|
Prayer Time (Tehran)
|
|
Dawn: 3:16
Sunrise: 4:56
Noon: 12:01
Evening: 19:27
|
|
Weather Guide
|
|
|
SAT |
SUN |
Tehran: |
|
|
High: |
31 oC |
29 oC |
Low: |
20 oC |
18 oC |
|
|
|
Athens |
26 |
27 |
Ankara |
25 |
21 |
Paris |
16 |
17 |
New Delhi |
37 |
38 |
Rome |
24 |
23 |
Riyadh |
41 |
39 |
Frankfurt |
19 |
19 |
Cairo |
28 |
32 |
Kuwait City |
40 |
40 |
Karachi |
32 |
33 |
Copenhagen |
15 |
15 |
London |
15 |
15 |
Moscow |
14 |
20 |
Madrid |
29 |
26 |
Vienna |
20 |
22 |
|
|
Identification
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
President Urges Just Resolution
Of Global Problems
Hopes for World Without Tyranny
ARAK, Markazi,
May 19--President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday global problems should be resolved by honoring justice.
Addressing a public gathering in Komijan, the president said if attention is paid to justice, the world would be free from tyranny and oppression, IRNA reported.
“The grave problem of today’s humanity is that some big powers have distanced themselves from justice,“ he said.
Ahmadinejad noted that in the past 27 years since the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, Iranians have proved that they are a very pious nation.
Commenting on the country’s nuclear program, he said “we will follow up our peaceful nuclear technology based on justice“, irrespective of what others think about it.
“The peaceful use of nuclear energy is our legitimate right which should be respected by other countries,“ he said.
President Ahmadinejad, accompanied by members of his cabinet, arrived in Markazi province early Wednesday for a two-day visit. He has already visited the provincial cities of Arak, Khomein, Shazand, Mahallat and Delijan and met with local residents and war veterans.
His current visit is his 13th to various provinces since the start of his initiative to bring the government closer to the people.
Markazi province, situated about 300 km southwest of Tehran, has a population of 1.5 million.
|
|
|
FM Warns Against Regional Crisis
Syria Ties Discussed
|
|
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad (l) talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki at Al-Rawda Palace in Damascus, May 18. (AFP Photo)
|
DAMASCUS, Syria, May 19--Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki warned Thursday against a possible “escalation of the crisis in the region“ in discussions with Syria’s president about Tehran’s nuclear program and the situation in Iraq.
During their meeting, Mottaki gave Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad a letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the “latest regional and international developments,“ the state-run Syrian news agency said, AP reported.
Mottaki said he and Assad had agreed on “the necessity of developing and strengthening bilateral relations with Iraq“.
Both Iran and Syria have been accused by Washington of destabilizing their neighbor by allowing insurgents to cross their borders.
“Iran and Syria are Iraq’s neighbors, important neighbors; we discussed the latest developments on the Iraqi arena and supported the final touches of building the state,“ he said.
Mottaki and his Syrian counterpart Walid Al-Moallem told reporters that both countries agreed the Iraqi government should take over security matters and that a timetable must be set for the withdrawal of the US-led coalition forces. Mottaki met later Thursday with the leader of Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and Damascus-based leaders of the Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The visit came as Iran and Syria encountered mounting international pressure.
The West is seeking a UN resolution that could subject Iran to sanctions if it does not stop enriching uranium. In a separate UN resolution, Syria was urged to establish diplomatic relations with Lebanon and respect its neighbor’s full independence.
Mottaki said Iran’s right to possess “nuclear power for peaceful purposes“ was not negotiable.
“We warn against an escalation of the crisis in the region,“ said Mottaki, who spoke in Farsi through a translator.
|
|
|
Iran Promises Cooperation
With UN Inspectors
VIENNA, Austria, May 19--Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani promised that Tehran would cooperate with UN inspectors, in a meeting late Thursday in Vienna with the UN atomic agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei.
“The discussion was that of course Iran is continuing its cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and that inspectors will continue their work in accordance with the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) comprehensive safeguards,“ Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told AFP Friday.
Iran is honoring its NPT safeguards obligations, which mandate the IAEA to verify that nuclear material is not being diverted from peaceful uses.
But it has cut off wider inspections, such as visits to sites not directly linked to the presence of nuclear material.
IAEA officials have said this severely limits their ability to monitor nuclear activities in Iran.
Larijani’s visit came as the European Union is readying a package of trade, technology and security benefits in return for Iran guaranteeing that its nuclear program is peaceful.
The EU and the United States want the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran if the Islamic Republic rejects this package, which the five permanent Security Council nations plus Germany are to finalize at a meeting next Wednesday in London.
Iran has already rejected what is expected to be yet another call on it to stop uranium enrichment, the process that can produce either fuel for nuclear power reactors or the explosive core of atom bombs.
The Security Council had on March 29 asked Iran to honor IAEA calls for the Islamic Republic to suspend its enrichment work and also to cooperate fully with an over-three-year-old IAEA investigation which is still unable to determine whether the Iranian nuclear program is peaceful or weapons-related.
IAEA Spokesman Marc Vidricaire said Larijani and ElBaradei had “talks about the usual things, issues that are still unanswered and of course the requirements of the (IAEA) board (of governors) to provide some confidence-building matters“.
|
|
|
India Approves
TAPI Pipeline
NEW DELHI, India, May 19--The Union Cabinet has approved participation in the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline project.
According to IRNA, the cabinet authorized Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas to put up a formal request for joining the project to the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan through Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) facilitation, a PIB press release said here.
It also authorized Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas to hold discussions with all concerned parties with a view to finalizing the amendments to the Inter-Governmental Agreement and Framework Agreement.
