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Prayer Time (Tehran)
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Dawn: 4:44
Sunrise: 6:07
Noon: 11:51
Evening: 17:51
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Weather Guide
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TUE |
WED |
Tehran: |
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High: |
29 oC |
29 oC |
Low: |
17 oC |
16 oC |
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Athens |
20 |
21 |
Ankara |
19 |
17 |
Paris |
21 |
18 |
New Delhi |
34 |
34 |
Rome |
22 |
21 |
Riyadh |
36 |
36 |
Frankfurt |
19 |
18 |
Cairo |
31 |
32 |
Kuwait City |
40 |
40 |
Karachi |
35 |
33 |
Copenhagen |
17 |
16 |
London |
21 |
20 |
Moscow |
16 |
16 |
Madrid |
20 |
21 |
Vienna |
18 |
17 |
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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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Merkel to Become First German Woman Chancellor
No Role for Schroeder In Grand Coalition
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Angela Merkel
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BERLIN, Oct. 10--Germany broke new political ground on Monday as Angela Merkel won the battle to be its first female chancellor, heading a government uniting the country’s two biggest parties and ending Gerhard Schroeder’s grip on power.
Schroeder, who has led Europe’s biggest economy for the past seven years, will play no role in the new left-right administration, sources in his Social Democrats party said, AFP reported.
Merkel immediately said there was no alternative to urgent reforms designed to revive the ailing economy, crippled by sluggish growth and unemployment at currently more than 11 percent.
She said the deal would pave the way for formal coalition talks and see her party take six ministries, with the SPD getting eight cabinet posts.
“We have achieved something big, we have the basis for coalition talks,“ a beaming Merkel told a press conference.
“We agree that we have no alternative to the reform process. We have set our aim to create a coalition that stands for new policies. We want to work together for the people of this country.“
News of the political accord--the so-called grand coalition was last formed in Germany in the 1960s--saw the euro rise against the dollar, as it ended a political vacuum since inconclusive September 18 elections.
Germany’s two biggest parties will share cabinet seats fairly equally, but it remains unclear how the division of responsibilities will affect Merkel’s ability to run what is likely to be a fractious government.
According to reports citing sources close to the SPD, it will take the key ministries of foreign affairs, finance, labor and justice, as well as health, aid and cooperation, transport and environment.
Merkel’s Christian Union alliance would have the economy, interior, defense, agriculture, education and family ministries.
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Performance of Anti-Corruption Body Unjustifiable
TEHRAN, Oct. 10--Head of Majlis Cultural Commission said on Monday as long as power and wealth are interlinked, economic corruption cannot be dealt with in an appropriate manner, stressing that the headquarters’ performance in the past four years is unjustifiable.
Emad Afrough also told Mehr News Agency that one of the goals of the Islamic system is to expose and confront those who engage in economic corruption and eradicate this unwanted phenomenon.
Afrough, also a Tehran MP, noted that unfortunately in the past four years nothing special has happened at the Headquarters for Combating Economic Corruption.
“We must accept that we have problems in the administrative modus operandi with regard to fighting economic corruption. These problems must be resolved as soon as possible,“ he said.
“That we have a legal vacuum in relation to exposing the names of people who engage in economic corruption is itself an issue. But, currently, the problem is how to deal with violations committed by people who are economically corrupt. Perhaps hidden hands are involved which protect these people.“
Afrough stressed that one solution is to probe the activities of the headquarters.
“It is not dignified of the Islamic system that the leader refers to economic corruption as a serious challenge, but the officials do nothing about it,“ he said.
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Officials Should Win Public Satisfaction
TEHRAN, Oct. 10--Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei urged officials to work hard to win the satisfaction of people and to ignore the demands of special interest groups.
The leader made the remarks during an Iftar (fast-breaking) reception that was also attended by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his cabinet members on Sunday.
Ayatollah Khamenei reminded the officials to always feel indebted to the people and urged them to also focus on socioeconomic complexities in trying to find solutions to problems.
