Gas Rationing Sparks Roits in Iran

June 27, 2007 -- GAS RATIONING RIOTS IN IRAN

Angry Protests Erupt in Iran over Petrol Rationing

Angry demonstrators torched petrol stations and long queues formed at heavily-guarded fuel pumps Wednesday after oil-rich Iran announced the start of fuel rationing, triggering nationwide protests. (AFP)

Editorial: Workers of Iran Unite Under a New Leader

By Amir Taheri, Special to Gulf News

Some Western commentators have called him "the Iranian Lech Walesa" after the Polish trade unionist who helped bring down the Communist empire. The mullahs ruling Iran, however, regard him as "a dangerous enemy of Islam". (Gulf News)

Iran Web Dismay at Petrol Curbs

Iran's decision to ration fuel for private vehicles and the ensuing unrest has been greeted with surprise and anger among Iranian bloggers, with some voicing sharp criticism of the government. (BBC)

IRAN/IRAQ

Iran Helping to Plan Attacks in Iraq - US

Iran is training fighters in Iraq and helping to plan attacks there despite diplomatic pressure for change, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, while violence around the Arab state killed at least 19 people. (Reuters)

PAKISTAN/AFGHANISTAN

Fata Peace Linked To Pullout of NATO from Afghanistan

President Gen Pervez Musharraf has called upon tribesmen to stop cross-border infiltration of unwanted elements who were causing unrest in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He cautioned them that this infiltration would have undesirable consequences in the region. (APP)

LEBANON/SYRIA BORDER

UN: Security on Lebanon-Syria Border Lax

Security along the Lebanon-Syria border is too lax to prevent arms smuggling and Lebanon should quickly establish a mobile force to intercept any weapons, a U.N.-appointed team said in a report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. (AP)

AFGHANISTAN

Soviet-Era Weapons Arming the Taliban

While United States officials accuse Iran of arming a resurgent Taliban, officials in this northern Afghan city say the weapons are actually part of vast caches left behind by the Soviet military that fought a nine-year war in Afghanistan before withdrawing in 1988. (Inter Press Service)

Record Opium Crop In Southern Afghanistan

Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, where some 7,000 British troops are based, is on the verge of becoming the world's biggest drugs supplier, cultivating more opium than entire countries such as Burma, Morocco, or even Colombia, the UN warned yesterday. (Guardian)

IRAQ

10 People Killed In Two Roadside Explosions in Baghdad

Ten people were killed in two roadside explosions in Baghdad and the northern shrine city of Samarra on Wednesday. (The Times of India)

At Least Three Killed By Baghdad Car Bomb

A car bomb killed at least three people on Wednesday in an attack on police vehicles near a busy market in northern Baghdad, a witness said. (Reuters)

6 Rebels Killed in Iraq Air Strike

Six insurgents were killed when a British warplane bombed a building south of Baghdad following an attack on an Iraqi police checkpoint, the US military said Wednesday. (The News)

Raid on Top Sunni Official Adds to Iraqi Internal Feuding

Iraqi forces raided the home of Culture Minister Asad al-Hashimi early Tuesday after an arrest warrant accused him of masterminding the 2005 attempted assassination of Mithal al-Alusi, now a member of Parliament who was once a top aide to Ahmad Chalabi. (NY Times)

Iraqi Checkpoints No Obstacle for Insurgents Flush With Cash

As if the daily suicide bombings and kidnappings are not enough, US forces and their Iraqi counterparts are battling a hidden but no less lethal danger — corruption. (Daily News)

U.S.

Family Seeks Punitive Damages From Walgreens in Pharmacy Error Case

The family of a mother of three who was given the wrong dosage of a powerful blood thinning medication wants the pharmacy Walgreens to pay punitive damages in the case. (ABC News)

Gingrich Keeps His Toes in '08 Waters With Tax-Exempt Group

A $2 million fund bankrolled by a handful of wealthy donors is helping former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich keep his name alive in key electoral states, a strategy that experts say bolsters his future as presidential candidate. (ABC News)

Questions Raised Over Hiring of Foreigner to Run California GOP

The California Republican party may have broken the law when it recently hired a Canadian to fill a senior director post, experts tell ABC News. (ABC News)

ABRAMOFF INVESTIGATION

Former Interior Department Official Will Go to Jail for Obstructing Abramoff Investigation

J. Steven Griles, the former deputy secretary at the Interior Department, has been sentenced to 10 months in prison and must pay a $30,000 fine after pleading guilty to obstructing a congressional inquiry into disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. (ABC News)

TURKEY/IRAQ

Turkish Military Chief Wants Guidelines for Iraq Invasion

Share Turkey's military chief asked the government on Wednesday to set political guidelines for an incursion into northern Iraq to fight Kurdish guerrillas targeting Turkey. (AP)

NORTH KOREA

North Korea May Have Fired Missile

North Korea may have fired a short-range missile off its east coast on Wednesday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said. (Reuters)

ANTI-TERROR BANK DATA DEAL

EU Backs Anti-Terror Deal With U.S. On Bank Data

The European Union approved a deal on Wednesday setting conditions for the U.S. Treasury Department to consult records of the international banking network SWIFT in anti-terror probes, EU diplomats said. (Reuters)

