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Corrupt Powers
Behind Global Chaos
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday the present chaotic situation of the world has resulted from the wrong policies of incompetent and corrupt rulers.
Addressing a large crowd at Gorgan’s stadium, the president said, “Corrupt powers have led the world nations nowhere with their wrong policies in the economic, political and cultural fields“, IRNA reported.
President Ahmadinejad arrived in this northeastern city on Wednesday along with his Cabinet members on his second provincial tour in the new Iranian year (started March 20).
“Given the present situation in the world, we can see peace, security and friendship at places managed by faithful and pious rulers while tyranny, aggression and corruption prevail at places governed by unfaithful rulers,“ he said.
Israel’s Days Numbered
Ahmadinejad noted that Israel’s days are numbered, adding that the fake regime is despised by all regional nations.
He said that the regional people won’t miss an opportunity to uproot this fake regime.
The president warned major powers that they would be listed as criminals, should they continue to support the illegitimate regime of Israel.
He said Israel’s 60th anniversary celebration was like celebrating the birthday of a dead person. “Celebration makes no sense and only disgraces its organizers,“ he said.
The president will inspect a number of provincial development projects, meet with families of martyrs and hold separate meetings with provincial clerics and scholars.
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Ads on Foreign TVs Banned
Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance on Wednesday banned Iranian businesses from advertising on the overseas satellite TVs.
An official of the ministry’s Public Relations Department said these networks were “working without permission from the Iranian related bodies“, hence their activities are “illegal and invalid“, IRNA reported.
Alireza Karimi added that activities of those networks inflicted heavy damage on Iranian citizens as many of those ads carried untrue stories because there was no control on them.
Karimi noted that many beauty saloons or similar institutes that broadcast advertisements on foreign-based satellite TVs have so far been “identified and confronted“ within the past few months with the help of Iran’s police.
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IAEA Talks End
The third day of talks between Iranian officials and members of a technical delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded in Tehran on Wednesday.
The negotiations, started on Monday, IRNA reported.
Herman Nackaerts, director for regional department of Safeguards Operation, headed the IAEA delegation, while Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s permanent envoy to the IAEA, led the Iranian team in this round of negotiations.
An Iranian official said the three-day negotiations were held at the expert level.
A number of experts from Iran’s Foreign Ministry attended the talks.
After the release of a report by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei on February 22, the first round of technical talks between Iran and IAEA started, headed by Olli Heinonen, deputy director general and head of Department of Safeguards.
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West’s Human Rights Policies Slammed
Majlis Speaker Gholamali Haddad Adel said on Wednesday world powers are using human rights as a tool.
“Apart from the military, media, economic and cultural clout of world arrogant powers, we should also pay heed to their legal power. They use laws, which they have enacted, as leverage against other nations,“ Haddad said while addressing a national conference in Tehran, Presstv reported.
The parliament speaker stated that the current plight of the Palestinian people is only one example of how the arrogant powers treat the issue of human rights hypocritically.
“The occupation forces have gathered to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the illegal Zionist regime at a time when people in Gaza, the real owners of Palestine, are subjected to the most savage attacks by the Zionists,“ he said.
Haddad wondered how the world powers, which claim to advocate human rights and democracy, remain silent on the suffering of Gaza residents.
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5+1 to Deliver
Incentives Package
White House Spokeswoman Dana Perino said in Washington the permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany will soon deliver their new incentives package for Iran.
“Well, the P5 plus one, which is our crew, is finalizing the details of the incentives package, and it will be delivered as soon as it’s ready,“ said Perino on Tuesday, AP reported.
“And we continue to reiterate our call to Iran to suspend enrichment and come to the table, as called for in the UN Security Council resolutions. And our incentives package is the one with merit,“ she added.
The US and its allies want Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities, despite the clear right that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty bestows on its signatories to do so, as uranium enrichment is a critical part in producing fuel for nuclear power plants.
Iran, however, has refused to halt uranium enrichment insisting that it does not want to be dependent on foreign sources for the fuel needed to generate electricity.
Iran remains open to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections, which have found no evidence to support Washington’s claims. But, that has not stopped western powers, who claim that Iran may use the technology to build atomic weapons, from resorting to Security Council resolutions and sanctions.
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Lavrov Calls for Security Guarantees
Russia called on the top UN powers to give security guarantees to resolve the dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also said on Wednesday that international powers negotiating with Iran “could put concrete proposals on the table guaranteeing the security of Iran and ensuring Iran a worthy, equal place in talks on resolving all problems in the Near and Middle East“.
“Unfortunately not all members of the ’six’ are prepared for this, but I am convinced that this is an effective way to remove the tension in the region and resolve the situation around the Iranian nuclear problem,“ Lavrov was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti agency.
