President Mohammad Khatami visited the headquarters of Iranian Students` News Agency (ISNA) and talked with its staff in Tehran on Saturday. (ISNA Photo)

TEHRAN, Dec. 4--President Mohammad Khatami said here Saturday the country's mass media should not become a tool in the hands of the economically, politically and socially powerful.
Speaking at a meeting of the Iranian Students' News Agency management and staff, on the occasion of ISNA's sixth establishment anniversary, Khatami stressed that the mass media (newspapers, magazines, radio and TV) should be independent and representative of the public opinion "which is not easy", IRNA reported.
Referring to those who employ the media to serve their interests, he said certain media like the ISNA, which stands up for religious values, freedom transparency, constructive criticism and the Islamic system, have a harder task to accomplish because they are under pressure by those calling for wider freedoms as well as those wanting to restrict such freedoms in the interest of protecting the society's interest.
Praising ISNA for having set the example of fair and democratic news reporting, he said news agencies constitute the core of public information dissemination which is then taken over by other information providers.
Earlier, Khatami visited the news agency's main office and inaugurated the agency's new website by dispatching a news story.
ISNA is affiliated to the University Students' Jihad Organization.
ISNA, which opened in 1999 to reflect the growing divergent views in Iranian society, is the country's second biggest news agency.
With 160 employees and 26 offices, it currently dispatches about 700 news stories averaging 130,000 words daily on its main website.
Meanwhile, Khatami sent a message to Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra here Saturday felicitating him and the Thai people on their country's National Day.
A report released by the Presidential Office's Press Bureau said the president is optimistic that the upcoming visit of Shinawatra to Iran would further consolidate relations between the two countries.

Massoumeh Ebtekar

TEHRAN, Dec. 4--Institutionalizing the achievements of environmental NGOs is one of the objectives of the Department of Environment, vice president and DOE chief said Saturday.
In a meeting with environmental NGOs in Kurdestan, Massoumeh Ebtekar reiterated that the main objective of DOE is quantitative and qualitative development of NGOs.
"Setting up a national environmental network is a step forward for empowering environmental NGOs. DOE has had 320 cases of joint cooperation with environmental NGOs in the past Iranian year (ended March 19)," she said.
Referring to DOE's budgetary restrictions, Ebtekar noted that DOE failed to assist NGOs due to the same restrictions.
"A total of 160 environmental NGOs were established in the country last year which shows that the people of Iran are interested in protecting environment and participating in this sector," she added.
Ebtekar pointed out that the people of Kurdestan have a high spirit of collaboration in protecting the environment and this can be seen in the activities of 13 NGOs.

SAUDI ARABIA

TEHRAN, Dec. 4--A digital control project for borders will be implemented to boost the country's border protection capabilities, an Interior Ministry official said.
Noting that safeguarding borders is of paramount importance, Hamid Reza Shahbazi also told Fars News Agency on Saturday that 300 billion rials are annually spent for providing border security.
"Digital border control will cover a vast area of border regions in the near future. Iran has 8,755 kilometers of borders with 15 neighboring countries. More than 325 border checkpoints are safeguarding Iranian borders," he added.
On Iran's border with Iraq, Shahbazi noted that during the US invasion of Iraq, Iran tightened its surveillance along its border with that country.
"However, the Iraqi side should also assist Iran in preserving border security with that country. More than 16 million mines remaining from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War have been removed from an area of 3.4 million hectares," he said.

QOM, Dec. 4--The Third International Conference on Human Rights will be held during April-May 2005 in Qom, the head of Human Rights Studies Department of Mofid University, Ahmad Shakiba, said on Saturday.
Speaking to reporters, he said intellectuals from over 15 countries are to attend the international conference, IRNA reported.
He pointed out that Mofid University is holding such a conference for the third time. The international conference will review the issue of human rights from different perspectives such as "identity, differences and human rights", he said.
A number of subjects such as "mass, religious and cultural identities" are on the conference agenda.
"Articles will be presented in Persian, Arabic and English," he said.
Over 1,000 domestic and foreign academicians and cultural personalities have sent 147 articles in Persian and English languages to the secretariat of the conference.
English articles from the US, Tanzania, Australia, Turkey, Greece, Finland, Norway, Iceland, India, Palestine, South Africa, Hungary, Britain and Germany have been received by the secretariat.

VIENNA, Austria, Dec. 4--UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei angrily denied Saturday charges he had collaborated with Iran ahead of publishing written reports on his investigation of the Islamic Republic's controversial nuclear program.
"We never show a report to any single member" of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), "not the least of course an inspected country," ElBaradei said.
ElBaradei was reacting to news reports that he had heeded Iranian demands to drop mentions of IAEA requests to visit the Parchin military site and Iran's use of the sensitive material beryllium in a report he had made to the IAEA board in September.
AFP had in September quoted a US official as saying ElBaradei had done this and there have been similar allegations in the media since then.
The United States wants the IAEA to take Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions for what Washington says is a covert nuclear weapons program, but ElBaradei says the "jury is still out" on whether Tehran's program is peaceful or not.
ElBaradei characterized as "gutter accusations" reports that he gives Iran advance looks at his reports, which are filed ahead of IAEA Board of Governors meetings that decide how tough the agency will be on Tehran over its nuclear program.
"We don't leak (special IAEA reports on Iran) to any single person outside the 10 or 20 people who are involved in the process," of drafting the text at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, ElBaradei said.
"We don't negotiate our report...at the end of the day not a single paragraph is shown to any single country until the report is out," ElBaradei said.
He said the IAEA did not "even discuss" the report ahead of time with Iran beyond technical requests for information.

TEHRAN, Dec. 4--Guardians Council on Saturday agreed to a proposal by the Interior Ministry to hold the presidential as well as the parliamentary midterm elections simultaneously.
The Interior Ministry is in charge of holding the elections and the Guardians Council plays a supervisory role, IRNA reported.
Midterm elections will be held in some constituencies where the preliminary elections had either been nullified or faced problems.
The presidential election has been rescheduled by the Interior Ministry for May 20.
Earlier the May 13 proposed by the ministry was rejected by the GC.
Once again the Guardians Council called for a date later than what the Interior Ministry had announced.
Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari, however, challenged these reservations and it is unlikely that another date could be set for the poll.
Lari said the date of the election is not a matter that needs the Guardians Council's acceptance.
The Interior Ministry and the Guardians Council have been at odds over since the last parliamentary election when the council barred many reformist MPs and candidates from running.
The Interior Ministry advocates democratic elections and challenged the Guardians Council for the undemocratic approach.

TEHRAN, Dec. 4--Culture and Islamic guidance minister said late on Friday that arts, especially cinema, can be a good tool for preventing crimes in the society.
Addressing the closing ceremony of First Police Film Festival in Tehran, Ahmad Masjed-Jamei added that police is duty-bound to ensure security for preventing crimes and confronting criminals, IRNA reported.
"Educating the people is a prerequisite to preventing crime. Traffic education and police festivals are means of public education," he said.
Masjed-Jamei stressed that preventing and confronting crimes require winning the confidence of people of different social strata.
"If this were to happen, the work of police will no longer be violent. Television series about police should avoid clichŽs," he said.
The First Police Film Festival, which opened on November 29, ended in Tehran, but will continue until December 7 in Mashhad, Tabriz, Rasht, Ahvaz and Kish.