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Prayer Time (Tehran)
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Dawn: 5:16
Sunrise: 6:40
Noon: 12:18
Evening: 18:14
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Weather Guide
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SAT |
SUN |
Tehran: |
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High: |
16oC |
18oC |
Low: |
9oC |
10oC |
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Athens |
16 |
15 |
Ankara |
7 |
6 |
Paris |
3 |
5 |
New Delhi |
32 |
31 |
Rome |
11 |
12 |
Riyadh |
21 |
23 |
Frankfurt |
0 |
0 |
Cairo |
25 |
27 |
Kuwait City |
23 |
25 |
Karachi |
28 |
27 |
Copenhagen |
0 |
-1 |
London |
5 |
5 |
Moscow |
-5 |
-5 |
Madrid |
7 |
7 |
Vienna |
1 |
0 |
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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: 88755761-2
Editorial Dept. Fax: 88761869
Advertising Dept. Tel: 88501499, 88737250
Internet Address:
www.iran-daily.com
E-mail Address:
iran-daily@iran-daily.com
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Efforts To Stoke Iraq Unrest Underway
Muslim Nations Urged to Support Hamas
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Manouchehr Mottaki
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JAKARTA, Indonesia, Feb. 24--Manouchehr Mottaki denounced the United States for creating terror groups like Al-Qaeda and reaffirmed Tehran's support for a united Iraq following escalating violence there between Shiites and Sunnis.
Speaking to reporters in Bangkok on Friday, Mottaki reacted to Wednesday's bombing of a key Shiite mosque in the Iraqi city of Samarra by saying "some hands" were working to stoke ethnic and religious unrest "not only in Iraq but in the Islamic world as well", AFP reported.
"We believe that there are some hands working to create ethnic war, religious war, between Shiite, Sunnis or any other groups," he said without naming any specific groups or countries.
Mottaki also sharply criticized the United States for its role in the current global terrorism crisis, suggesting that it had a hand in creating today's extremists with its Cold War support of militant Muslim groups.
Mottaki arrived in the Thai capital on Friday morning for a three-day official visit. He is scheduled to confer with his Thai counterpart, Kantathi Suphamongkhon during his stay in Bangkok.
Also talking to reporters on Thursday during a brief visit to Indonesia, Mottaki called on Muslim countries to give money to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority after threats of funding cuts by Western countries, AP reported.
"We have the responsibility as Muslim countries to support our brothers in Palestine," Mottaki said.
He noted that a plan by the Organisation of Islamic Conference to collect donations and provide institutional support for Hamas should be supported.
Hamas has refused Western demands to accept Israel's right to exist and abide by past agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
The United States and European Union, which consider Hamas a terrorist group, have said they will halt their grants of hundreds of millions of dollars of aid to the Palestinian Authority after a Hamas government takes office unless it changes its attitude toward Israel and violence.
Mottaki conferred on Thursday with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on issues of mutual interest and international developments.
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Gov't Serious About Justice Shares
SHAHR-E KORD, Chaharmahal-Bakhtiari, Feb. 24--President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday the government is seriously pursuing distribution of justice shares.
Addressing the people of Lordegan on the third day of his visit to the province, the president said, "Justice is the motive behind people's dynamism, the very backbone of the Islamic Revolution and the pivotal consideration of the Islamic system. Without justice, we cannot progress."
Ahmadinejad announced that distribution of justice shares has started in four provinces among the most deprived residents, stressing that the government must support the citizens in every possible manner, IRNA reported.
"Today the mission of Iran is establishing a strong and progressive Islamic state. Just as it was at the forefront of monotheism in the past, today our mission is to establish an advanced and exemplary Islamic country. For fulfilling this mission, all people should join hands and love each other. If we love each other, there will no longer be injustice, nepotism, cheating and bullying," he said.
He warned that imperialist powers wish to spread seeds of discord among the people.
Commenting on international issues, the president said, "Today humanity is grappling with a number of problems. We see how a few oppressive powers are carrying out all kinds of corrupt acts in order to ensure the endurance of their hegemony and survival. These powers are responsible for all the injustice and murders in the world. They start wars because their weapons factories can increase their revenues. They have formed international organizations for looting the people of the world."
Ahmadinejad further said these powers oppose nations seeking scientific progress, because they want the world's wealth and scientific advancement to be at their service only.
ÒThey object to justice and monotheism, because these two values are against oppression and looting," he said.
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Iraqi Leaders Rally
For Unity
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Feb. 24--Iraq's most influential Shiite political leader called Friday for Sunni-Shiite unity as religious figures sought to calm passions and pull the nation from the brink of civil war after the bombing of a Shiite shrine two days ago and a wave of deadly reprisal attacks.
An extraordinary daytime curfew in Baghdad and three nearby provinces appeared to have blunted the wave of attacks on Sunni mosques that followed Wednesday's bombing which destroyed the golden dome of the Shiite Askariya Shrine in Samarra, AP reported.
Still, Iraqis feared that the two days of violence which followed the Samarra attack had pushed the country closer to sectarian civil war than at any time since the US-led invasion nearly three years ago.
Several joint Sunni-Shiite prayer services were announced for Friday, including one at the Askariya Shrine. But security forces turned away about 700 people, virtually all of them Sunnis, who showed up for the service.
In a statement read over national television, top Shiite leader Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said those who carried out the Wednesday bombing at the Askariya Shrine in Samarra "do not represent the Sunnis in Iraq".
Al-Hakim instead blamed Saddam Hussein loyalists and followers of Al-Qaeda in Iraq boss Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.
