Palestinian elections a year ago. Mr. Abbas says the unity agreement with Hamas was necessary to end the internal Palestinian bloodshed. And Hamas says it has no objections to Mr. Abbas negotiating with Israel, though Hamas has always rejected such talks.

But Mr. Abbas has limited authority, and Mr. Olmert indicated that would limit the scope of their discussions. Israel will look for ways to improve Palestinian living conditions, Mr. Olmert said, but he gave no sign that Israel would negotiate at this stage on larger issues, such as the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“A majority of Palestinians voted for a party that doesn’t want to make peace with Israel,” Mr. Olmert said in reference to Hamas.

Hamas actually won a plurality of the vote in the January 2006 election, which translated into a large majority in the Palestinian Parliament.

The prime minister also said Palestinians must stop the rocket fire from the Gaza Strip that is directed at southern Israel.

Israel and the Palestinians agreed to a cease-fire in Gaza in November, but the rockets have not ceased. Today, Palestinians fired four rockets from Gaza, but they caused no damage or injuries, the Israeli military said.

“We are not going to restrain ourselves forever,” Mr. Olmert said. “The patience of Israel is being tested too often. In the end, we will respond and we will reach out for those responsible.”

In another development today, Israeli forces shot dead a leader of the militant group Islamic Jihad, Mahmoud Obeid, in the West Bank town of Jenin. The military said Mr. Obeid was responsible for a planned suicide bombing attack a day earlier.

The Israeli police, acting on a tip, arrested the suspected bomber and three suspected accomplices in a Tel Aviv suburb on Tuesday evening. The would-be bomber then led police to explosives he had hidden and planned to use in the attack, the police said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Olmert defended his handling of the war against the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer. The conflict erupted less than four months after Mr. Olmert was elected, and it greatly eroded his support among Israelis, many of whom believe the fighting was mismanaged.

But Mr. Olmert said he thought the war made a major dent in Hezbollah’s willingness and ability to strike at Israel.

“I think Hezbollah is weaker, much weaker, than they were,” Mr. Olmert said. “I am not certain that they have any appetite to fight with Israel again.”

On Iran, Mr. Olmert said he believed a combination of diplomatic pressure and economic sanctions could force the Iranian leadership to scale back its nuclear program. Israel believes Iran is intent on developing nuclear weapons, although Iran says it is seeking nuclear power for civilian use.

“If there will be a concerted effort by the international community, I think there are serious chances that it will have an impact that may change the Iranian attitude,” Mr. Olmert said.

“I think the Iranians are not as close to the technological threshold as they claim to be,” Mr. Olmert added. “And, unfortunately, they are not as far away as we would like them to be.”

Israeli officials estimate that Iran will probably need about three or four more years to build a nuclear weapon.

Militants Attack U.S. Base in Iraq
In a coordinated assault on an American combat outpost north of Baghdad, suicide bombers drove three cars filled with explosives into the base today, killing two American soldiers and wounding at least 17 more, witnesses and the American military said.

The brazen and highly unusual attack, which was followed by fierce gun battles and a daring evacuation of the wounded Americans by helicopters, came on a day of violence across the country that left more than 40 people dead in shootings, suicide bombings, mortar attacks and roadside explosions.

The violence was directed at civilians, Americans and the Iraqi security forces.

As American and Iraqi troops flood the streets of Baghdad in an attempt to stem the bloodshed, and thousands more Marines head out to the Sunni Arab heartland west of the city in Anbar Province, American and Iraqi military officials are concerned that militants will simply try to move to areas where the troop presence remains thin.

There is already evidence that Shiite militia leaders are either heading to strongholds in the south and, the officers said, Sunni militants are likely to adopt a similar strategy.

But unlike the Shiite militias, there is little evidence that the Sunni militants will simply try to wait for the security crackdown to subside. In addition to the assault on the American base, the militants struck at Iraqi security forces near Kirkuk and Ramadi today and attacked civilians near Falluja.

A family of 13 was slaughtered on the road to Falluja, about 12 miles northwest of Baghdad, because they were from a tribe known to oppose the actions of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, according to witnesses. The family, including an elderly woman and two small boys, was dragged out of an Akia minibus, lined up in the middle of the road and shot. The executions took place in full view of others on the road, where traffic was stopped, witnesses said.

