Gholamali Haddad Adel

TEHRAN, June 19--Majlis Speaker Gholamali Haddad Adel said on Tuesday the parliament and print media have a common identity.
Addressing managing directors of non-governmental newspapers, the speaker noted that both the parliament and the print media are like two buildings that are always open for the people, ISNA reported.
“Lawmakers are elected by the people and newspapers are also duty-bound to disseminate information for the people,“ he said.
Haddad pointed out that the print media is considered the fourth pillar of democracy besides executive, legislative and judiciary branches of power.
“The incumbent Majlis has tried to rationalize the communications atmosphere and news work while maintaining its political identity,“ he said.
Referring to good relations between Majlis and reporters, he noted that Majlis and print media do not face any problem.
“The Majlis has tried to facilitate the access of reporters to news and information. We did not face any unfavorable situation while giving regular interviews to reporters and this is a positive aspect,“ Haddad said.
Managing director of the Persian daily ’Mardomsalari’, Mostafa Kavakebiyan, on behalf of the managing directors of non-governmental dailies thanked the Majlis speaker for attending a joint meeting with them.
Kavakebiyan called for amending the Press Law since it was approved five years ago and requires amendments.
“The allocation of subsidies to newspapers should become transparent,“ he said.
Presenting a report on setting up the non-governmental journalists association, Kavakebiyan noted that the association has 22 members and will avoid political activities.

Avigdor Lieberman

BEIT-UL-MOQADDAS, June 19--An Israeli lawmaker said on Tuesday the Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman has threatened his life.
After filing a complaint with Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz, Balad Wasal Taha requested a criminal investigation against Lieberman, Jerusalem Post reported.
“Lieberman’s saying that he hopes my day will come is an unequivocal threat on my life,“ Taha said, adding that this behavior is an incitement to murder, or at least incitement to do physical harm.
On Monday, a fight broke out in the Knesset plenum during which Lieberman called Taha a “representative of terrorists“ in the Knesset. The fight began when Taha interrupted Lieberman’s speech during a meeting on approving incoming Labor Chairman Ehud Barak as the new defense minister.
In the speech, Lieberman attacked Arab Knesset members for their silence on what he termed the “lynching in Gaza“, referring to the violence between the rival Palestinian factions. Taha shouted back his opposition, after which Lieberman accused Taha of treason. Lieberman accused Taha of being an accomplice to terror organizations and said, “Your day will also come.“
The Balad Knesset member also filed a complaint at the Knesset Ethics Committee.
Meanwhile, reporters invited to the Israel Beiteinu faction meeting on Monday for a statement by their party leader were surprised when he decided to speak not about the future of Gaza but about the future of his faction.
Lieberman warned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that if he reopened the coalition agreement in talks with Labor or offered them an additional portfolio, he wanted the same for his faction.
Barak hopes Olmert will expand the cabinet so there will be room for both Amir Peretz and Ami Ayalon.
“We joined the government without getting what we deserved and without having a say in drafting the coalition guidelines but if they are changed now, we have to be a part of it,“ Lieberman said.
Lieberman, 49, in 2002 and at the height of the Intifada (uprising) threatened Palestinians with the bombing of all commercial centers, banks and gas stations.
The Israeli Ha’aretz daily, in 2003, revealed Lieberman’s call for thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel to be drowned in the Dead Sea and his offer to provide the buses to take them there.
In November 2006, Lieberman called for the execution of any Arab member of Knesset who meets representatives of the Palestinian government.
“World War II ended with the Nuremberg trials. The heads of the Nazi regime, along with their collaborators, were executed. I hope this will be the fate of the collaborators in the Knesset,“ he demanded.
In response, Arab Israeli Knesset member Ahmed Tibi demanded that “a criminal investigation be initiated against Lieberman for violating the law against incitement and racism“. He called Lieberman “a very dangerous and sophisticated politician who has won his support by inciting racial hatred“.

Mohammad Niyazi

TEHRAN, June 19--A senior official said on Tuesday his organization is presently investigating a fraud case involving 3.3 trillion rials involving Tehran Municipality’s Urban Commission.
Speaking in a press conference on the eve of Judiciary Week (June 22-28), Mohammad Niyazi, the head of State Inspectorate Organization, noted that the organization is also surveying the implementation of the government’s provincial approvals, ISNA reported.
Niyazi stressed that his organization will not show leniency toward corruption.
“One of our priorities is to supervise the implementation of policies related to Article 44 of the constitution. We prepare reports about obstacles hindering investments in the country,“ he said.
Stating that State Inspectorate Organization is an important supervisory body, he pointed out that it was established by the Experts Assembly to supervise the country’s administrative system.
“State Inspectorate Organization is the only organization legally entrusted with a supervisory role.
According to Article 2 pertaining to the establishment of organizations, all organizations and governmental bodies, institutions of the Islamic Revolution and all institutions using the state budget should be supervised by the State Inspectorate Organization,“ he said.
Referring to the three types of supervision undertaken by the organization, Niyazi said, “Fixed inspections are conducted annually and as per a schedule. Case inspections are conducted on the basis of complaints filed by the people. Extraordinary inspections are made on the basis of orders issued by the Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, president, judiciary chief, Majlis Article 90 Commission and head of State Inspectorate Organization.“
Noting that the most important output of the organization is its reports, Niyazi said 1,959 reports were prepared in 2006.
“The organization also received 10,385 proposals. A total of 8,062 proposals (77.6 percent) was aimed at improving the organization’s performance.
A total of 1,485 (14.3 percent) proposals was aimed at administrative prosecution and 98 percent of them commended the performance of state institutions,“ he said.
Niyazi pointed out that supervision over the performance of the organization’s inspectors and staff has been reinforced.
“Complaints against the Ministry of Economy has decreased by 48 percent, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology by 44 percent, Health Ministry by 40 percent, Interior Ministry by 34 percent, Industries and Mines by 30 percent, Agriculture Jihad and Education ministries by 28 percent each, municipalities by 22 percent and banks by 16 percent,“ he said.
Stressing that investment security is a prerequisite for increasing investments in the country, Niyazi said one of the problems facing investment is absence of stable laws and regulations.

