IRAN DISSIDENT DECLINES WHITE HOUSE INVITATION, SAYS IRAQ WAR HAS HAMPERED DEMOCRACY
(but accepts Russian invitation for Freedom award)

"Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji declined to meet White House officials during a visit to the US... Mr Ganji said he had been invited to discuss the current situation in Iran... he rejected the offer because he believed current US policies could not help promote democracy in Iran. In a speech last week in Washington DC, he also criticised US policy in Iraq, saying: "You cannot bring democracy to a country by attacking it". He added that the war in Iraq had helped Islamic fundamentalism and hampered the democracy movement in the region."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5211840.stm

"Iran has allowed a leading dissident journalist to leave the country to receive a journalism award in Moscow. Akbar Ganji, who was freed from jail in March... was given permission to go at the last minute. On Monday, he will collect the World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom award in Russia's capital."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5047034.stm

NO EVIDENCE OF SECRET ENRICHMENT BY IRAN

"... officials have been saying for years that Iran is using its publicly declared nuclear programme as a cover for a clandestine nuclear weapons programme, but has never produced concrete evidence to support that argument... the specter of a clandestine P-2 enrichment programme paralleling the declared P-1 progress at Natanz is not supported by leading independent specialists or by what is known about the history of Iran's nuclear programme..."
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33930