The family’s bodies remained on the highway for hours because people were afraid they would be ambushed if they collected the dead, witnesses said.

The assault on the American base, located in the heart of the town of Tarmyia, was unusual because militants have largely avoided direct attacks on heavily fortified American positions, although there have been scattered attacks by suicide bombers on American bases in the past four years.

Militants have mainly attacked American bases by firing mortar rounds from a distance, using snipers to wait for targets of opportunity or planting improvised explosive devices on the roads that are frequently used by American vehicles.

The posts of the Iraqi police and army, on the other hand, have come under similar assaults more frequently.

As American troops move into small combat outposts throughout Baghdad for the first time since the early months after the invasion in 2003, today’s attack underscored the inherent risks in the Bush administration’s new security strategy.

American troops only recently moved into the outpost in Tarmyia, taking over control after the local police force collapsed in December, following a campaign of intimidation by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, according to the military and residents.

That intimidation typically comes through public executions and kidnappings, according to American officers.

Until the Iraqi police force collapsed, Americans had only been an occasional presence in Tarmyia, a town of 25,000, sending soldiers to conduct patrols with the Iraqis from a nearby base.

The American combat outpost, located in the abandoned police headquarters in the center of the town, was fortified by large blast walls. Typically, the Americans keep one company of about 100 soldiers at such outposts.

The suicide bombers who attacked the outpost today timed their assault to inflict maximum damage, witnesses said.

Shortly before dawn, two suicide bombers drove cars filled with explosives into the outer perimeter of the outpost. As American soldiers tried to assess the damage and help the wounded, a third bomber drove his car into the building.

There was a heavy exchange of gunfire after the explosions and as the firefight raged, at least four American helicopters swept into Tarmyia to evacuate the wounded soldiers.

The American military, in a statement, confirmed only that the outpost was attacked, that a car bomb was involved and that two soldiers were killed and another 17 wounded.

]By nightfall, American forces had sealed off all entrances in and out of the town, leaving residents worried that they would be cut off from basic supplies. A curfew was imposed and residents said they were not even allowed to walk outside their homes.

An American military officer, who requested anonymity because there is an active investigation into the assault, said that while many of the facts remained unknown, the attack was “not typical.”

The accounts of witnesses, some of whom live next door to the outpost, could not be independently verified.

Separately today, militants continued to attack Iraqis they deemed to be working against their cause, both civilians and Iraqi security forces.

The family that was executed on the road to Falluja was part of the Albu Farag tribe, which has publicly opposed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other militant groups. The tribe made an alliance with al-Anbar Salvation Council, which is working to undermine the militants.

The head of that council, Abdul Satar Abu Risha, also came under attack today. A suicide car bomber drove into his home, killing five of his guards but leaving him alive.

In Ramadi, the home of a major in the Iraqi Army was attacked and five more people were killed. Maj. Ammir Nayef survived.

Near Kirkuk, three Iraqi police officers were killed and four more wounded when gunmen attacked their patrol on the highway leading to the city, according to a local police commander.

In the west of the country, three marines and one Army soldier were killed in recent days, the American military said today.

And even as Iraqis and Americans stepped up there efforts in Baghdad on day after a bombs killed 61 people in a downtown market, there were at least three bombings that killed 10 people, according to Iraqi officials. The deadliest attack, which left four people dead and six wounded, was directed at people traveling on a public minibus in the Shiite neighborhood of Karrada.

At least one more person was killed in mortar attacks in the southeastern neighborhood of Abu Tshir, the Iraqi officials said.

There was also an increase in the number of bodies found around Baghdad after a brief lull, officials said. At least 20 people were found on the streets today showing signs of torture and execution.

The American military said in a statement today that soldiers captured two members of a rogue Shiite militia cell that is suspected of participating in the kidnapping, torture and murder of an Iraqi Army officer in December 2006.

Neither the Americans nor the Iraqis would comment on the claims of woman who said she was raped by eight members of the Iraqi National Police in Baghdad. The woman made her claims on the Al Jazeera satellite television channel tonight, but they were impossible to verify. The charges, however, threaten to further complicate the already difficult task of restoring faith in the Iraqi security forces.