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Prayer Time (Tehran)
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Dawn: 5:34
Sunrise: 7:04
Noon: 11:57
Evening: 17:11
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Weather Guide
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SUN |
MON |
Tehran: |
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High: |
8oC |
8oC |
Low: |
5oC |
0oC |
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Athens |
7 |
7 |
Ankara |
-10 |
-8 |
Paris |
0 |
0 |
New Delhi |
10 |
10 |
Rome |
6 |
8 |
Riyadh |
12 |
11 |
Frankfurt |
0 |
-2 |
Cairo |
9 |
6 |
Kuwait City |
11 |
3 |
Karachi |
15 |
15 |
Copenhagen |
-1 |
1 |
London |
2 |
1 |
Moscow |
-10 |
-10 |
Madrid |
3 |
4 |
Vienna |
-3 |
-4 |
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Identification
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Published by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA)
Address:
Iran Cultural & Press Institute, #212 Khorramshahr Avenue Tehran/Iran
Managing Director: Mohammad T. Roghaniha
Executive Editor: Amin Sabooni
Editorial Dept. Tel: 8755761-2
Editorial Dept. Fax: 8761869
Advertising Dept. Tel: 8753119, 8757702, 8733764
Internet Address:
www.iran-daily.com
E-mail Address:
iran-daily@iran-daily.com
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Bushehr Plant Awaiting Technical Deal
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Bushehr Power Plant
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TEHRAN, Dec. 11--Tehran and Moscow are discussing technical details of an agreement to bring a nuclear power plant in the Iranian port city of Bushehr on line in 2006, Chairman of Russian Federation Council Sergei Mironov said here Saturday.
The power plant, subjected to immense international media hype, has seen several dates for its operation pushed back from its initial target of 2003, IRNA reported.
In August, Iran said the plant would become operational in October 2006, a year behind the schedule.
Mironov, who arrived in Tehran on Saturday for a one-day visit, stressed Iran's right to peaceful nuclear technology within the framework of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which the country is a signatory.
Once operational, the Bushehr Power Plant is projected to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity, 6,000 megawatts less than the 2021 target set by Iran for nuclear power plants.
Its construction has been dogged by a whole slew of 'complexities', primarily the deal on the return of spent fuel and its costs.
This has raised the ire of certain circles inside Iran amid suspicion that Russia could be trying to use the project as a bargaining chip in its political horse-trading with the United States.
A senior Iranian official sent a veiled warning to Russia recently, making it clear that the Iranians would judge the Russians by their performance in Bushehr.
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Arab-US Forum Differs on Reform
RABAT, Morocco, Dec. 11--Arab leaders and the United States ended a meeting here Saturday with sharp differences over the need for democratic reform compared with a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but agreed to keep talking.
"The participants agreed their support for reforms in the region will occur in parallel with their support for finding a solution to the Palestinian conflict," Morocco's Foreign Minister Mohamed Benaissa told a press conference, AFP reported. But US Secretary of State Colin Powell insisted, "We can't hold up reform or slow the pace of reform or keep reform from accelerating because of these other issues. They affect the environment in which we are operating, but nevertheless reform is necessary."
Arab leaders had resisted US calls for speedy democratic reforms in their countries, saying the steps that the United States deem essential to stem terrorism must be preceded by a just and durable peace in the Middle East.
While the ministers listened politely to his address at the opening of the "Forum for the Future" conference promoting democracy in the Arab and Muslim world, there was clear resistance to putting change ahead of a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In his address, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Mussa insisted that only peace in the Middle East could pave the way for the sweeping reforms envisioned by the US-proposed Greater Middle East and North Africa initiative. Later, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal put it even more bluntly, telling the conference in a closed session that the perceived US bias toward Israel was the main obstacle to promoting reform in the region.
Prince Saud added that the Arab world could not understand why US support for democracy and human rights in the Middle East did not extend to restraining Israel in its actions in the Palestinian territories.
Iran had announced on Friday that it would boycott the meeting.
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Najaf Center Lambastes king Abdullah
TEHRAN, Dec. 11--Najaf Theological Center on Saturday reacted to the recent remarks of Jordan's King Abdullah by calling them Òa blatant act of interference in Iraqi affairsÓ and urged him to apologize.
