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May 15-19, 2000 / Ordibehesht 26-30, 1379

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Latest

* 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

Sports | Arts | Business| Rights | Community


Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday


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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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.'' >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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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 >>> FULL TEXT

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