Eskandar Momeni

TEHRAN, Oct. 8--Social Security Plan will continue in the second half of the current Iranian year (started March 21), said a senior police official on Monday.
Brigadier Eskandar Momeni, deputy commander of the Islamic Republic of Iran Police (IRIP) for operations, also told Fars News Agency that the plan--involving confronting hooligans, overseeing security of parks and green areas, observing the Islamic dress code as well as rounding up addicts--will be intensified due to the positive results of this nationwide plan.
Momeni noted that statistics show that after the plan’s launch, cases of major theft, armed robbery, kidnapping and murder have declined by 40, 22, 20 and 16 percent respectively in the past six months. He added that for the first time car robbery also declined by 10 percent in the same period.
“The provinces of Qom, Tehran and Hormuzgan registered the highest crime rates in the country in proportion to their population,“ he said.
According to the International Police (Interpol), Iran ranked 50th in terms of fraud, 43rd in murder and 64th in armed robbery.
Interpol is the world’s largest international police organization, with 186 member countries.
Earlier, Tehran’s police chief said the plan to boost social security will be intensified.
Reza Radan said those who do not observe the Islamic dress code will be confronted more strongly than in the past.
He noted that the data on social security offenders have been stored in special laptops, adding that police officers have been instructed to nab these offenders, if they repeat their offences.
Asked about the drive to confront boys who make up their hairs in Western styles, Radan said they will be transferred to Police Crime Department.
“Using outlawed hairstyles distorts public opinion and is a crime,“ he said.
Radan noted that many crimes such as assault and hooliganism have declined as a result of the social security plan.
More than 600 offenders have been confronted by the judicial police since the start of the plan. Also, 2,000 stores were closed down for violating police regulations.

TEHRAN, Oct. 8--Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi said the supporters of the Zionist regime, who ignore the Israeli crimes, should be accountable to the international community for what it has done.
Speaking to judicial officials on Monday, Shahroudi pointed out that by participating in World Qods Rally, Iranians condemned the crimes of the Zionist regime, Mehr News Agency reported.
He described the rally as a popular referendum wherein a large number of Muslims participated to protest the Zionist cruelties and support the oppressed Palestinians.
“How do Western countries that support the occupying regime of Qods and also claim to be supporters of democracy react toward people’s high turnout in the rally?“ he said.
He pointed out that World Qods Day rallies manifest the hatred of Muslim Ummah toward the wrong policies of the US and Israel, and their supporters throughout the world.
“We hope that millions of Palestinian refugees living under difficult conditions in refugee camps will one day be able to return to their homeland,“ he said.
The judiciary chief described the recent statements of the Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei during a meeting with the cabinet as important and valuable.
“With regard to the institutionalization of ethical values and cultural issues, all officials of the three branches of power should work for the revival of such values,“ he said.
Shahroudi noted that the principles of ethics should be institutionalized in the Muslim community and, if necessary, laws should be ratified and implemented because a society operating on the teachings of Imam Ali (AS) should become a model for other countries.

TEHRAN, Oct. 8--Press TV’s correspondent in Afghanistan, Faez Khurshid, said he was tortured by US forces late Sunday.
The Afghan journalist was abducted and beaten while he was on his way home, Presstv reported.
Khurshid said he was rendered unconscious and taken to a US base.
He told Press TV the Americans tortured and released him after an 18-hour detention.
Khurshid had maintained in his latest report that the presence of the American forces in Afghanistan was the main reason for instability in the country.

TEHRAN, Oct. 8--President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the strategy adopted by the US president regarding Iran will fail.
The new academic year for universities and research centers started Monday with a ceremony attended by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, IRNA reported.
“In recent days, the US president has reiterated that they will exert more pressure on Iran in cooperation with the international community and the United Nations. But our response to his comments is that he is gravely mistaken and he should be aware that this strategy will not work,“ he said.
“Theirs’ is the literature of threats and bullying, but we observe that the opponents of Iran’s development and progress feel miserable in the face of Iran’s nuclear logic and only make astonishing claims.“
The president noted that humanity is thirsting for spirituality and justice, and searching for a new way which is the path of spirituality, faith and monotheism.
“We shoulder a grave responsibility during the country’s reconstruction era and should turn the country into a model state,“ he said.
Pointing out that Iran is known as a cultural nation, he said, “We are duty-bound to promote constructive sciences in universities and among human beings.“
Ahmadinejad advised all academics to continue scientific cooperation with all scientific centers around the globe, except those affiliated with the Zionist Israeli regime.
He also said that the Columbia University scenario was carefully designed to tarnish the image of the Iranian nation.
“The Columbia scenario followed certain objectives, the most important of which was to quell the voice of the Iranian nation,“ he said.
President Ahmadinejad addressed the Columbia University on September 24 during his visit to New York to attend the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Ahmadinejad stressed that the so-called seekers of democracy and human rights have no strategy for settling the problems of today’s world, including Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon.

