TEHRAN, May 14--Energy Minister Parviz Fattah said on Monday several provinces will face electricity shortages if the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant is not inaugurated this year.
Speaking to ISNA, Fattah said the ministry has had no problem supplying electricity last year but since the Bushehr plant was expected to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity, it will face problems.
“If this plant is not inaugurated this year, electricity supply in southern provinces will face problems because we had projected the supply of 1,000 megawatts of electricity from the plant,“ he said.
He also said the Bushehr plant is scheduled to join the electricity network in December.
Noting that development of other sources of electricity to meet the country’s needs is on the agenda, the minister said the best way is to supply electricity from the power plant closest to the consumers.
“But the provinces of Khuzestan, Fars and Hormuzgan will face electricity shortage in autumn if the Bushehr power plant does not go on stream,“ he said.
Fattah pointed out that the peak of electricity consumption will reach 36,650 megawatts this year, increasing by 8 percent in comparison with the last year.
“We expect atomic power plants to control the electricity network’s frequency because other plants cannot do that. So we will need the Bushehr plant to control the electricity frequency in the southwestern provinces of the country,“ he said.

TEHRAN, May 14--A judiciary official said on Monday new details of Shahram Jazayeri’s escape dossier will soon be announced.
Mohammad Salarkia, Tehran’s deputy prosecutor, also told reporters that a joint committee formed by the Intelligence Ministry and judiciary has been working on the case and will soon release new information publicly, ILNA reported.
“Shahram Jazayeri’s escape dossier has been investigated by the judiciary and the Intelligence Ministry, and its results will be announced soon,“ he said.
Shahram Jazayeri was sentenced to 17 years in prison for bribing officials and disrupting Iran’s economy.
As part of the Social Security plan, 123 people have been introduced to judiciary centers so far for not observing the hijab (Islamic dress code).
“Some people appear in the society in an immodest way, which harms the culture of the country and is one of the reasons leading to disputes among couples and even divorce,“ he said.
Salarkia added that the final purpose of the Social Security plan is improvement of social conditions and this calls for people’s cooperation.
“We are not after a disgruntled society; we want to create a safe atmosphere in society where everybody feels secure,“ he said.

Some 55,000 immigrants have returned to cities including Herat and Nimrouz.

KABUL, Afghanistan, May 14--Head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Monday Iran’s deportation of illegal Afghans does not constitute a human rights violation.
Speaking at the United Nations office in Kabul, Fernando Arocena also said Iran’s repatriation program is completely legal and denied reports of human rights violation in this respect, IRNA reported.
“If we study the Iranian government’s repatriation plan, we cannot find any instance of human rights violation,“ he said.
Arocena pointed out that according to a trilateral agreement between Iran, Afghanistan and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 920,000 Afghans are authorized to stay in Iran without any problem.
He noted that the repatriation program is not the same as at the outset and the number of deported Afghans handed over at Milak border is declining.
The IOM chief also said, “Only Afghans without legal documents to work or stay in Iran will be deported.“
“55,000 immigrants have returned to cities like Herat and Nimrouz,“ he said, adding that representatives of UNHCR and IOM have supervised the whole repatriation process.
“Iran has the right to accept or deport illegal immigrants,“ Arocena said.

TEHRAN, May 14--The Foreign Ministry on Monday summoned Swiss Ambassador in Tehran Philippe Welti over the abduction of five Iranian diplomats who are in US custody in Iraq since January 11.
According to the Foreign Ministry’s Press and Information Department, Ahmad Sobhani, director general for American affairs, said the detainees were diplomats who handled consular affairs in the capital of this northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region, IRNA reported.
Sobhani declared that the action of US forces is against international conventions.
The Swiss envoy, who also handles US interests in Tehran, said he will convey Iran’s objection to the US officials.
Earlier, Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari had said there is a ’possibility’ that five Iranian officials held by the United States for nearly four months could be released soon.
Zebari said that because of legal rules, the United States can only hold the group for six months, at which point they must make a decision on their fate, AFP reported. Zebari said that there was a possibility they will be released because the US “can detain them for 90 days and this can be renewed once“.

