IRAN DAILY

License Holder: (IRNA) www.irna.ir ● Number 4512 ● Tuesday May 21, 2013 ● Ordibehesht 31, 1392 ● Rajab 10, 1434 ● Price 2,000 Rials ● 12 Pages ● www.iran-daily.com

Upcoming Election Will Fortify Iran’s Status

3 Contestants Quit Presidential Race

Euro 4 Gasoline Production To Increase

Daei Back as Persepolis Boss

Series of Deadly Attacks Rock Iraq Cities

Air Defense System Under Mass Production

Iran’s latest indigenous air defense battery, Ninth Herz, has hit the production line in a ceremony attended by Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi.
The production line was inaugurated on Monday on the occasion of the upcoming birth anniversary of Imam Muhammad Al-Taqi (AS), the ninth Shiite Imam, and in the run-up to the 31st anniversary of the liberation of the city of Khorramshahr in the southwestern Khuzestan province, Fars News Agency reported.
Iranian troops launched Operation Beit-ul-Moqaddas in April 1982 and liberated Khorramshahr from Iraqi occupation on May 24 of the same year.
Vahidi said during the ceremony that the aerial defense system is able to detect and track targets at low altitudes and automatically shoot them down. He said the battery enjoys high mobility and can be operated at nights.
“The system can be connected to the country’s defense network and can be deployed and activated in less than a few minutes to counter threats,” the minister added.
The Herz air defense system has been designed and produced by Iranian experts.
In April, Iran unveiled a number of indigenous military equipment including a stealth unmanned aerial vehicle, two missile systems and a mobile electronic interception system, to mark national Army Day. Over the past years, Iran has made important breakthroughs in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in producing important military equipment and systems.
The Islamic Republic has repeatedly assured other nations, especially its neighbors, that its military might poses no threat to other countries, insisting that its defense doctrine is based on deterrence.

Councils Candidates List Out in June

Iran’s Central Supervisory Board of City and Rural Council Elections will announce the final list of approved hopefuls for the upcoming city and rural council polls in June.
Abdolreza Mesri, the spokesman for the board, said on Monday that the final list of candidates would be announced on June 2, Mehr News Agency reported.
Meanwhile, Mohammad-Javad Kolivand, head of the supervisory board, said that the board would respond to complaints from those who have not been approved by May 25. The supervisory body said on Sunday that up to 95 percent of the nearly 300,000 hopefuls who signed up for the upcoming city and rural council elections have been approved.
The fourth city and rural council elections are scheduled to be held on June 14, concurrent with Iran’s 11th presidential poll.
The city and rural Islamic councils are local establishments that are elected by public vote in all cities and villages across the country. Council members in each city or village are elected for a four-year term.
The councils are tasked with helping the Islamic Republic’s social, economic, cultural and educational advancement by encouraging public cooperation.

UNHCR Hails Iran’s Support for Refugees

Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Bernard De Ville has hailed Iran for protecting and supporting foreign refugees in the country.
Outlining the activities of his organization, he told IRNA on Sunday the UNHCR has been in Iran for a quarter of a century and the organization aims to support the Iranian government for its efforts to protect the refugees living in the country.
Noting that his organization mainly tries to render services to refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan, he said over 880,000 refugees from the two countries are presently living in Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, due to its security and economic stability, stands first in the region for receiving migrants fleeing their war-torn countries, the UNHCR envoy reiterated. Over the past three decades, Iran has been hosting many refugees from neighboring countries especially Afghanistan, though it has received little international support.
The voluntary repatriation of Afghan refugees from Iran has been slow in recent years in the face of poor security and economic conditions in Afghanistan, which Tehran blames on the US-led occupation of the country since 2001. In a meeting with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres in Geneva earlier this year, Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar urged the international community to fulfill its obligations towards refugees.

Mistakes of Ayatollah and His Opponents

A Review of Conducts of Hashemi Rafsanjaini’s Opponents

By Hanif-Hossein Sattarian


Why should Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani be respected as presidential hopeful? There’s a big question mark hanging over the heads of many in the lead-up to the 11th presidential vote. Some analysts believe that incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at Mr. Rafsanjani during his election campaign back in 2005 and 2009 presidential vote merely to garner more votes and make his way into the office and just for personal reasons. So some consider this tactic as an efficient mechanism to bag votes.
Rafsanjani, as the chairman of the State Expediency Council, has always blasted the Ahmadinejad administration for its policies and still remains an outspoken critic of the government.
But the question is: can other politicians come out against Rafsanjani and challenge him? Why are some trying to imply that Ahmadinejad’s rivalry with Rafsanjani stems from his grudges against Hashemi?
Mr. Rafsanjani has been the symbol of a manager who can be openly criticized and due to this characteristic, a majority of reformists have expressed their ‘conditional support’ for his presidential bid. President Ahmadinejad disapproved of Rafsanjani’s way of running the country so, he strived to fill the gap.
Maybe in some situations, some Ahmadinejad’s supporters or pseudo-supporters let’s say, went too far with their radical acts, and in some cases they prevented Ahmadinejad’s core views be seen or his voice be heard. Some of those hardliners are still attacking Rafsanjani on behalf of Ahmadinejad without even knowing the reality of critical stances toward Rafsanjani.
Ahmadinejad’s slogan was to realize justice in the society. He has lambasted Rafsanjani not as a person (anyway as a person he is a respectable figure), but as a symbol and as the head of a harmful political current.

