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Weather Guide
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Tehran
High: 28 - Low: 15
Ardebil
Chabahar
Qazvin
Sirjan
Tabriz
Beirut
Islamabad
Jakarta
Manama
Moscow
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Identification
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Published by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA)
Address:
Iran Cultural & Press Institute, #212 Khorramshahr Avenue Tehran/Iran
Chief Editor:
Amir Ali Abolfath
Editorial Dept. Tel: 88755761-2
Editorial Dept. Fax: 88761869
Subscription Dept. Tel: 88329002-4
Advertising Dept. Tel: 88500616-7
Internet Address:
www.iran-daily.com
E-mail Address:
iran-daily@iran-daily.com
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UK Ambassador Summoned
Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned British ambassador in Tehran to protest a UK court verdict for removing the notorious Mujahideen Khalq Organization from the list of terrorist groups.
Geoffery Adams was questioned by Deputy Foreign Minister for European Affairs Mehdi Safari about the British court’s surprising decision.
Expressing Iran’s strong criticism of the ruling, Safari said, “The UK appeal court’s measure shows the British double standards regarding terrorism, which discredits the government that claims to be fighting a war on terror.“
He referred to the number of crimes committed by MKO during the last three decades in Iran, including bombing and killing of civilians and officials, noting that the court’s ruling was a politically-motivated act.
The Iranian senior diplomat called on the British government to obstruct the ruling in order to prevent the consequences of the illegal decision on the two countries’ relations.
He called the British ambassador to convey Iran’s harsh criticism to his country’s officials. Adams, for his part, stressed that the stand of the UK government toward the terrorist nature of the MKO has not changed.
“We still recognize this group (MKO) as a terrorist organization,“ he said.
“I absolutely confirm the stance of Iran’s government and nation regarding the terrorist nature of the group,“ he said. “I’m aware of the history of MKO’s terrorist activities and I will submit Islamic Republic of Iran’s stance to Britain’s officials.“
Adams noted that the British government has already declared the activities of the terrorist group as ’shameful’, and the London’s official stance toward the MKO is to boycott any contact with the terrorist group.
The MKO, which has carried out wholesale assassinations and terrorist acts in Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, was among the first organizations to be formally outlawed under Britain’s Terrorism Act 2000.
UK officials were also critical of the ruling, saying it would ensure that public safety is not endangered by the de-proscription of the anti-Iran MKO as a terrorist group.
The MKO has “a long history of terrorism and this is why it was proscribed both in the UK and by other countries around the world,“ Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said.
When the appeal was launched in February, Foreign Office Minister Lord Mark Malloch-Brown said that the British government is not convinced at that the MKO has given up terrorism, describing its forced disarmament by US forces in Iraq as being “entirely pragmatic.“
During the Iraq war, the MKO was “considered by coalition forces to be completely assimilated into the security apparatus of the Saddam Hussein regime,“ Malloch-Brown told parliament.
“Indeed, we had to disarm the organization to the extent of 2,100 tanks, vehicles and artillery pieces. Since then it has made no renunciation of terrorism and disarmed only in the face of pressure from coalition forces,“ he said.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown confirmed in December that the his government would not accept removing the MKO as a terrorist group, saying there was “no evidence“ it had changed and that it was “certainly the case it has been involved in terrorist activity.“
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China Quake Toll Exceeds 8,000
A massive earthquake struck central China on Monday, killing over 8,000 people in a single county and trapping nearly 900 students under the rubble of their school, the state media reported.
The official Xinhua News Agency said 80 percent of the buildings had collapsed in Beichuan county in Sichuan province after the 7.8-magnitude quake.
AP reported that 8,533 people had died in Beichuan, which has a population of 160,000, raising fears the overall death toll could increase sharply. Another 10,000 people were believed to be hurt.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini expressed Iran’s condolences to the Chinese people and government over the tragedy. On behalf of the Iranian nation and government, Hosseini sympathized with the relatives of the tragic incident and hoped for the recovery of the wounded.
The earthquake sent thousands of people rushing out of buildings and into the streets hundreds of miles away in Beijing and Shanghai. The temblor was felt as far away as Pakistan, Vietnam and Thailand.
Rescuers had recovered at least 50 bodies from the debris of the school building in Juyuan township, about 60 miles from the epicenter. Xinhua did not say if any student had been pulled out alive.
An unknown number of students also were reported buried after buildings collapsed at five other schools in Deyang city in Sichuan, Xinhua reported.
It said its reporters saw buried teenagers struggling to break loose from underneath the rubble of the three-story building in Juyuan “while others were crying out for help“.
The earthquake comes less than three months before the start of the Beijing Summer Olympics, when China hopes to use to showcase its rise in the world.
Shanghai’s main index inched up Monday, but the advance was capped by worries over inflation and potential damage from the earthquake.
Analysts said that shares of companies located in the Sichuan region may fall in coming sessions due to the quake. It struck in the middle of the afternoon when classes and office towers were full, about 60 miles northwest of Chengdu. There were several smaller aftershocks, the US Geological Survey said on its website.
Five children were killed and more than 100 injured in a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck China’s Sichuan province on Monday, causing buildings to sway and sending residents rushing into the streets.