He also referred to the principles laid down by Imam Ali (AS) who said that in appointing people, the most meritorious individual should be given priority.
“To avoid any digression and corruption,“ he added, “the performance of officials and managers should be constantly monitored and their misdeeds should be confronted in a very serious manner.“
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Iraqis Appeasing Sunnis Over Referendum
BAGHDAD, Iraq,
Oct. 10--Iraqi leaders held last-minute talks on Monday to defuse Sunni anger that risks turning a constitutional referendum into a trigger for more strife.
Despite a security clampdown ahead of Saturday’s vote, gunmen fired on a convoy of Arab League diplomats on a mission to Baghdad to improve ties between the new Iraqi government and other Arab states. Three of their police escorts were killed, Reuters reported.
As press and television publicized guides to the ballot and urged people to exercise their right to vote, there was little sign of many Sunni Arabs softening their hostility to the charter, meant as a catalyst of national unity.
This resistance among Iraq’s minority Sunnis was despite entreaties from Shiite and Kurdish leaders, the United Nations, and, in at least one case, an audience with the US ambassador.
A leading member of parliament from the Shiite majority, who helped negotiate the constitution in the teeth of Sunni dissent, said representatives of all groups would meet again on Tuesday. But he too said the prospects of consensus were dim.
The disparate Sunni political movements that have grown up from the wreckage left by the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led Baath Party state largely boycotted a January election to the parliament that drafted the constitution but have failed to come up with a common strategy for the referendum.Half a dozen issues were open to discussion in the round of meetings on Monday and officials said amendments to the draft could be agreed despite the fact five million copies of the text have been distributed to voters. But the parties remained far apart on critical issues, notably that of ’federalism’.
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Economics Nobel For Game Theory Duo
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Robert Aumann
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STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Oct. 10--An American and an Israeli won the 2005 Nobel prize for economics on Monday for their work on “game theory“, which can help resolve trade and business conflicts, and even play a role in avoiding war.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 10 million crown ($1.3 million) prize to Thomas Schelling and Robert Aumann for work that has found uses in “security and disarmament policies, price formation on markets, as well as economic and political negotiations“, Reuters reported.
Aumann, 75, was born in Germany but is an Israeli and US citizen who teaches at the Hebrew University in Beit-ul-Moqaddas.
Schelling, 84, teaches at the University of Maryland.
“Game theory“ is the science of strategy and attempts to determine what actions different ’players’--such as trading partners, employers, unions or even organized crime groups--should take to secure the best outcome for themselves.
Game theory work has won the Nobel before. John Nash, the mathematician whose life was portrayed in the movie “A Beautiful Mind“, won the economics prize with two others in 1994.
“I think game theory creates ideas that are important in solving and approaching conflict in general,“ Aumann told the awards ceremony by telephone from Israel.
Asked whether it could help solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said: “I do hope that perhaps some game theory can be used and be part of this solution.“
Schelling told Reuters by telephone from his home in Maryland that he was glad to have his work recognized.
“I’m a student of cooperation and conflict, I’m not really a game theorist...I would not try very hard to make the case that what I do is economics,“ he said.
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Kheibar Satellite TV Planned
TEHRAN, Oct. 10--Spokesman of Iran’s Hezbollah Mojtaba Bigdeli said on Monday the satellite TV channel Kheibar will become operational in the next couple of months.
“We are presently holding talks with satellite TV channels for airing our programs. So far, we have received proposals and members of Hezbollah’s Central Council will announce their final decision in the near future,“ he said.
The spokesman also said the Kheibar TV channel’s programs will be mainly broadcast in North America and Europe, ISNA reported.
“Currently we are procuring the hardware,“ he said.
Bigdeli pointed out that secretary of Iran’s Hezbollah, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Baqer Kharrazi, has recommended that the team launching the Kheibar satellite TV should prepare the ground for collaboration among Muslim states, forge Islamic solidarity, eliminate Zionism and create consensus among political, cultural and social forces.
