TEHRAN, May 7--Earthquakes hit the cities of Zarand and Behabad in the provinces of Kerman and Yazd respectively on Sunday.
At least 74 people were hurt and many homes damaged when a 5.2-magnitude earthquake jolted the town of Zarand in southern Iran.
ISNA news agency said 14 people were hospitalized, while 60 were treated as outpatients.
“Many houses have been seriously damaged and 60 percent of Zarand homes will no longer be inhabitable,“ state radio quoted a local official as saying.
State television also cited fears than miners in the area could have been trapped. The province has a number of copper, iron and coal mines.
According to the seismological base of the Geophysics Institute of Tehran University, the quake occurred at 09:50 hours local time (0620 GMT), IRNA reported.
Zarand is located 75 km northwest of the provincial capital city of Kerman.
The other earthquake measuring 4 on the Richter scale jolted the outskirts of the city of Behabad in the central province of Yazd on Sunday.
According to the seismological base of the Geophysics Institute of Tehran University, the quake occurred at 11:21 hours local time (0751 GMT).
Behabad is located 200 km east of the provincial capital city of Yazd.

Minister of Agriculture Jihad Mohammad Reza Eskandari (c) in talks with reporters during a visit to the Iran Daily pavilion at the 13th Press Exhibition in Tehran, Sunday. (Photo by Amir Rajabi)

TEHRAN, May 7--Minister of Agriculture Jihad Mohammad Reza Eskandari reiterated the importance of entrepreneurship in the sector, stressing that all agriculture graduates throughout the country will be employed in different agro sectors.
During a visit to the 13th Press Exhibition on Sunday, Eskandari told Iran Daily’s Ehsan Bakhshandeh that the plan’s details would be released next week.
Asked about agricultural self-sufficiency of products other than wheat, the minister said red meat imports would be cut in the current Iranian year (started March 21).
“Some 850,000 tons of red meat are produced in the country while only 50,000 tons are imported,“ he said.
On the possibility of his Majlis impeachment, Eskandari said this is the right of parliamentarians to notify ministers and other officials of problems and question them.
Presidential advisor for press affairs, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, also paid a visit to Iran Daily’s pavilion on Sunday.
He said Iranian English-language newspapers have their own status among the press while meeting the information needs of the people.
Commenting on press performance, Javanfekr said, “Given the rich culture of the people, we expect the media to fulfill their role in enriching the Iranian culture and civilization, and to transfer it to future generations.“
Former minister of industries and mines, Es’haq Jahangiri, also visited Iran Daily’s pavilion and said one of the biggest achievements of the Islamic Republic has been attraction of foreign investments.
“We have attracted tens of billions of dollars in foreign investments in the sectors of mines and industries,“ he said, adding that foreign direct investment has been prioritized by the government in recent years.
Jahangiri, however, expressed his dissatisfaction with the level of foreign direct investment in major industries over the last 27 years.

TEHRAN, May 7--A parliamentarian stressed on Sunday that right-wingers should preserve their unity on the threshold of Experts Assembly and village and city council elections.
In talks with IRNA, Mohammad Reza Mir-Tajeddini, a member of Majlis rightwing faction, added they have agreed to boost consolidation and avoid disunity.
“The new organization, for which talks have been concluded, will be formed on the threshold of the elections for Experts Assembly and councils,“ he said.
Pointing to the formation of a joint committee between the Society of Combatant Clergy and Qom Theological School Teachers Society, the MP stated that the two entities will jointly work for the Experts Assembly elections.
Mir-Tajeddini concluded that should the two parties favor Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, right-wingers will also vote for him.

Aziz Pahad

PRETORIA,
South Africa, May 7--South Africa’s Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the only specialized body eligible to ensure that the Iranian nuclear program is for civilian purpose.
“At the board of governors, we consistently argued that we have not exhausted the IAEA processes. Indeed they sent the issue to the Security Council before even Mr. ElBaradei presented his report. We were arguing that this is an unnecessary haste. Our argument was that we should give more time for the Iranians to comply with the remaining issues, since they had complied already. We cannot say that the remaining two issues cannot be resolved. We think that they can be resolved,“ he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
Pahad defended the right of all signatories to NPT to have nuclear power for peaceful means.
“We ourselves are working on that program, but at the same time we understand that a climate of mistrust has been created and we should now try to see what we can do within the rights of Iran’s sovereignty and its right to have civilian nuclear technology to build confidence. I believe this is a big challenge for Iran to build that confidence, so that we don’t allow the Security Council process to escalate,“ he said.
The South African official called for others to “wait and see if the Russians and the Chinese are going to allow the Security Council to pass the latest resolution on the issue“.
Pahad called for convincing the United States and the EU3 that if they again go outside the United Nations, it will create another very bad precedent for multilateralism.
“It will give a message to many parts of the world that the big powers are using their power outside the international law and outside the framework of the United Nations, which will be very bad for them. It will escalate the situation and lead to a very dangerous situation in the region. We believe that all of us, even we in Africa, will suffer the negative consequences of any escalation of that confrontation,“ he said.

