A Quote by Elaine Sciolino

Massoumeh Ebtekar is the highest-ranking woman in Iran's government, a symbol of President Mohammed Khatami's promise to promote women into high-profile positions.
That President Mohammad Khatami's policies have been blocked is the bitterest incident in the contemporary Iranian history. This means that the wishes of millions of people who voted for Khatami and called for freedom and justice have been ignored... Why should cultural activities and journalism be so risky in Iran?
In 1981, Ms. Ebtekar was made editor-in-chief of the English-language newspaper 'Kayhan International.' The man who gave her the job was Mr. Khatami, who was then head of the Kayhan publishing house.
I think it's high time that we had a woman president. But I don't want to elect someone just because she's a woman; I want the best candidate to be elected. I think that any woman who is elected to the highest office in the land would clearly have positive role model effects for other young women.
I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself.
Freedoms in Iran are genuine, true freedoms. Iranian people are free. Women in Iran enjoy the highest levels of freedom. In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country.
Khatami is a symptom and not the cause of change in Iran.
We women are callow fledglings as compared with the wise old birds who manipulate the political machinery, and we still hesitate to believe that a woman can fill certain positions in public life as competently and adequately as a man. For instance, it is certain that women do not want a woman for President. Nor would they have the slightest confidence in her ability to fulfill the functions of that office. Every woman who fails in a public position confirms this, but every woman who succeeds creates confidence.
I was very proud and grateful to be the first African-American woman in the position. I thought it said a lot about our country that we had back-to-back African-American Secretaries of State, Colin Powell and then me. I also thought it said a lot about President Bush that he didn't see limits on the highest ranking diplomat in terms of color. It's a hard job, but really the best one in government.
President Ahmadinejad said that the Zionist state of Israel should no longer exist as a political entity. This has always been the policy of successive Iranian governments such as those of President Khatami and President Rafsanjani.
I believe it is the responsibility and duty of those in high-profile positions to give a voice to people whose voices cannot be heard.
I think that the president of Iran has the authority wherever which - where - wherever the national interests of the country are involved and, when it is necessary and expedient and required to speak and talk with others in order to promote the rights of its nation, that the president can take that initiative.
Numerically, half of our high-ranking government officials should be women, and half should be men. And yet the division between the sexes is highly disproportionate in favour of men.
Every American president must be held to the highest standard. No president of any color should be given a free pass for screw-ups, lies or failure to keep a promise.
The path I lay out is not one paved with ever increasing government checks and cradle to grave assurance that government will always be the solution. If this election is a bidding war for who can promise the most goodies and the most benefits, I'm not your president. You have that president today.
Within the U.N. itself, I have appointed a record number of women to high-level positions. I did not fill jobs with women just for the sake of it - I looked for the best possible candidate, and I found that if you strip away discrimination, the best possible candidate is often a woman.
One thing that became abundantly clear right away was that the more women you have in positions of power, the bigger the opportunity you have to serve women. If a woman is not in the room to speak about what a woman needs, then those decisions aren't being made.
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