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May 15-19, 2000 / Ordibehesht 26-30, 1379
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* Khamenei steps in to defuse elections
crisis
* Allies leave U.S. in Iran deal
* Albright says World Bank approval of Iran loans 'inappropriate'
* U.S. to maintain policy against Iranian oil swaps
Recent
* Khamenei endorses poll results
* Tehran election results to be announced in next two days:
Guardian Council
* World Bank approves Iran loans
* Iran to release more Iraqi prisoners of war next week:
radio
* US Jews snub Mandela over Iran support
* Iran jails five for shooting of reformer
* GC to allow Tehran results stand: paper
* Jewish defendant: It wasn't espionage
* Albright rallies opposition to loans
* Iran seals border in drugs war
* Iran seeks help from world nuclear body
* Another reformist newspaper closed
* Rafsanjani will have to fight second round of elections:
press
* Iran Jews to escape death penalty for "spying":
French lawyer
* World Bank to consider Iran loan
* 5,000 Iraqi prisoners refuse to go back home
* Khatami suffers mild heart problem in time of political
pressure
* Guardians Council to decide Tehran's
fate this week
* Suspects admit passing material to Israel
* Lawyers of accused Jews threaten to sue state TV
* Saudi Arabia welcomes Iranian pullout from disputed
gas field
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Friday
May 19, 2000
* Khamenei steps in to defuse elections crisis
TEHRAN, May 19 (AFP) - Iranians breathed a sigh of relief Friday after
supreme leader Ayatollah Al Khamenei stepped in to cool political tension
by ordering a conservative election watchdog to endorse the results of
voting in Tehran despite reported irregularities. The move opened the
way for almost all 290 members of the new parliament, dominated by reformists
close to President Mohammad Khatami, to take their seats for the opening
session in some 10 days time >>>
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* Allies leave U.S. in Iran deal
WASHINGTON (AP) - Some of America's best friends split away to approve
$232 million in World Bank loans to Iran, despite intensive lobbying by
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She made three arguments against
the loans: That Iran sponsors terrorism, has not adopted sound economic
principles and should not be rewarded while it conducts a ``show trial''
of 13 Jews on charges of spying for Israel >>>
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* Albright says World Bank approval of Iran loans 'inappropriate'
WASHINGTON, May 19 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright
said Thursday that World Bank approval of two multi-million-dollar loans
to Iran was "inappropriate" given the Islamic Republic's support
for terrorism, and the controversial ongoing trial of 13 Jews on espionage
charges. Iran "is a country that has been designated a state sponsor
of terrorism and also we consider the vote today inappropriate given the
current political situation in Iran and the government show trial,"
Albright told reporters >>>
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* U.S. to maintain policy against Iranian oil swaps
WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) - Despite an improvement in Iran's world
standing, the Clinton administration will not lift its ban on U.S. energy
companies entering into crude oil swaps with Iran, a top U.S. official
said on Friday. ``We do not encourage...that kind of cooperation,'' said
John Wolf, the Clinton administration's special advisor on Caspian energy
issues. ``That's our position, and I don't see it changing anytime soon.''
>>>
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Thursday
May 18, 2000
* Iranian leader endorses poll results
May 18, (BBC) -- Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has ruled
that the results of the February general elections for Tehran should be
largely validated. This comes despite misgivings by the Council of Guardians,
the highly conservative body constitutionally charged with approving the
results >>>
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* Tehran election results to be announced in next two days: Guardian
Council
TEHRAN, May 18 (AFP) - The final results of February's parliamentary
elections in Tehran will be announced Saturday at the latest, the Iranian
election watchdog body said Thursday, reported by Iranian state radio.
The conservative- dominated Council of Guardians, which has to confirm
all election results, said it was responding to an "express request"
by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei >>>
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* World Bank approves Iran loans
WASHINGTON Overriding U.S. opposition, the World Bank today
approved $232 million in loans to Iran, the first in seven years. World
Bank President James Wolfensohn and other participants at the meeting of
the bank's 24-member executive board said the United States voted against
the proposal, while France and Canada abstained >>>
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* Iran to release more Iraqi prisoners of war next week: radio
TEHRAN, May 18 (AFP) - Iran will shortly release another 460 Iraqi prisoners
captured during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, state radio reported Wednesday.