Syrian Army Enforcing Peace

By Emad Abshenass
The best way to achieve peace is for all sides of a conflict to sit and negotiate. Sometimes one side believes it is more powerful and starts bullying to force its own conditions before talking. Or it even believes that it can impose its will militarily without the need to sit and talk.
It is nearly impossible to find a government in the world that has no opponents and of course supporters (otherwise it would have never been able to reach power). The Syrian government is no exception. If every opposition wants to enforce its will on the elected government by military means, then we would witness endless wars all over the world. The normal way to solve the differences is through elections and negotiations. However, this negotiation should be between the parties concerned and not foreigners who interfere in issues on which they have no authority and just disturb the security of other countries.
When the Syrian crises started, Iran’s stance was obvious--support for the legal government elected by the people and encouraging negotiations between different sections of the Syrian society and the opposition with the government to overcome the differences.
Iran’s close ties with the Syrian government and people made this country feel obliged to propose interaction between the Syrian government and opposition to solve their differences. Two successful conferences were held in Tehran and both sides sat and talked to each other in a civilized manner. No side was aiming to tear the other side apart. The Syrian people were seeking peace but on the ground, foreign mercenaries were killing and raping the Syrians and disturbing the country’s security. They all agreed that the Syrian Army should ensure security and become symbol of unity and be respected by all the Syrian people.
Since political means were unsuccessful in solving the Syrian crises, the army had to take over and free the country of foreign mercenaries before any new talks between the Syrian parties could come to a conclusion.

Iranians Develop Paste For Bone Repair

Iranian experts have developed an injection paste for the treatment of bone diseases, said the head of Iran’s Nanotechnology...

Heavier Fines for Hunting Violations

A tenfold rise in fines for hunting and fishing violations has been proposed to the Department of Environment for protecting species at risk of extinction.

Investors Fleeing Japan

After Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s stimulus caused price swings to increase by the most in the world this year, investors are starting to flee what used to be the slowest-moving major debt market.
Price volatility for Japanese government bonds has surged 2.6 percentage points this year to 3.66 percent, the biggest advance among 26 sovereign-debt markets tracked by Bloomberg and the European Federation of Financial Analysts Societies.
Swings in German bunds rose 0.48 percentage point during the period, while those for US Treasuries increased 0.07 point, Bloomberg wrote.
Japanese money managers bought more overseas bonds than they sold for three straight weeks through May 10, in line with Kuroda’s goal of pushing investors out of sovereign debt and into riskier assets such as foreign notes.
While the increase in investments abroad is a sign that his monetary stimulus is gaining traction, it’s been accompanied by rising JGB volatility and higher interest rates that could weigh on the economy.
“The BOJ’s aim was to spur portfolio rebalancing by keeping bond yields low, but it now faces the chance of triggering that in an unintended way by increasing volatility,” said Shogo Fujita, the chief Japanese bond strategist in Tokyo at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, one of the 24 primary dealers obliged to bid at government debt auctions.

Afghan Suicide Attack Leaves 14 Dead

A suicide bomber struck outside government buildings in northern Afghanistan on Monday, killing at least 14 people including a senior local politician, officials said.
Emergency services rushed to the scene and took the wounded to hospital after the bomber, who was wearing a police uniform, blew himself up in the centre of Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province, AFP reported.
“I collected information from different hospitals and the death toll is 14. Another nine people are wounded,” said, Zubair Akbary, the provincial public health director.
Police said that the bomber, who was on foot, had targeted Rasoul Mohseni, head of Baghlan’s provincial council, an elected body in each of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces that liaises between residents and the local government. Also among the dead were seven police guards and several other people who were at the government buildings to speak to Mohseni.
“The suicide bombing was in front of the provincial council building in the city of Pul-e-Khumri,” said, Sadeq Muradi, Baghlan province’s deputy police chief.
Khalil Musadeq, the chief of the Pul-e-Khumri hospital, confirmed that at least 11 people, including Mohseni, were killed in the blast. President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack and blamed the bombing on “enemies of Afghanistan”, a phrase Afghan officials often use to refer to the Taliban, though there was no immediate claim of responsibility.