China’s official Xinhua news agency said the deaths occurred when two primary schools toppled in Liangping county of Chongqing, a municipality of 30 million that neighbors Sichuan, Reuters reported.
State television showed footage of residents in the Sichuan capital Chengdu crowded in the streets looking relatively unscathed but for one woman shown bleeding from her head.
But an official at the seismological bureau there said phone lines in Sichuan’s Wenchuan county, the epicenter of the quake, were completely cut off and there were reports of damage to buildings in neighboring counties, meaning there could yet be casualties in that area.
Premier Wen Jiabao was flying to Chengdu, a fast-growing metropolis of 10 million people famous for its Giant Panda Breeding Research Base.
The city is around 1,300 miles southwest of Beijing.
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Name of the Game
By Seyyed Mohiyeddin Sajedi
Even before the end of Emile Lahoud’s tenure as president of Lebanon, it was clear that “a gentleman’s agreement“ would help overcome the power vacuum and heal the rift between internal and external parties. This depends on a change in regional equations and the relations of influential powers with each other.
The French plan, launched before the end of Lahoud’s tenure and lingered till the final days of 2007, merely set guidelines for the domestic parties involved in the crisis. It actually paved the way for the continuation of the vacuum in a way that no change would take place in internal equations.
The only element common to the French and Arab plans was that Fouad Siniora’s government would remain in power without approving any important ratification, the opposition will not attempt to change the status quo and both the sides know their limitations in case of a crisis.
In the meantime, the role of what America calls the axis of moderation, comprising of the six member-states of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council, plus Egypt, Jordan and Israel, became more distinct. The crux of the matter is that Hezbollah is viewed as a source of nuisance vis-ˆ-vis the implementation of American plans not only in Lebanon but also in the entire region and its destruction or weakened status can affect the position of Iran in the region.
After Israel escaped from Lebanon in May 2000 and its defeat in the 33-day war in 2006, the balance of power in Lebanon tilted toward the resistance movement,
ly Hezbollah and its allies. In order to confront this situation, about a year ago, the US dispatched one of its army commanders to Beirut to monitor militia operations and pave the grounds for another tumult.
Amid all this, the Lebanese government, which has indeed lost its so-called agreed legitimacy, focused on an issue which it was confident would invoke the reaction of Hezbollah and its allies: the resistance’s telecommunications network.
Every army, armed force, partisan group or paramilitary force is based on three elements, all of which must be respected. These are weapons, logistics and telecommunications. The 33-day war and the ensuing developments were aimed at destroying the weapon of resistance. This never materialized.
Telecommunications is another element of the resistance movement, the weakening of which is tantamount to disarmament. It must be recalled here that the telecommunication network played a major role in the victory of the resistance in the 33-day war during which Hezbollah leaders could communicate with their forces at the warfronts without any fear of eavesdropping.
Rumors have spread that Israel intended to carry out commando operations in southern Beirut on April 28. The plan was to have Israeli forces land at Beirut Airport’s Runway Number 17 and then infiltrate into southern Beirut. No reasons have yet been found for the non-implementation of the plan.
However, there are speculations that Hezbollah’s telecommunication network and its security control over the airport forced Israelis to abandon the plan. Less than two weeks after the plan’s defeat, suddenly the leader of the Druze community, Walid Jumblatt, raised both issues with the mass media and stressed the need to destroy Hezbollah’s telecommunications network and to sack the security chief of Beirut Airport, Colonel Wafiq Shaqir, a close friend of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
The government ratified both the issues, which the US immediately backed. At this stage, the opposition claimed that the government’s supporters have transcended the realm of “a gentleman’s agreement“. Now the question that comes to mind is why Jumblatt and Siniora’s government chose to raise the issue of Hezbollah’s telecommunication network at this juncture.
Is the government ratification, which came exactly one day before the previously announced labor protests, accidental? Or was it aimed at expanding the crisis and creating a tumultuous situation that would unsettle Lebanon as well as the regional balance of power?
What happened on the ground was the reverse of the expectations of the US, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, as three years of painstaking efforts to train and arm paramilitary forces of March 14 Front proved useless in just 24 hours.
Moreover, Siniora’s government reversed its decision on the ratification and declared that the army should take all decisions. The army reinstated Shaqir as security chief of the airport and announced that it would resolve the issue of Hezbollah’s telecommunication network in a manner that would neither harm the resistance nor the public interests.
All in all, one is bound to conclude that the rules of the game in Lebanon have altered. Before the recent turmoil, the notion of “a gentleman’s agreement“ helped manage the power vacuum to a great extent, but following the Siniora government’s huge error of judgment of relying on the US and its regional allies, the rules of the game changed. Now the resistance, the anti-government forces and the March 8 Front are in a stronger position.
At any rate, the problem is still in place. The US intends to see the recent remark of assistant secretary of state, David Welch, about a “hot summer“ in Lebanon materialize and will further pursue other scenarios.
After 9/11, the US Mideast policy has been based on deploying force to meet its economic and political objectives, and also initiate “managed chaos“ in order to strengthen its supporters in the long run.
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