They will be freed on May 24, the anniversary of the 1981 liberation of
the southwestern city of Khorramshahr, which was occupied by Iraqi forces
in the first weeks of the war >>>
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* US Jews snub Mandela over Iran support
May 18, 2000 (Daily Telegraph) -- NELSON MANDELA has been snubbed by
a leading American Jewish organisation because he expressed support for
Iran's trial of 13 Jews on spying charges. The 82-year-old former South
African president was due to be presented with a medallion marking his
support for Israel and his long fight for human rights at a lunch given
for him by the American Jewish Committee, an influential lobby group
>>>
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Wednesday
May 17, 2000
* Iran jails five for shooting of reformer
TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian court jailed five men Wednesday for up
to 15 years for the attempted assassination of leading reformer Saeed Hajjarian,
the official news agency IRNA reported. It said the revolutionary court
sentenced Saeed Asgar, a chemistry student who shot and seriously wounded
Hajjarian in the March attack, to 15 years in jail for endangering national
security >>>
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* GC To Allow Tehran Results Stand: Paper
Tehran, May 17, IRNA -- An unconfirmed report last night said that the
Guardian Council had taken a vote on whether to invalidate the election
results of the Tehran Constituency, reported the English-language `Iran
News' daily on Wednesday >>>
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* Jewish defendant: It wasn't espionage
SHIRAZ, Iran (AP) - One of 10 Jewish defendants on trial for spying
in Iran testified Wednesday that he had collected military information
and photographs for the Israeli state, but did not consider his actions
espionage, a defense spokesman said. It was not immediately clear if Javid
Bent-Yacoub's admission amounted to a guilty plea or not >>>
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* Albright rallies opposition to loans
WASHINGTON (AP) - Using telephone diplomacy, Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright is calling foreign ministers to try to rally opposition to $231
million in World Bank loans to Iran. The loans, delayed in April, are to
be taken up Thursday by the bank's 24 executive directors. One, for $145
million, would be for a sewage treatment project in Tehran. The other,
for $86.1 million, would help improve health care in urban and rural areas
>>>
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* Iran seals border in drugs war
May 17, 2000 -- Iran is planning to seal off its border with Afghanistan
in a new move to combat drug smuggling. Walls and fences equipped with
high-tech electronic security are to be built along the 600-mile border
to try to stem the flow of heroin >>>
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* Iran seeks help from world nuclear body
TEHRAN, May 17 (Reuters) - Iran asked the International Atomic Energy
Agency on Wednesday to help run a nuclear research centre, the official
news agency IRNA reported. Iran , which says it has no ambition to develop
nuclear weapons, wants Western experts to help ensure its nuclear power
projects conform to top international safety standards >>>
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Tuesday
May 16, 2000
* Another reformist newspaper closed
May 16, (BBC) -- Another reformist newspaper in Tehran has been closed
down on the orders of the hardline Iranian judiciary. The newspaper, Ham'mihan,
was run by the former mayor of Tehran, Gholamhossein Karbaschi >>>
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* Rafsanjani will have to fight second round of elections: press
TEHRAN, May 16 (AFP) - Former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani
will have to go through a second round of voting if he wants a seat in
the next reformist-dominated parliament, a newspaper said Tuesday. The
reformist daily Bahar said Rafsanjani, who headed the conservative-backed
list of candidates in Tehran in the February elections, had failed to win
one of the constituency's 30 seats outright in the first round, along with
two reformists >>>
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* Iran Jews to escape death penalty for "spying": French
lawyer
TEHRAN, May 16 (AFP) - Iranian judicial authorities have assured a French
lawyer that none of the 13 Jews currently on trial for allegedly spying
for Israel will be sentenced to death, the lawyer told AFP Tuesday. Pierre
Dunac, one of two French lawyers granted visas to go to the southern city
of Shiraz for the trial, said, "There will be no death penalty. I
have been given assurances to this effect. It's a certainty." >>> FULL
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* World Bank to consider Iran loan
WASHINGTON (AP) - The World Bank's 24 executive directors are scheduled
Thursday to consider a delayed proposal to lend $231 million to Iran. The
proposal was delayed in April, and the United States will seek another
postponement, a U.S. official said. Canada and France are understood to
be aligned with the United States in opposition to the loans >>>
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* 5,000 Iraqi prisoners refuse to go back home
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - About 5,000 Iraqi soldiers captured by Iran during
the two countries' 1980-1988 war are refusing to return home, the International
Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday. Iranian authorities have granted
them asylum and they are free to move inside Iran, said Beat Schweizer,
the ICRC head of delegation in Iraq >>>
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Monday
May 15, 2000
* Khatami suffers mild heart problem in time of political pressure
TEHRAN, May 15 (AFP) - Political pressure is growing on Tehran's reformist
President Mohammad Khatami, whose health seems to be suffering as a result.
Iran's president suffered a mild heart problem last week and spent several
hours Thursday in a Tehran clinic, a hospital source told AFP Monday. Sunday,
Khatami went to another Tehran hospital to undergo a series of cardiological
tests, his office said >>>
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* Guardians Council to decide Tehran's fate this week
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - An Iranian supervisory council that has threatened
to annul election results in the capital said Sunday it would announce
the results of its recount this week. The Guardian Council ``decided to
announce its decision Thursday after recounting is completed in order to
put an end to the waiting of the noble people,'' council head Ayatollah
Ahmad Jannati said on Tehran radio >>>
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* Suspects admit passing material to Israel
SHIRAZ, Iran (Reuters) - Two suspects in Iran's Jewish espionage trial
admitted Monday to working with Israeli intelligence but denied they were
founding members of the alleged spy ring, their lawyers said. Farhad Seleh,
a shopkeeper trained as a geologist, and Asher Zadmehr, a university language
instructor, separately told the closed session of the Revolutionary Court
they had collected information and handed it over to the Jewish state >>>
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* Lawyers of accused Jews threaten to sue state TV
SHIRAZ, Iran (AP) - Defense lawyers for 13 Iranian Jews charged with
spying for Israel threatened to sue ``all those concerned'' on Monday if
any more of their clients' confessions were broadcast on television without
permission. The latest hearing in the closed-door trial adjourned Monday
in the southern city of Shiraz with two more admissions of guilt, said
Esmail Naseri, lawyer for three of the defendants and spokesman of the
defense team >>>
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* Saudi Arabia welcomes Iranian pullout from disputed gas field
RIYADH, May 15 (AFP) - Saudi Arabia welcomed Monday the announcement
by Iran that it had stopped all drilling at the Dorra offshore gas field
which Riyadh, Kuwait and Tehran all claim. "It's a praiseworthy act
of good neighbourliness," Defence Minister Prince Sultan bin Abdel
Aziz told the official Saudi Press Agency >>>
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