LONDON, Oct. 8--Iran said British Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells is using an Arab newspaper to influence public opinion against Iran, which is a pillar of stability in the region.
“It is astonishing that a British official is explicitly interfering in the domestic affair of a sovereign state and using inappropriate and undiplomatic language about the Islamic Republic of Iran,“ Iranian Ambassador to Britain Rasoul Movahedian said on Monday, IRNA reported.
“These views are nothing but an attempt to demonize Iran as a threat which is in fact an attempt to give wrong signals and one-sided reasoning to a very clear and fundamental stance of the Iranian nation,“ he said.
The ambassador was responding to an article written in Asharq Al-Awsat by Howells in which he attempted to misrepresent Iran as the “main threat“ to the Middle East stability.
“The views stated by Mr Howells are to a great extent well-known propaganda aimed at affecting the Arab world public opinion against Iran, which is a pillar of stability in the region,“ Movahedian said.
“I considered his views, on one hand, as mainly beating the drum for another adventurism while, on the other hand, it will pave the way for continuation of the unlawful presence of foreign forces in our highly sensitive region,“ he said.
Movahedian also wrote in the London-based Arab newspaper that the British minister’s comments reminded him of “the obsolete tactics of 1980s when Iran was attacked“ by the western-backed Saddam regime in Iraq.
“Our message is clear: this rusty apparatus of divide and rule will not work any more, at least for terrifying the great nation of Iran,“ he said.

TEHRAN, Oct. 8--A Tehran University professor said on Monday Iran should improve its relations with regional countries for becoming a nonpermanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
Referring to the recent remarks by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Iran’s intention, Yousef Molaei also told Mehr News Agency that nonpermanent members of the UNSC are elected on the basis of a regional quota system.
“The quota is put on vote at the UN General Assembly and if Iran intends to use the Asia quota, it should lobby countries to vote in favor of Iran’s membership,“ he said.
The professor stated that former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan tried to reform the current trend for electing the UNSC members, but countries did not ratify the plan in 2005.
The Security Council consists of five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States), and ten temporary members, which are elected for two-year terms starting on January 1, each year five of the ten nonpermanent members are replaced by the United Nations General Assembly.
Iran had been elected as a nonpermanent member of the UNSC during 1955-56.

Leakage from oil platforms located in the territorial waters of Bushehr province has polluted the Persian Gulf.

TEHRAN, Oct. 8--A marine expert said the corrosion of pipelines linking oil platforms is the most important cause of Persian Gulf pollution.
Mahmoud Moqimi also told IRNA on Monday that leakage from oil platforms located in the territorial waters of Bushehr province has polluted the Persian Gulf.
“Pollution disrupts the ecological and biological balance of marine animals in coastal waters,“ he said.
The expert noted that vertebrate marine animals such as edible fish become contaminated with metals, which make their consumption harmful. Referring to the death of a large number of dolphins in Persian Gulf waters, Moqimi said five types of dolphins have been identified in the Persian Gulf, including Bushehr province. “A majority of dolphins in the Persian Gulf waters are silver dolphins. Dolphins of Bushehr coastal waters, especially during the shrimp harvest season, go after fishing barges in groups,“ he said.

BEIJING, Oct. 8--Iranian Ambassador in Beijing Javad Mansouri called for expanding mutual relations between Iran and China.
Speaking on the occasion of China’s National Day on October 1, Mansouri congratulated the event, IRNA reported.
“The Chinese nation has always had a message of peace and prosperity in its relations with other countries,“ the message by Javad Mansouri read.
“There is no dark spot in the two countries’ relations, a fact that applies not only to our relations with China, but to all countries with which Iran has diplomatic and economic relations with,“ he said.
The Iranian envoy added that in a world where governments think of taking the utmost advantage of various situations at the cost of other nations’ interests, the Iranians and the Chinese seek peace and wellbeing, not only for themselves, but for the entire world.
Referring to Iran-China longstanding ties, he said there has been no discord in bilateral ties between Iranian and Chinese nations and that other nations have benefited from such good relations.
“Iran and China seek their own nations’ prosperity,“ he said.
Iran-China trade exchanges are predicted to hit $20 billion by the end of 2007.