KERMANSHAH, May 14--Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi said on Sunday that after the World War II, world powers staged “a theatrical play“ to bring Jews to Palestine.
Harandi made the remark in the seminar on “Shaping Zionism“ at the technical and engineering college of Kermanshah, IRNA reported.
He said that both the Western states and even the former Soviet Union regarded their Jewish communities as problematic and looked for ways to send them elsewhere.
“The former Soviet Union followed a double-track approach in dealing with the departure of the Jewish community to Palestine. It helped the departure in order to have a base in the Middle East to check the Arab states as well as the Palestine Liberation Movement both during and after the occupation of the Palestinian territory by Zionists,“ he said.
Harandi noted that the former Soviet Union had successfully attracted most Palestinian nationalist groups campaigning for the liberation of their homeland with socialist beliefs.
He also said that the Middle East countries were divided into two groups: some were dominated by the US and others were under the influence of the former Soviet Union.
The culture minister said that the same situation prevailed until the Islamic Revolution culminated in Iran and since the event was cultural by nature, the regional states simply got the message from Iran.
He pointed out that Iran was a base for the US but the Islamic Revolution changed the balance, prompting the big powers to orchestrate a war against Iran.
“It was the first time the US and the former Soviet Union formed an alliance to impose war on a developing nation,“ he said.
Harandi said the Iranian nation defended their territorial integrity in the face of a front formed by the world powers during the Iraq-imposed war (1980-88).

TEHRAN, May 14--A parliamentarian said on Monday 5.5 million people in cities and 2.5 million in villages are living below the absolute poverty line.
Referring to the fact that poverty is categorized into ordinary, absolute and severe, Abed Fattahi, a member of Majlis Health Commission, also told ILNA that over 10 percent of the population are living below the absolute poverty line.
He noted that social justice is one of main mottos of the Islamic Revolution.
“According to the social welfare security plan, the government is obliged to prepare the grounds for people to have access to a minimum income, health and educational services as well as a house,“ he said.
Earlier, Mousa Reza Servati, a member of Majlis Social Commission, said some 12 million people live below the poverty line.
Servati also told Mehr that the number of people living below the poverty line increased by 13 percent, based on the poverty line of four million rials set by the Ministry of Welfare and Social Security.
Considering the meager rise of pensioners’ income and annual inflation rate, he predicted that statistics show lower figures for groups living below the poverty line.
The lawmaker also said that the ministry is obliged to direct subsidies to target groups and identify underprivileged citizens, but it has not taken sufficient measures to this effect.
Although the Majlis allocates an annual average of 7,000 billion rials to the Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs to assist underprivileged groups, the problems faced by these people remain unresolved while the subsidy used by the rich is 27 times the amount taken by the poor.

ANKARA, Turkey, May 14--A private plane bound for Iran has gone missing after taking off from the northeastern Turkish city of Trabzon, a local official said on Monday.
Rescue teams have launched a search but have so far found no sign of it, a spokeswoman for the Trabzon governor’s office told AFP.
“There is also the possibility that it might have gone somewhere else than its end destination,“ the spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity.
Governor Nuri Okutan told the Anatolia News Agency that the plane, bound for the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz, took off from Trabzon on Sunday with two pilots--a British national and a Pakistani national--on board.
The plane, which had set out from capital Ankara, landed at Trabzon on Thursday for refueling and was forced to wait until Sunday to resume flight due to adverse weather conditions, he added.

TEHRAN, May 14--A media official said on Sunday the Islamic Republic News Agency is willing to cooperate with Tajikistan in the fields of news and culture.
IRNA Chief Jalal Fayyazi told visiting Tajik Culture Minister Mirzoshohrokh Asror that IRNA’s School of Media Studies is also ready to enroll Tajik students.
He briefed the Tajik minister on IRNA’s 70-year background as Iran’s mother media and said it is sharing news with customers in 30 countries, including Tajikistan.
Fayyazi also said IRNA is disseminating news in Persian, English, French, Arabic, Russian, Chinese, Spanish, Turkish and Serbian languages daily.
“The IRNA staff is sensitively following up international events, particularly those taking place in the brother country of Tajikistan, and we are highly pleased with growing relations between Iran and Tajikistan,“ he said.
Asror, for his part, voiced Tajikistan’s willingness for cultural relations and cooperation with Iran.
After the meeting, he and his delegation visited different sections of IRNA.
The Tajik minister expressed satisfaction with the tour and declared his country’s readiness to expand cultural exchanges with Iran more than ever.
Pointing to the promotion of spirituality among Tajik people as one of the sublime goals of his country, he said holding joint cultural programs will help achieve such a lofty objective.
Visiting Tehran at the official invitation of Iranian Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar Harandi, Asror is scheduled to hold talks with other Iranian officials and visit the National Library, the International Center of Islamic Sciences and Ayatollah Mar’ashi Library.