INDIA

Two Bomb Blasts in Assam, No Casualties

Two bombs, suspected to have been planted by the outlawed ULFA, exploded at Gouripur market in Assam's Dhibri district on Wednesday though there were no casualties. (The Times of India)

SUDAN

Sudan's Presidential Adviser Dies in Crash

Sudan's powerful presidential adviser Majzoub al-Khalifa, who was key to signing last year's Darfur peace accord, died in a car accident in northern Sudan on Wednesday. (Reuters)

AIDS/KAZAKHSTAN

Kazakh HIV Medics Found Guilty

A court in the Central Asian state of Kazakhstan has found 21 medical workers guilty of causing an HIV outbreak which has so far killed 10 children. (BBC)

CHINA TAINTED GOODS

In Food Safety Crackdown, China Closes 180 Plants

After weeks of insisting that food here is largely safe, regulators in China said Tuesday that they had recently closed 180 food plants and that inspectors had uncovered more than 23,000 food safety violations. (NY Times)

SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi Arabia Execution Toll Tops 100

Saudi Arabia on Wednesday said it beheaded three men convicted of various crimes, bringing the total number of executions announced by the ultra-conservative kingdom so far this year to 101. (AFP)

GUANTANAMO BAY

Guantanamo Hearing Shifts Focus to World Opinion of U.S.

In a hearing Tuesday examining the legal basis for holding detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, the focus turned to world opinion of the United States and the Bush administration's counterterrorism policies. (ABC News)

VENEZUELA

Chavez Prepares Army for Guerrilla War

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered his country's armed forces to prepare for a guerrilla war against the United States, saying there must be a strategy in place to defeat the superpower if it invades, reported The Guardian on Tuesday. (Daily Times Monitor)

SOMALIA

Blast Kills Five Women in Mogadishu

A suspected bomb blast killed five women outside a busy market in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Tuesday, witnesses said. (Reuters)

KENYA

Bloody Toll in Kenyan Gang War

Kenyan police on Tuesday said they had shot dead at least 25 suspected members of the Mungiki criminal gang since last week, after at least 13 people were killed in a surge of violence blamed on the group. (Reuters)

ANALYSIS & OPINION

An Exit to Disaster

By Michael Gerson

History seems to be settling on some criticisms of the early conduct of the Iraq war. On the theory that America could liberate and leave, force levels were reduced too early, security responsibilities were transferred to Iraqis before they were ready, and planning for future challenges was unrealistic. "Victory in Iraq," one official of the Coalition Provisional Authority told me a couple of years ago, "was defined as decapitating the regime. No one defined victory as creating a sustainable country six months down the road." (Washington Post)

Gitmos across America

Toughness is the watchword in immigration policy these days. When you combine the new toughness with same-old bureaucratic indolence and ineptitude, you get a situation like that described by Nina Bernstein in The Times yesterday. She wrote about how the boom in immigration detention — the nation's fastest-growing form of incarceration — ensnares people for dubious reasons, denies them access to medicine and lawyers and sometimes holds them until they die. (NY Times)

Making Russia and China Less of a Nuisance in Middle East

By Dominique Moisi

Can Kosovo achieve independence without the tacit consent of Russia? And can there be a humanitarian and political solution to the tragedy in Darfur without the active goodwill of China? The two crises have nothing in common, but their resolution will depend in large part on whether these two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council use their veto power. (The Daily Star)

Should Hamas be Left Alone?

By Abdul Rahman Al-Rashed

The three key players of Palestinian affairs have met in Sharm el Sheikh with Mahmoud Abbas [Abu Mazen] conveying a clear message to the world that he is the president of the legitimate Palestinian Authority (PA), not Hamas or its head of government, Ismail Haniyeh, who is only recognized as such by Iran and Syria. (Aawsat)

Breaking the Code of Secrecy

There is no end to the magnetic attraction of secrecy on government officials. So it is a healthy sign of democratic self-correction when the code of secrecy is set aside, as it was yesterday when, at the behest of CIA Director Michael Hayden, the agency released 693 pages of declassified files on CIA abuses from the 1950s to the 1970s. Among these were a plot to assassinate Fidel Castro, subjecting unwitting subjects to LSD and the wiretapping of journalists. (Boston Globe)

A Note on Al Qaeda

By Joe Klein

Several readers have been grumbling about the increased use of "Al Qaeda" to describe the enemy in Iraq. There is, I think, good reason for this usage, but only in the context of the current U.S. offensive. The group in question is actually Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, what the military calls Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), which represents the most dangerous sliver--no more than 5%--of the Sunni insurgency. This is also the group, founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, that is the spine of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq. (Time Magazine)

The Insider Daily Investigative Report (DIR) is a summary of major news articles and broadcasts relating to investigative news, including international terrorism and developments in Iraq. The DIR is edited daily from foreign and U.S. sources by Chris Isham and Elizabeth Sprague of the ABC News Investigative Unit. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ABCNEWS.