TEHRAN, May 7--Iranian pilgrims detained by Iraqi border and security police for entering the country illegally are in dire straits.
The Iranian detainees have been jailed in a prison for hard criminals in the city of Kut (the capital of Waset province), IRNA reported on Sunday.
The report said lack of hygiene and sufficient space, mistreatment by prison guards and their Iraqi inmates well as lack of medical services are just some of the problems these Iranians endure, some of whom are former prisoners of war with chemical injuries.
One of the prisoners recently told the news agency that although Iranian prisoners have not been subject to physical torture, spending time with some 70 people in a 35-meter square meter cell is far worse.
Seyyed Massoud Hashemi complained about the suffocating space that forced prisoners to take turns for sleeping.
A senior officer at the prison, who spoke on condition of anonymity, denied any mistreatment of Iranian prisoners.
“While Iraqi inmates might be subject to beatings, it’s not possible that Iranian prisoners, who have entered this country as guests and pilgrims, could be treated in the same way,“ he said.
Iran’s deputy ambassador to Iraq, Hossein Zolanvari, also said recently that there have been repeated contacts and follow-ups to free the Iranians.
“The last such effort was a meeting between Iran’s charge d’affaires with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani who ordered their release.“
Warning against a trip to Iraq, Zolanvari said an arrest in a crisis-stricken country like Iraq was not the worst thing that could happen to these illegal pilgrims. “They face the risk of being murdered by armed groups.“
Reports have it that Iranians are also imprisoned in Abu Ghraib in western Iraq and Buka in southern Iraq, where jails are run by American and British forces.

TEHRAN, May 7--Iran and Syria on Sunday discussed ways of bolstering bilateral relations as well as key regional developments.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki met with Syrian Minister of Religious Endowments Muhammad Ziyad Al-Ayoubi, IRNA reported.
Referring to science and research as the basis ofr independence, Mottaki said, “If endowments in Islamic states are accompanied by encouragement of the elite and scientists, the Islamic nation will face a brighter future.“
He added that Iran and Syria share the same stance on regional and international issues, stressing the importance of continuing political consultations which, he said, would be effective in expanding economic and industrial cooperation.
The Iranian minister assessed the situation of the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq as unfavorable.
Pointing to a new anti-war movement in Europe, he predicted that the establishment of a popular government in Iraq would increase pressures on US.
“The US efforts at the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran were tactics aimed at stopping the wave of hatred shown by the world public opinion toward Washington,“ he said.
Mottaki pointed out that based on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), access to peaceful nuclear energy is Iran’s right.
“We will not negotiate our rights with any country,“ he said.
Al-Ayoubi, for his part, pointed to the inseparable link between religion and policy, stating that mosques are important factors for reinforcing resistance against arrogance. The Syrian minister noted that Iran’s achievement in the field of nuclear energy is a matter of honor for the Muslim world and supported Iran’s right to nuclear technology.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, May 7--United Arab Emirates said on Saturday the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (PGCC) attaches special importance to its ties with Iran.
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahayan, the foreign minister of UAE which is PGCC’s rotating chair, also told reporters at the end of the council’s 8th advisory session that “Iran is a Muslim and neighboring country and we welcome closer ties in all areas with Tehran“, IRNA reported.
The UAE minister noted that Iran and PGCC countries have long and deep-rooted economic, political, cultural and historical relations, and there is no other way other than bolstering bilateral cooperation.
He further said developments related to Iran’s nuclear dossier are important and thanked Iranian officials who have given assurances in this regard to the region.
Last week, Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani in a meeting with UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahayan explained the latest developments related to Iran’s nuclear program.