Lavrov made the remark at a meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg.
Germany, plus permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the US, make up the six-nation group negotiating to end Iran’s uranium enrichment work and curb the nuclear program.
The six nations have been using a mix of incentives and sanctions to try to persuade Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment work.
Iran has defied three rounds of UN Security Council sanctions over its refusal to abandon uranium enrichment activities, saying the Islamic Republic is entitled to the right as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Officials in Tehran also stress that the Iranian nuclear drive is solely for peaceful purposes, including power generation for a growing number of population whose fossil fuel resources would eventually run dry.
Russia has relatively close ties to Iran and has built the country’s first nuclear power station, for which it has also supplied the nuclear fuel.
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Qods Liberation Anticipated
An Iranian official on Wednesday expressed hope that the holy Qods, which belongs to all nations, would be liberated and that Palestinians would achieve their absolute sovereignty over their territory.
Secretary-General of the International Union of NGOs Supporting Palestinians Rights, Zahra Mostafavi made the remark while addressing the inaugural session of International Conference on Freedom and the Right of Return: Palestine and 60 years of Ethnic Cleansing being held in Jakarta, Indonesia, IRNA reported.
“These days the Zionists, in an illegal state called Israel, are celebrating the 60th year of their aggression on the nation of Palestine as well as the crime of occupying their land, killing them and obliging them to leave their land,“ she said.
Mostafavi said they are celebrating their cruel attacks against the innocent Palestinians.
“Palestine is the holy land of all religions,“ she said, adding that due to the Zionists’ aggression, the Palestinian people have either been martyred or rendered homeless.
Referring to the late Founder of the Islamic Republic Imam Khomeini as the initiator of new ways for campaigning against Zionism and the usurper regime of Israel, she said many of the fundamental movements struggling against Tel Aviv in the past three decades were inspired by the late Imam Khomeini’s guidelines.
As to resistance of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the 33-day Hezbollah defense against the Zionist regime’s attacks, Mostafavi reiterated that the Palestinian nation has realized that the enemy is not undefeatable and is, in fact, very vulnerable.
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Shiraz Bombers Planned
To Attack Russian Consulate
Those behind a bomb blast in a mosque in Shiraz, which killed 14 people in April, also planned to target a Russian consulate in the country, the intelligence minister said on Wednesday.
Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei also said 15 people have been arrested in connection with the incident and they were all Iranians, Fars News Agency reported.
“Those behind this incident were (also) trying to cause a bomb explosion in one of Russia’s consulates,“ he said, without giving further details.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the United States, Israel and Britain on Tuesday of being responsible for the blast in the southern city of Shiraz, Fars province, which also wounded 200 people.
The Russian Embassy in Tehran was not immediately available for comment.
The Intelligence Ministry last week said it had arrested five or six members of a terrorist group with links to Britain and the United States, who it said were involved in the explosion.
Iran has yet to make public evidence against those arrested and the alleged involvement of the United States and Britain.
“So far, 15 people have been arrested and all the ones involved in this incident are our country’s nationals,“ Ejei said.
He ruled out any links between Shiraz bombers and Iran’s main armed terrorist opposition, the Mujahideen Khalq Organization.
Iran has blamed US and British agents based in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan for launching deadly attacks in recent years in border provinces with significant ethnic minority populations.
But the strike in Shiraz was the first in decades in Iran’s heartland. The normally placid city is not in a border zone, nor is it home to any significant ethnic or religious minority population.
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Pakistan
To Hand Over
Jundollah Terrorists
The Pakistani government is due to hand over members of the Jundollah terrorist group to the Islamic Republic soon.
Some senior members of Jundollah terrorist group, who were detained and imprisoned in Quetta, will be officially handed over to Iranian authorities within days, informed sources connected to the Pakistani government told Mehr News Agency.
The so-called Jundollah (Army of God) is a foreign-backed terrorist group that carried out attacks in the southern provinces of Iran to create sectarian strife.
Citizens of Iran’s southern provinces have repeatedly protested the terrorist acts of Jundollah members, calling on the government to annihilate the terrorist group.
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Ex-UN Inspector: Use Iran to Quit Iraq
Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter says the White House should use Iran’s influence to get out of Iraq’s quagmire.
Speaking at a press conference in Chicago, Ritter said the leaders of the Iraqi government have “very close“ ties with Tehran, Presstv reported.
Ritter said what happened in Basra signals the positive influence of Iran in resolving the Iraqi crisis.
“It was Iran brokering an agreement,“ he said.
Ritter was referring to Iran’s involvement in efforts to end fighting between the Mahdi Army fighters and US-Iraqi security forces in the southern city of Basra in late March.