With a view to meeting the rapidly growing gas demand of the country, it is projected that substantial quantities of gas would need to be imported.
The TAPI project offers the possibility of an alternative source of gas supply to India.
At present, the total gas available for consumption in India is around 92 million standard cubic meters per day (MMSCMD) including regassified LNG, against an estimated demand of around 150 MMSCMD.
The estimated cost of the project is $2.9 billion for the segment to Pakistan and an additional $600 million for the extension to India.
|
|
|
Israel, US at Odds on Nuclear Treaty Draft
BEIT-UL-MOQADDAS, May 19--Israel and the United States are at odds over a draft US international treaty that would ban the production of plutonium or enriched uranium for use in nuclear weapons, a newspaper reported Friday.
Israel made a last-minute effort to dissuade the United States from submitting for discussion the draft, which was on Thursday presented to the UN disarmament commission in Geneva, the liberal Haaretz daily said.
The Jewish state--widely believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East--is worried about any move that could undercut its policy of nuclear ambiguity and generate future pressures on its activities.
Haaretz also said Washington rejected an Israeli request to purchase previously denied civilian nuclear technology, similar to an agreement with India, which like Israel has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Israeli officials questioned by AFP refused to make any comment on the front-page Haaretz article.
The United States Thursday submitted the draft treaty to the Geneva disarmament conference on an international ban on producing fissile material such as uranium and plutonium for military purposes.
It was the first occasion that Washington had submitted a disarmament proposal since the end of the Cold War at the beginning of the 1990s.
The US draft does not cover stocks of fissile material and thus does not propose banning use of fissile material produced before the proposed treaty eventually enters into force.
Israel is estimated to possess some 200 nuclear warheads, although governments have never confirmed or denied they hold such weapons.
|
|
|
War Games on Sunday
KHORRAMSHAHR, Khuzestan, May 19--Naval war games will be staged in the northwestern parts of the Persian Gulf on Sunday to mark the anniversary liberation of Khorramshahr.
Head of the Ideological-Political Department of Khorramshahr’s Naval Base Mohammad Taqi Hejazi told IRNA on Friday that the military exercise termed ’851’ will be staged in three phases in the northwestern parts of the Persian Gulf, Bahmanshir Base as well as Bosif and Khormousa.
The official further said the three-day event is aimed at boosting the skills and preparedness of the scuba diving units.
The last war game staged by the Iranian armed forces was launched in the Persian Gulf early April.
|
|
|
Europeans Have Little Room for Maneuver
PARIS, May 19--The leading European nations are running out of options over Iran’s nuclear program, being incapable both of persuading Tehran to yield and of finding a consensus among members of the United Nations Security Council, experts said Thursday.
In a clear sign of the current impasse, a meeting planned for Friday in London between the so-called EU-3 of France, Britain and Germany as well as the United States, China and Russia has been postponed until next week “to allow more detailed preparation of the EU-3’s proposals to Iran,“ a Foreign Office spokesman said, AFP reported.
“They have crossed too many important thresholds to turn back now,“ said Frederic Tellier of the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) in Paris.
Diplomatic sources said that the new European proposal would include aid to allow Iran to acquire a light-water reactor for civilian use on condition that Tehran stops enriching uranium.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Toward Catastrophe
By Mohammad Reza M. Karimi
As the Palestinian crisis heads toward catastrophe, the powerlessness of the international community becomes more evident.
The Israeli regime has had a free hand for too long. It is withholding the tax revenues due to the Palestinian Authority, continuing its campaign of targeted assassinations and extending the wall to unilaterally fix its borders. This, despite the International Court of Justice ruling in 2004 that the wall should be dismantled.
Following the United States initiative, the European Union oversaw the January elections and confirmed that Hamas emerged victorious from free elections. Today, however, both are hell-bent on isolating and pressuring the democratically elected Hamas government to change its political position and recognize the occupying Israeli regime.
With an economy in ruins, more than 50 percent of Palestinians below the poverty line and the western blockade, the simmering resentment and rage can explode anytime in the face of oppressors.
Some expect international organizations to pitch in, but it is like asking a charity to run a country.
The United Nations has long been rendered ineffective by the domination of the United States, which is the main accomplice to Israeli crimes.
The toothless Organization of Islamic Conference and the Arab League have neither the will nor the wherewithal to rescue the Hamas government. And the NGOs there are simply overwhelmed--not that they are making some extraordinary efforts--by the task of providing emergency relief.
The Europeans are discussing a mechanism to get international aid to the Palestinian territories--bypassing the Hamas government, and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas is appealing for a negotiated settlement of the conflict.
But the Israelis and Americans are continuing to ignore these overtures. They do so at their own peril. Their arrogant and belligerent approach is clearly unsustainable.
The formation of Hamas government gave Israelis the pretext to rush ahead with their unilateral plans for the territories.
US President George W. Bush also agreed to accept the manipulated facts on the ground and the world is powerless to force Israel to respect the international law.
The Bush administration would do well to remember that their gross failure in defusing the Palestinian crisis will soon overshadow its Iraq fiasco and bury its approval rating.
The US believes its hardline strategy will either compel Hamas to toe the line or cause Palestinians to seek a new government. But there is a third unpalatable scenario.
In the absence of any concerted international opposition to repressive measures, the Palestinian conditions will deteriorate further. It’s only a matter of time before the PA implodes, re-ignites Palestinian militant resistance and forces the Israeli regime to reoccupy the so-called freed regions. The Americans and Israelis will rue the day this catastrophe happens.
|
|
|
|
|
|