WASHINGTON, June 19--President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday sought to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in his battle with Hamas for primacy, calling him a moderate voice and the only true leader of the Palestinian people.
Bush and Olmert, before meeting at the White House, both spoke positively to reporters of the prospect for new talks between Abbas and the Israelis, AP reported.
“I am going to make every possible effort to cooperate with him,“ said Olmert, who had earlier rejected Abbas’s call for talks.
Referring to Abbas as “the president of all the Palestinians“ and “a reasonable voice amongst the extremists“, Bush met with Olmert in the aftermath of the turmoil that left Abbas, a Western-backed moderate, in control of one Palestinian government in the inland West Bank and his Islamist rival Hamas in control of the separate Gaza Strip on the coast.
The US and European Union have been moving quickly to shore up Abbas.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday announced an end to an economic and political embargo on the Palestinians. Israel has seemed likely to free up millions in tax revenue it collects on behalf of the Palestinians, assuming it could ensure that the money flowed only to Abbas’ operation in the West Bank.
“Like you, I want to strengthen the moderates,“ Olmert said.
“Our hope is that President Abbas and Prime Minister (Salam) Fayyad--who’s a good fellow--will be strengthened to the point where they can lead the Palestinians in a different direction,“ Bush said.
Olmert said he would talk to Abbas, but spoke of several prerequisites for any progress toward peace. They included “a much more credible and serious administration“ by the Palestinians, and one that will “fight terror in the most effective way“, he said.
Bush said the split in the Palestinian territories is purely the fault of Hamas. “It was Hamas that attacked the unity government,“ the president said. “They made a choice of violence. It was their decision that has caused there to be this current situation in the Middle East.“

GENEVA, June 19--The US reiterated its opposition to a ban on cluster bombs blamed for thousands of civilian casualties around the world.
Momentum has been building to prohibit cluster bombs but major producers of the weapons have resisted calls to halt their use, Alalam.ir reported.
The US position was announced at the start of weeklong talks in Geneva on the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), ratified by some 100 countries.
It came after the Bush administration carried out an internal review of the issue.
“The US should support the initiation of a negotiation on cluster munitions but does not back a ban on the weapons,“ Ronald Bettauer, head of the US delegation, said.
Cluster bombs are air- or ground-launched canisters holding up to 650 munitions, which often fail to explode on impact.
They cause too many entirely predictable civilian deaths and injuries during attacks because they saturate such a large area with no degree of precision whatsoever.
The Israeli occupation’s use of cluster bombs in its month-long invasion of Lebanon last year brought a sense of urgency to halting their firing against heavily populated areas.
When cluster bombs explode, they scatter numerous bomblets that often lie dormant, exploding only when they are picked up by unsuspecting civilians, sometimes years after they were dropped.
More than 30 years after US airplanes bombed it during the Vietnam War, there are still tens of millions of cluster bomb duds scattered across the Southeast Asian country, each with the potential to kill.
Nearly 70 countries pledged support in May for a declaration calling for an international ban by 2008, but the US, Russia and China--the world’s military giants--were not among them. Japan and the Israeli occupation have also stayed away. At least 400 million people live in areas contaminated by these unexploded weapons largely in the Middle East, where they are used by Israel, the former Yugoslavia and southeast Asian countries, where the US deployed them in the 1970s.

GAZA CITY, Occupied Palestine, June 19--Zionist troops were on Tuesday moving around the northern Gaza Strip, a territory seized by Islamist movement Hamas in inter-Palestinian fighting last week, witnesses and security sources said.
Witnesses said they saw about three Israeli tanks and a bulldozer one kilometer (less than a mile) from the border fence with the occupied lands and outside the town of Beit Hanun, AFP reported.
They reported Israeli gunfire but no exchange of fire with Palestinians.
The military said tanks had been operating in northern Gaza for the past few days and had moved towards the Palestinian side of the Erez border crossing with Israel “to defend the area because of certain security threats“.
“They were already inside Gaza searching for terrorist infrastructure and have been called over to the crossing for defensive needs of the crossing,“ an Israeli army spokesman said.
On Sunday, Israeli units first took up positions in northern Gaza two days after the territory was overrun by Hamas, which Israel considers a terrorist organization and which does not recognize the Zionist regime.