The former UN official noted that the White House should be using “Iran’s influence“ to establish stability in Iraq.
Ritter’s remarks come at a time when US echelons are ratcheting up the pressure and accusing the Islamic Republic of supporting the insurgency in Iraq by aiding and training the militias.
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Taskhiri:
Globalization Akin
To Americanization
The present trend of globalization is in fact Americanization of the world, Secretary-General of the World Assembly for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Taskhiri said on Tuesday.
Addressing the opening ceremony of the assembly’s Fifth Conference on Human Relations in Islam, the senior cleric criticized the present trend of globalization carried out under the US auspices, IRNA reported.
“According to Islam, human relations are based on logic, flexibility, realism, harmony and morality as well as consideration for human nature,“ said Ayatollah Taskhiri who is in Syria to attend the conference.
He regretted that the West has damaged the image of Islam and Muslims in order to portray itself as a model for human societies.
Ayatollah Taskhiri stressed the need for confronting the present form of globalization, which he referred to as a kind of cultural invasion.
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Ahmadinejad Offers
Condolences to China
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday expressed his condolences to his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, over the country’s quake disaster.
In his message, the president offered condolences to the Chinese government, nation and the bereaved families of the victims of the killer quake, IRNA reported.
Nearly 15,000 people were killed in the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that hammered Sichuan province in southwest China on Monday while 25,000 are still trapped, BBC reported.
According to reports, the number of victims of the killer quake, China’s worst earthquake in three decades, is likely to soar.
The Sichuan quake was the worst to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan temblor in northeastern China where up to 300,000 people died.
Help Offered
Meanwhile, Health Minister Kamran Baqeri Lankarani, in a letter to his Chinese counterpart Chen Zhu on Wednesday, voiced Iran’s readiness to help the Chinese quake-stricken people.
Lankarani sympathized with the Chinese people and government on the quake disaster.
He expressed condolences to the Chinese people over the killer quake.
Lankarani also expressed the sympathy of the Iranian nation and government as well as the staff of the Health Ministry to the quake-stricken people.
Schools, factories, houses and a hospital in the southwestern province of Sichuan have been destroyed and the number of victims is expected to rise further.
Close to the epicenter, around 80 percent of buildings are now in ruins.
The quake struck around 100 kilometers north of the provincial capital, Chengdu, but tremors were felt as far away as Thailand and Vietnam.
The killer quake destroyed at least eight schools, burying hundreds of children. About 900 teenagers were trapped under the rubble of one 3-story building.
With thousands of homes destroyed or unsafe, many are spending the night on the streets.
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Japan Ties Discussed
Iranian Ambassador in Tokyo Abbas Araqchi held talks with Japan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kenichiro Sasae on issues of mutual interest on Wednesday.
Senegalese Speaker Due
Speaker of Senegalese Senate Pape Diop, heading a delegation, is to arrive Tehran on Friday to review issues of mutual interest with senior Iranian officials.
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Elites
KAYHAN: Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei named the new Iranian year (started March 20) after “innovation and prosperity“. During his tour of the Fars province, the leader urged the elites to come forward with innovative and creative ideas. The leader said the nation, the elites and officials bear the responsibility of setting up a prosperous outlook for the country and developing in all areas. One of the mechanisms of good decision-making is to consult experts and elites in various domains. Political leaders and high-ranking officials should prepare the framework for the elites to enter the area of decision making. Engaging the elites will help make the nation prosperous and reduce brain drain to a great extent.
New Parliament
RESALAT: The eighth parliament is set to convene soon. It is different from other parliaments in that members of the rightwing party occupy a majority of seats. The renewed victory of rightwingers for another term of four years indicates that they have been successful in meeting the people’s needs and expectations. The next parliament is starting work at a time when the Islamic Republic is in a powerful position in the region. The new parliament should implement the guidelines of the leadership and serve the nation by addressing their problems. The formation of a unified parliament will also be a major blow to the world imperialist powers conspiring and bullying other countries to establish their hegemony and plunder their resources.
Planning
DONYA-YE EQTESAD: As stipulated in the Iranian Constitution, the economy is divided into government, private and cooperative sectors, each with their own fields of activities, rights and responsibilities. However, the executive branch is obliged to help the latter two with supportive policies and implementation of those policies. The government is also obliged to maintain a close and permanent working relationship with the Majlis. As in all other areas, in economic planning too, policymaking has a vital role and supervision over the implementation of policies is of secondary importance. Those in charge of planning should chart out the economic course of action in line with the current and future needs. In other words, economic planning should be a function of taking all relevant factors into consideration. Unfortunately, economic planning in Iran remains far from desirable. Given the past pattern of events, setting up a single body for national economic affairs and eliminating parallel decision-making entities is inevitable.
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