Part of the missive, which was faxed to Iran Daily, read, "Distorting the truth and blatantly interfering in Iraqi affairs, provoking tribal sentiments in the region against Iraqi Shiites, provoking great powers against Iraqi Shiites, intimidating regional countries and accusing them of having links with Iran, displaying a great tendency for ensuring Israel's security and expressing worries about the victory of Shiites in the upcoming elections tantamount to insulting millions of people in Iran, who have been insulted just because they follow a religion that the JordanÕs king is opposed to."
Another part of the statement said, "Najaf Theological Center is hopeful that the Jordanian monarch will apologize to the Shiites of the region and Iraq, and their religious authorities, because of the inaccurate remarks made against them."
The letter stressed that King Abdullah's remarks are unacceptable and are not in line with the best bilateral commercial interests and brotherly relations of Iran and Iraq.
Meanwhile, Iraqi Vice President Ebrahim Jafari tried to tone down King Abdullah's remarks about the fear of an Iranian-Iraqi Shiite crescent in the region and noted that Shiites in different parts of the world should be lauded because they suffered greatly under the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein.
King Abdullah recently alleged that one million Iranians have infiltrated into Iraq to participate in the Jan. 30 Iraqi elections and that Iran is trying to establish a Shiite crescent in the region. Both claims have been rejected by top Iraqi officials.
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New Chapter in EU Cooperation
MADRID, Spain,
Dec. 11--Portuguese Foreign Minister Antonio Monteiro said the recent nuclear agreement between Iran and the European Union opened a new chapter in bilateral cooperation.
In a meeting with Iranian Ambassador to Portugal Mohammad Taheri, Monteiro expressed satisfaction with the Iran-EU agreement and voiced his country's support for it, IRNA reported.
He added that he had discussed Iran's nuclear program with the EU Trio, namely representatives of Britain, France and Germany, saying the current move would settle Iran's nuclear problem.
The Portuguese minister referred to Iran's position in the Middle East and appreciated Iran's constructive role in establishing stability in Afghanistan and Iraq.
He stressed the importance of holding election in Iraq on schedule.
Monteiro praised President Mohammad Khatami's initiative of ÒDialogue Among CivilizationsÓ, calling it a fundamental need of the world to prevent the spread of insecurity and instability.
The Iranian ambassador, for his part, pointed to deep-rooted relations between the two countries in the political field and called for further promotion of ties in all fields.
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Ebadi:
America Would Face tough Resistance in Iran
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Shirin Ebadi
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TEHRAN, Dec. 11--Nobel peace prize laureate in 2003, Shirin Ebadi, on Thursday said in case of a US military attack on Iran, the aggressors would encounter very tough resistance.
Addressing the European conference themed ÒCities for Human RightsÓ in Nuremburg, Germany, Ebadi said the Iranian nation will neither tolerate foreign interference nor a foreign attack, IRNA reported.
She stressed that the Iranian people's desire for reforms does not necessarily imply that they would tolerate foreign interference in their internal affairs.
"The Iranian people never desire foreign interference in their affairs," she said.
Ebadi noted that democracy cannot be imported to other countries like goods.
"Democracy is not a gift that could be given to other countries. Democracy is not established by bombarding other countries either. It is established when the overall climate is calm and normal," she said.
Over 96 experts from different countries exchanged views about human rights policies in the conference, which ended on Saturday.
The first such event was held in Barcelona in 1998.
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Yushchenko Poisoned with Dioxin
Foul Play Suspected
VIENNA, Austria, Dec. 11--Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was the victim of dioxin poisoning, his doctor in Vienna disclosed Saturday, adding that he suspected foul play.
"There is no doubt about the fact that the disease has been caused by a case of poisoning by dioxin," said Dr Michael Zimpfer, the medical chief of Vienna's Rudolfinerhaus clinic, AFP reported.
"We have found levels of dioxin in the body caused by oral ingestion," he told a press conference at the private clinic. "We suspect a cause triggered by a third party."
Zimpfer said the clinic's conclusion that Yushchenko had been poisoned was based on skin changes and tests on blood and tissue samples from the politician who fell ill on September 6 with an ailment that severely disfigured his face but originally left doctors baffled.