"We all have to unite in order to eliminate them," Al-Hakim said in a statement. "This is what Al-Zarqawi is working for, that is, to ignite a sectarian strife in the country. We call for self-restraint and not to be dragged by the plots of the enemy of Iraq."
Late Thursday, Iraqi state television announced an extension of the nighttime curfew until 4 p.m. Friday in Baghdad and the nearby provinces of Diyala, Babil and Salaheddin, where the shrine bombing took place. But security forces permitted worshippers to walk to mosque for midday prayers.
Anger, however, was running deep and it could take time to determine whether the country has passed through this latest crisis.
On Thursday, the Interior Ministry said 19 Sunni mosques have been attacked, one cleric killed and one abducted.
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Russia, China Pursue Nuclear Impasse
BEIJING, Feb. 24--Russia and China stepped up their efforts on Friday to persuade Iran to accept a compromise proposal over its nuclear program that may avert the threat of UN sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian atomic energy agency Rosatom, and Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Lu Guozeng arrived in Tehran for three days of talks over Iran's nuclear impasse, Reuters reported.
Time is running out for Iran to avoid formal referral to the UN Security Council at a board meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna on March 6.
Iran has offered UN inspectors information about a shadowy uranium-processing project that Western intelligence has linked to warhead design, a senior diplomat in Vienna said on Thursday.
The diplomat, close to the IAEA but asking not to be named, said IAEA inspectors would be in Tehran this weekend to check the information on the "Green Salt Project".
Russian officials have played down expectations of a breakthrough at the Tehran talks and analysts say Iran is in no mood to compromise.
High oil prices and US problems in Iraq meant that for Iran "this is probably not the time to concede," the International Crisis Group think-tank said in a new report.
It said it expected Iran "to press ahead, strengthening its position for the day genuine negotiations or confrontation with the US might begin".
Russia and China, both of whom have burgeoning energy and trade ties with Tehran and veto rights on the Security Council, do not favor the use of sanctions against Iran, which denies any intention of making nuclear arms.
The Tehran negotiations follow a round of inconclusive talks in Moscow earlier this week.
Iran says it cannot rely solely on foreign partners to supply it with nuclear fuel and, therefore, must retain the capacity to produce at least some of the enriched uranium it needs to feed a large network of planned atomic reactors.
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Saudi FM:
Iran Not Seeking Nukes
RIYADH,
Saudi Arabia,
Feb. 24--Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal affirmed the peaceful nature of Tehran's nuclear programs, stressing that Iran is not seeking to produce nuclear weapon.
The minister's remarks were made late Wednesday at a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is currently on a tour of the Middle East to encourage regional states not to help the Islamist resistance movement, Hamas, which won a landslide victory in the January parliamentary election in Palestine, IRNA reported.
The Saudi minister stressed that there had been no evidence indicating that Iran's nuclear program was not civil in nature.
"Iran is a large and major regional country striving for restoration of security and stability in the region," the Saudi foreign minister said.
As for the US move of halting aid to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas' victory, the minister said: "It won't be right to adopt tough stances against Hamas before we have a proper understanding of the policies it will make to run the Palestinian government."
Stressing that Riyadh would continue its aid to the Palestinian Authority, the minister explained that his country did "not want to link international aid to the Palestinian people with other considerations".
Following Hamas' remarkable victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, US aid to the Palestinian Authority has been stopped as a punitive measure to compel the government to recognize Israel.
In a recent move, the US Treasury Department asked Palestinian officials to return the $50 million which Washington gave to the Palestinian Authority last year for development projects in the Gaza Strip.
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Tehran, Feb. 24--Iranians demonstrate against the bombing of Askariya Shrine in Samarra, Iraq, after Friday prayers in Tehran, Feb. 24. (IRNA Photo)
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Religious Terrorism
By Mohammad Reza M. Karimi
While the bomb blasts at the Samarra shrine infuriated Iraqi Shiites, the wave of protests and condemnation appears to have swept the surging Muslim anger against new accounts of western repressions under the carpet.
Relations between the Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis have normalized considerably after the Sunnis were brought into the political mainstream in the wake of the Dec. 2005 parliamentary elections and the commitment of the Shiite majority to form a government of national unity. So the blasts are obviously aimed at instigating sectarian conflicts.
The sacrilegious attack on the Shiite shrine serves the external agenda of the Iraqi occupying forces more than anything else.
Take a look at some of the events that have further intensified Muslim resentments: the re-publication of the insulting cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in western countries despite mounting protests, revelation of new abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and Basra, the western financial strangulation of Hamas for not legitimizing the Israeli occupation and the denial of Iran's right to nuclear technology for electricity generation.
Even if one were to discount these pertinent concerns, one cannot ignore the accountability of the occupation forces in Iraq. The American, British and Danish forces, in addition to those from other allied countries, are in and around Samarra. They bear full responsibility for this act of religious terrorism.
Immediately after the blasts, sections of the western media came out in full force to attack Islam for its inability to bridge the sectarian divide. Have you ever seen them attacking Christianity for any act of violence or crime in Christian countries? It's disgusting and shameful.
These concerted efforts not only reveal the western media's bigotry, but also expose their goal of diverting Muslim attention from the real issues, including the continuing scandalous behavior of the West in Muslim countries.
We know that those who attack places of worship are not human beings, let alone Muslims. Therefore, Iraqi Muslims should remain vigilant and not fall into the sectarian trap.
Muslims should direct their fury at those who incite such wicked crimes and not against other co-religionists. Upholding Islamic solidarity is an imperative for fighting religious terrorism.
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