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US Warns EU3 Against Straying
BERLIN, Oct. 10--The United States and Europe must maintain a united front to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions in the face of likely efforts by Tehran to sow division, a senior US State Department official said on Monday.
Kurt Volker, a senior official responsible for Europe and Eurasia in the US State Department, said it was vital that Germany, France and Britain--known as the EU3--and the United States agree to stick together on Iran, Reuters reported.
“I think the Iranians are deeply interested in trying to find divisions between the United States and the EU3, or even within the EU3,“ Volker said.
“So they will take a small step and see how people react. I think it’s very important that we react in a unified way that makes clear what it is we expect the Iranians need to do. That is in fact what we are doing.“
Washington and the EU have prepared the way for the governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency to send Iran to the UN Security Council next month for possible sanctions for violating international obligations.
The United States and its European allies argue Iran is making atomic fuel for use in weapons, but Tehran says its nuclear program is dedicated solely to generating electricity.
“The Iranians know what they need to do,“ Volker said. “It’s not a secret. We haven’t been doing this privately, but in a very public way. If they come forward and say ’Ok we accept that as a basis and are prepared to talk on how to do this’ I think we would all engage immediately.
“But at the same time I don’t think we are going to be diverted, or distracted or divided by half-steps or small steps or probing of our position.“
Volker said the United States would work closely with the EU3.
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New Tactic
By Dorafshani
After a meeting in Saudi Arabia and presenting plans for holding a national reconciliation conference in Iraq, the Arab League is dispatching a delegation to Baghdad in a bid to fill the vacuum emanating from its extended absence from that country.
The team is also expected to prepare for an upcoming visit to Baghdad by the league secretary-general, Amr Mussa.
After years of absence of the league in Iraq, an issue criticized by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, the league seems to have developed a sort of belated sensitivity towards the systemic crisis unfolding in the war-torn country.
At the weekend the group’s top diplomat described the situation in Iraq as on the verge of implosion and warned that the country was close to a civil war.
According to wire services, he said, “the situation is so tense there is threat looming in the air about civil war that could erupt at any moment, although some would say that it is already there.“
This is while ever since the US invaded Iraq and ousted Saddam Hussein, the league has failed to take any effective stance or initiate a wise and workable policy towards the long oppressed Iraqi nation.
The truth is that the Arab League, an institution that was born in the wake of the needs and exigencies of the Arab world in the wake of the post-WWII era, has been preoccupied with the demands of Arab rulers and keeping them in power.
This political conduct of the league remains questionable for millions of respected Arabs who believe it has long outlived its usefulness.
Arab masses of different persuasions say the group’s passive stance on critical issues is indeed responsible for its irrelevance and enfeebled role in resolving major problems plaguing the Arab world.
No trace of the league’s “concern“ or positive intervention in Iraq was seen or heard of during the time when the former tyrant in Baghdad dealt serious blows on the very notion of ’Arab unity.’
Some observers believe that the league by design has distanced itself from the new climate in Iraq after Saddam became history, because of its political evaluation of Iraqi developments and the conditions of Iraqi Sunni political groups.
The league’s disturbing and deadly silence during Saddam’s tyranny in Iraq and its tacit support for groups that demonstrated loyalty to the former Baath regime are only a few indications suggesting that the league simply failed to perform in the case of Iraq.
Nevertheless, the new move adopted by the Cairo-based Arab grouping in relation to the complicated Iraqi developments and the so-called national reconciliation plan have been received ambiguously among political circles. This is especially because Mussa when referring to the non-stop violence in several Iraqi cities has publicly warned about the “looming civil war in Iraq.“
Observers do not rule out the possibility that by organizing the reconciliation conference the league would seek to push for an accord similar to that signed in Saudi Arabia in 1989, which put an end to Lebanon’s civil war.
Conclusion of such an agreement would obviously lead to other Arab countries interfering in Iraqi affairs, which in turn can further aggravate the political and security crises in that country.
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