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Prayer Time (Tehran)
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Dawn: 4:56
Sunrise: 6:26
Noon: 13:03
Evening: 20:00
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Weather Guide
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WED |
THU |
Tehran: |
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High: |
27oC |
27oC |
Low: |
19oC |
17oC |
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Athens |
21 |
20 |
Ankara |
19 |
23 |
Paris |
15 |
15 |
New Delhi |
41 |
40 |
Rome |
15 |
16 |
Riyadh |
33 |
35 |
Frankfurt |
9 |
10 |
Cairo |
27 |
31 |
Kuwait City |
30 |
35 |
Karachi |
35 |
36 |
Copenhagen |
7 |
12 |
London |
12 |
13 |
Moscow |
13 |
6 |
Madrid |
16 |
20 |
Vienna |
8 |
9 |
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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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Judiciary Unaware Of Jannati’s Claim
TEHRAN, April 19--Judiciary Spokesman Jamal Karimi-Rad said on Tuesday he did not know anything about the recent comments of Guardians Council Secretary Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati.
During the last Friday prayer sermons, Jannati noted that if the dossiers of some dissidents are referred to courts, no lawyers can defend them and their death sentences are inevitable. He also said that the verdict of capital punishment has been handed down to these people in the appeals court, but the judiciary has not implemented them due to matters of expedience, IRNA reported.
Addressing a press conference, Karimi-Rad said he did not know anything about the dossiers that Jannati had spoken about and it would be more appropriate to ask Jannati about this issue.
Asked about the dossiers of webloggers, Karimi-Rad observed, “In a meeting with Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi on Wednesday É we will take a decision in this regard.“
The spokesman also said that currently the private sector is providing services in one of the prisons on an experimental basis.
Commenting on the dossiers of nuclear spies, he said, “One of the convicts has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. I do not know about the fate of the other two convicts.“
Karimi-Rad noted that the judiciary and the Foreign Ministry cooperated in the recent meeting of the UN convention on human rights.
“Although in the course of this meeting, some countries tried to distort the image of the Islamic system by accusing it of violating human rights, the Iranian representatives neutralized this plot,“ he said.
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EU Nuclear Talks Resume
VIENNA, Austria, April 19--Representatives from Iran and the EU3 working groups held a new round of nuclear talks in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday.
The Iranian delegation involved in this round of talks, expected to last until Wednesday, is led by Sirous Nasseri who heads Iran’s technical group, IRNA reported.
Technical discussions related to the principles and framework of the suggestion already made by Iran will be studied for resolving the nuclear crisis, a diplomat close to this round of talks said on condition of anonymity.
Details of the suggestion are not available and the Europeans have not announced their official stance regarding the suggestion.
The diplomat noted that “if both sides in the talks reach a conclusion and agreement, the Strategic Committee will be provided with the result of the talks“.
Senior officials from the foreign ministries of France, Germany and Britain (the EU3) and Iran are scheduled to take part in the meeting of the Strategic Committee on April 29 in London.
The Strategic Committee is assigned to study the results of Iran-EU3 talks in the three working groups, including technical, political-security and economic-trade. The committee will then take its decision on the talks. Iran has repeatedly warned that the talks should not last longer than expected and should produce sensible results at the earliest.
The fifth round of talks between Iran and the EU3 was held on March 23.
These nuclear talks have produced tangible results, although both sides have evaluated the talks as complicated and progressive.
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Ahvaz Detainees to Be Freed
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Vice Admiral Ali Shamkhani
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AHVAZ, Khuzestan, April 19--Defense Minister Vice Admiral Ali Shamkhani on Monday referred to recent skirmishes in Ahvaz caused by a letter attributed to a former official and said the letter is 100 percent fake.
The letter, written by former head of presidential office, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, allegedly called for demographic changes in Arab-populated areas of Khuzestan.
In a meeting with experts and members of Arab political parties of Khuzestan, Shamkhani stressed that peace and calm must be reestablished in the province, ISNA reported.
He also said that those arrested in the unrest will be freed.
“Some 310 people have been arrested and three or four people killed. We plan to apologize to the families of the injured people and participate in the funerals of those killed in the unrest,“ he said.
The minister underlined that the Islamic system does not pursue a negative attitude toward Arabs.
“As an Arab, I played a role in the most secret military decisions of the country. The Islamic Revolution É belongs to Khuzestan province and the most selfless people of the country throughout those years have been Arabs. Khuzestan faces many problems due to the Iraq-imposed war (1980-88) and must be tackled,“ he said.
Also on Monday, Ahvaz MP Hamid Zanganeh told IRNA, “The country’s officials should find the root-causes of the recent social unrest in Khuzestan province, and annul the plots hatched against the province’s noble people.“
Zanganeh emphasized that some foreign countries and certain foreignn media were involved in fomenting crisis in the province.
“But in order to eliminate the ground for public dissatisfaction, the government should make urgent development plans and extend special financial assistance to those in need there,“ he said.
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Indonesia Advised to Leave OPEC
JAKARTA, Indonesia, April 19--A government panel has proposed that Indonesia cease being a member of OPEC and become an observer because of the financial costs of membership, a document obtained by Reuters on Tuesday showed.
Indonesia, Asia-Pacific’s only OPEC member, is unable to meet its assigned OPEC supply quota and last year become a net oil importer due to production problems at aging wells and a lack of fresh funds for investments, Reuters reported.
The panel of senior oil and other government officials, appointed in February, examined three proposals: remain an OPEC member, quit the group, or change its status to that of observer, the document showed.