Dioxin is the name given to a group of closely related toxins that can cause cancer and death, and was used in the defoliant Agent Orange. Its ingestion is known to cause a severe skin disease called chloracne and damage to the liver and nervous system.
Yushchenko, the 50-year-old pro-Western candidate in the Ukraine's bitterly contested presidential race, has repeatedly claimed that he was poisoned by political rivals.
Zimpfer, however, pointed out that it is up to the courts to decide whether he had been the victim of a murder plot, telling journalists: "Our diagnosis says poisoning. It is up to the legal authorities to decide whether it was voluntary."
Yushchenko is seen as the likely winner of a December 26 rerun of Ukraine's November presidential runoff election, which sparked mass protests by his supporters and was finally invalidated by the country's supreme court on grounds of fraud.
Yushchenko on Friday told doctors he was feeling better and planned to return to Kiev on Sunday.
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Monks Deride Myanmar Buddhist Confab
YANGON, Myanmar, Dec. 11--A world Buddhist conference wrapped up Saturday in military-ruled Myanmar, hailed as a great success by the country's premier but derided as a sham by some of the nation's senior monks.
The three-day meeting ended with the ringing of 108 bells, chanting by some 500 assembled monks and messages delivered by the prime ministers of Myanmar and Sri Lanka, AFP reported.
Myanmar's premier, Lieutenant General Soe Win, said some 2,600 monks and Buddhist observers had attended the summit aimed at bringing "peace and prosperity to the world".
The meeting was a great success and would help "put an end to extremism, intimidation and armed conflicts" around the globe, he said.
Some local monks who did not attend the summit dismissed the event as a farce.
A senior monk in Yangon, who did not want to be named, told AFP the meeting was intended merely to promote the junta among the international community and had little to do with promoting the faith.
"Most monks go to jail when they refuse to submit to the cruel government," he said, adding the summit "is not sincere".
In addition to guest appearances by the premiers of Thailand, Sri Lanka and Laos, delegates were mainly from Asia but included representatives from the United States, Britain and Australia.
Many delegates said they were aware of controversy surrounding the summit after the withdrawal of a key sponsor, but maintained they were opposed to the mixing of religion and politics.
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Informed Movement
By S. Sadeghi
Students Day in Iran was held Dec. 6 with political meetings and lectures across the country. President Mohammad Khatami addressed a group of students at Tehran University. He spoke about and took questions on key sociopolitical and cultural issues of concern to the audience. The president whose second and last term ends in mid-2005, once again recalled the distinguished presence of students on the sociopolitical and cultural scenes.
Khatami said students are trailblazers of the reform movement and lauded their long and painstaking efforts in confronting domestic despotism and foreign hegemony.
Iran's student movement is not very old since the first university in our country was established about 90 years ago. However, in this period the dynamic movement has witnessed more than its share of upheavals, which emerged after higher education was no longer limited to nurturing special social elite and more Iranians got the opportunity to attend universities.
Perhaps the history of the student movement can be divided into two phases. The first pertains to the time when the student movement rested solely on intellectuals.
Although in this period the student movement developed certain bonds with some political groups, due to the genuine and uncorrupted nature of students, it was far and distant from covert political agendas of yester years.
After the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the second phase of the student movement began during which the students separated from intellectuals and developed closer affinity with the masses.
Among the well known political actions of the student movement in the pre-1979 era was the strong rally staged on Dec. 6, 1953 to protest the visit of then US Vice President Richard Nixon to Iran. During the protests the former Imperial Guard for the first time entered Tehran University campus by force and opened fire at the protesting students and three students were killed in the melee.
Consequently, that day turned into an historic event and over the years marked the resistance of students to imperialism. In fact, the day is the manifestation of students' resistance to despotic regimes that tried to deprive the students from freedom of thought and expression and make them dependant on the western culture at the forefront of which was the US.
For more than half a century the students have shown that their movement is alive and well, though at times it had to, albeit reluctantly, check its momentum. This movement will endure as long as it abides by the ideals of the revolution and identifies itself with the masses.
What keeps the movement going is its independence and non-partisan nature, which if neglected could be harmful to our society.
The students and their legitimate demands should continue to stay away from radicalism and assert their active presence on the political scene. Our students and their leaders are well aware that they cannot allow opportunists and politicians to influence them or their direction.
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