UPCOMING EVENTS
Tuesday, August 5, 2008: Grannies leaflet outside Free
Library at Logan
Circle at 6:30 p.m. Some Grannies go inside to hear
Nancy Pelosi speak
and hope to be able to ask questions
Thursday, August 7, 2008: Granny demo at Rittenhouse
Square (18th and
Walnut St. entrance), from Noon to 1:30 p.m.
The focus will be on bringing the Pennsylvania's National
Guard home.
HR 2402 calling for this in the State Legislature is
buried in the
Veterans Committee. NOTE: There will also be a press
conference
(organized by Pittsburgh women) on this issue on the same
day in
Pittsburgh, PA. Contact: Helen Evelev at
helenevelev@aol.com or call
her at (215) 351-2225.
Saturday, August 9, 2008: Nagasaki Day Peace Vigil in
front of Saints
Peter and Paul Cathedral, 18th and Parkway, 11:00 a.m. to
1:00 p.m.
Grannies mourn the fact that our country dropped a
nuclear bomb in 1945
(63 years ago) on this date on the Japanese city with the
largest Catholic
population in Japan. Contact: Brandywine Peace
Community at brandywine@juno.com (610) 544-1818.
Thursday, August 14, 2008: Granny Meeting, 1319 Locust
St., 10:00 a.m.
to Noon
Sunday, August 17, 2008: Vigil close to Senator
Specter's home,
Schoolhouse Lane. This is NOT a Granny event.
Thursday, August 21, 2008: Grannies meet together with
the Hospital
Workers Union (1199) Retirement Group, at 1319 Locust
St., beginning at
Noon.
Thursday, August 28, 2008: Day-long Granny Meeting to
discuss the
Middle East, 1319 Locust St., 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
This IS a Granny
event.
Thursday, September 11, 2008: Bill Kay (the Grannies'
troubadour) will
be at Love Park doing a Peace Vigil from 5 to 7 p.m. He
would like to
have your/our participation.
Contact: Bill Kay at ifdogsrunfree@comcast.net
Sunday, September 21, 2008: Granny Peace Brigade Vigil
close to Senator
Specter's home on Schoolhouse Lane.
============================================
Pass on- so
all will see the seriousness & know the particulars.
StopWarOnIran.org --
Stop the War on Iran Before it Starts!.htm SATURDAY AUG 2 TIMES SQUARE NEW YORK
|
|||||||||||||||
|
Nonaligned
countries back Iran's nuclear program
By GEORGE JAHN,
Associated Press Writer
(07-30)
16:46 PDT TEHRAN, Iran (AP) --
More
than 100 nonaligned nations backed Iran's right to peaceful uses of
nuclear power on
Wednesday, an endorsement sought by Tehran in its
standoff with the
U.N. Security Council over its refusal to freeze uranium
enrichment.
The
decision came as supreme Iranian leader Ayatolla Ali Khamenei pledged
to continue the
country's nuclear program.
Senior
Iranian officials depicted the support from a high-level conference
of the Nonaligned
Movement as deflating claims by the U.S. and its allies
that most of the
international community wanted Iran to stop enrichment.
The
conference's backing, which echoes the group's previous declarations,
acts to "remove
this notion that the international community opposes the
nuclear activities
of Iran," said Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
Ali
Ashgar Soltanieh, Iran's top representative to the International
Atomic Energy
Agency, said the endorsement from the 115 countries present
at the Tehran
conference sends a "strong positive signal that the only way
is negotiation and
dialogue" over the nuclear standoff.
"Get the message," he said, in blunt comments indirectly aimed at the
U.S.
and its Western
allies, the nations at the forefront of accusations that
Tehran wants to build
nuclear arms. "Come to the negotiating table."
Support
was expressed in a three-page declaration in Farsi, translated by
The Associated
Press. It said the conference "reaffirmed the basic and
inalienable right of
all states, to develop research, production and use
of atomic energy for
peaceful purposes."
The
West is seeking an agreement for Iran to curb uranium enrichment, a
process that can be
use to generate nuclear power or build a weapon.
The
U.S. and its allies say Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons,
while Iran maintains
its program is aimed at harnessing nuclear energy.
The Security Council
has slapped three sets of sanctions on the Islamic
Republic. And a
fourth set looms.
Only
days remain until a deadline expires for Tehran to show it will stop
expanding its
enrichment program, at least temporarily, or face the threat
of new U.N.
sanctions.
The
offer is meant to create space for the start of in-depth negotiations
that the West hopes
will end in Iran agreeing to permanently mothball its
enrichment program
in exchange for a package of economic and political
concessions.
But
there was no sign Wednesday that Tehran was willing to bend.
Khamenei said that backing down on enrichment in the face of "arrogant
powers" would
only benefit those six nations - the United States,
Russia, China,
France, Britain and Germany.
That
message was enforced later both by Mottaki, the foreign minister and
Soltanieh, Iran's
chief IAEA representative.
"We
are not giving up our nuclear activities, including enrichment,"
Soltanieh said.
The
Nonaligned Movement is made up of such diverse members as communist
Cuba, Jamaica and
India, but most members share a critical view of the U.S
and the developed
world in general.
In a
keynote speech Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, "The big
powers are going
down. "They have come to the end of their power, and the
world is on the
verge of entering a new, promising era."
A
separate closing document took the International Criminal Court's
prosecutor to task
for indicting Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir by an
international
prosecutor on charges of genocide in Darfur. It also harshly
criticized Israel on
a broad range of issues. Iran assumed the
chairmanship of the
conference this week.