“Considering the above, it can be recommended that if possible (Indonesia) take the third alternative, which is to remain a member but seek an observer status, so freeing us from the obligation to pay contributions,“ said the document.
Indonesia joined OPEC in 1962, just two years after the group was founded in Baghdad, but parliament and industry groups are now calling for a withdrawal.
Reducing status to observer would effectively mean Indonesia leaving the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries because it would be excluded from any policy decision-making.
The document said that as an observer, Jakarta would be free from OPEC’s annual membership fee of $1 million and contributions of $52,016 a year to the OPEC fund, a charity.
Jakarta estimates crude production will fall 6 percent in 2005, from last year’s 968,200 bpd, but it aims to raise output by around 25 percent to 1.18 million bpd by 2008. It produced 951,800 bpd last month.
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Putin Will Visit Palestinian Territories
MOSCOW, April 19--Russian President Vladimir Putin visits the Palestinian territories next week, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, as part of a ground-breaking Middle East tour that includes Israel and Egypt.
Putin’s two-day trip to Israel on April 27-28 and to the Palestinian territories the next day will be the first such by a Kremlin leader since the United Nations created a Jewish state in 1947, Reuters reported.
For decades, the Soviet Union, which severed relations with Israel in 1967, was the main sponsor of Palestinian groups fighting against Israel.
But in 1991, Moscow restored diplomatic relations with Israel and later actively supported international efforts to set up a Palestinian authority. Russia together with the United States has become a co-sponsor of the Middle East peace process.
In past years, Russia lost most of its influence in the region. But it remains a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council, whose position is crucial for any decision concerning the region.
The Kremlin said Putin had been invited by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas visited Russia for talks with Putin soon after he was elected to his post in January.
However, in past years, many Palestinian leaders have expressed concerns that Moscow, fighting a separatist insurgency in Chechnya, is forging a close alliance with Israel at the expense of its traditional ties with the Arab world.
For their part, Israeli politicians have expressed worries about Russia’s plans to sell sophisticated weapons, including shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles, to Syria. Russian analysts say Putin’s decision to visit Israel and Palestinian territories at the same time is intended to signal Moscow’s balanced approach to the region. Putin will also visit Egypt on April 26-27.
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Karzai Planning “Wholesale Reform“
KABUL, Afghanistan, April 19--The Afghan government will sweep provincial officials out of office if complaints against them over security or corruption prove to be true, President Hamid Karzai said on Tuesday.
Karzai, who has made fighting corruption a priority since winning the presidential election in October, said senior officials would fan out across the country to scrutinize administration in the provinces, Reuters reported.
“We have decided to study each of Afghanistan’s provinces separately ... if there is a need for wholesale reform, then we will do it and we will send new individuals,“ Karzai told an audience made up mostly of Muslim scholars in Kabul.
As an example of public anger and frustration, Karzai referred to a demonstration last month by residents of the southern city of Kandahar angry about insecurity and child kidnapping.
Some protesters even called for the return of the Taliban, under whose strict rule much crime was stamped out.
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A Crucial Test
By Soheil Mohajer
The US State Department officially confirmed earlier this month that 3 million dollars have been earmarked for financing educational institutions, humanitarian groups and others seeking to “promote democracy and human rights in Iran.“
Needless to say, the latest arrogance emanating from the necon-infested administration in Washington is in clear violation of the 1981 Algiers accords, which helped end the US hostage crisis in Iran in January of that year.
As part of the deal to secure the release of 52 hostages from the US embassy in Tehran who were accused of espionage, the US pledged not to interfere directly or otherwise, politically or militarily, in Iran’s internal affairs.
It is no secret that Bush’s America hardly ever cares to respect resolutions passed by the United Nations, let alone bilateral agreements with governments which openly refuse to succumb to its evil designs and directions.
The reasons behind the new US attempts at subversion, and lawlessness through multimillion-dollar funding for destabilizing Iran, however, are not what this write-up is about. The main point is what can and must be the most appropriate response to such arrogance.
Now let’s briefly look back at developments that followed the first of two landslide victories of President Mohammad Khatami in May 1997.
The seventh presidential election was held at a time when Iran was having problems in the international political arena. Some European ambassadors had left the country in protest and Iran-Europe ties were in a coma.
But few at that time had imagined that the historic vote of May 23 that brought a moderate president to power a little less than two decades after the revolution
would bring also with it a wave of important
diplomatic accomplishments for the once isolated Islamic state.
The massive voter turnout in the 1997 was a clear indication of the people’s strong demand for change and betterment. The message was clear for the opponents of the Islamic establishment, too.
They soon realized that the nation was able and willing to strongly support the pro-reform camp, which obviously included the reformist government.
European envoys soon realized the futility of their hasty actions and quietly returned to Tehran. A new era emerged in relations between Iran and the European bloc, which has continued, at least for now, despite some serious ups and downs.
So, taking the Bush regime to the International Court of Justice in The Hague will get us nowhere as far as fighting the fresh US plot is concerned. The solution lies in wisdom and nurturing more public support for the just cause against a bullying superpower.
Indeed, the level and quality of public support is and should be judged at the ballot box. One key test will be during the June 17 presidential vote, which both friend and foe will be watching at close range.
High public participation in the polls will help ensure non-interference by foreign powers in our internal affairs. And it is for the powers to be to level the playing field and send the right messages at this critical juncture. One key issue is that the people must first be ensured that every vote counts and has an effect on building their future.
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