News
Oct 19-23, 1998 / Mehr 27-1 Aban, 1377
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Today
* Khatami hits out at poll choices
* "Minimal" vote in key assembly
* Leftist on hunger strike in French prison
* Iran slams U.N. criticism on rights as ``political''
Previous
* Clinton blocks family
from moves against Iran
* Iran may extradite US rape suspect
* Iran polls provoke more shrugs than passion
* Hard-liners urge people to vote
* Many demands of Iranian refugees' met
* Swedish police say AIDS man probably Iranian
* Iran frees on bail journalists of banned daily
* Rights violated in Iran despite reform moves - U.N.
* Karbaschi's speech at rally
* Iran says Afghan Taleban
still holding Iranians
* U.S. general warns on Iran nukes
* Middle East arms spending soars despite oil slump
* Problem: School dropouts
* Riot police break up rally
* Iran says no Taleban talks until killers punished
* MKO says fought Tehran gunmen in Iraq
* Iran right says not worried about low poll turnout
* Afghan Taleban to hold talks with Iran in Jeddah
* U.N. envoy says Iran-Taleban tensions eased
* IHRWG condemns crackdown on Baha'is in Iran
* Iran villagers make Rushdie offer
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Friday
Oct 23, 1998
* Khatami hits out at poll choices
TEHRAN, Oct 23 (Reuters) - President Mohammad Khatami urged Iranians
to take part in Friday's polls for a clerical assembly but not before taking
a swipe at the selection process that had barred many of his reformist
allies from the race. Casting his ballot at the Jamaran Mosque once favoured
by the late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the president
said the vetting of candidates had deprived voters of a broad range of
choices... FULL
TEXT
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* "Minimal" vote in key assembly
Friday, October 23, 1998, TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's official media
boasted about a huge turnout in elections Friday for the council that oversees
the country's supreme leader. But many polling stations were nearly empty
in Tehran, the capital and largest city and where some voters complained
that hard-line clerics had already decided the outcome. State-controlled
Tehran radio reported ``unprecedented and unique'' voting levels for the
86-member Assembly of Experts. But correspondents who visited a dozen polling
stations around the capital found turnout to be minimal. Only two polling
stations had voters waiting in line ... FULL
TEXT
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* Leftist on hunger strike in French prison
PARIS, Oct 23 (Reuters) - An Iranian leftist exile jailed in France
on common criminal charges has been on a life-threatening hunger strike
in a Paris jail for over a month, colleagues said on Friday. The Organisation
of Guerrillas of the Iranian People said in a statement that Ahmad Fahimi,
also known as Khosrow, was in ``a critical state of health, might lose
his sight and hearing and could be in danger of death in the coming days.''...
FULL
TEXT
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* Iran slams U.N. criticism on rights as ``political''
TEHRAN, Oct 23 (Reuters) - Iran on Friday rejected as ``political''
a U.N. report which said significant human rights violations were continuing
there even though many Iranian leaders wished to move towards a more tolerant
society. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mahmoud Mohammadi said the report was
``incompatible with realities and current developments in Iran'' after
last year's election of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, the Iranian
news agency IRNA reported... FULL
TEXT
Thursday
Oct 22, 1998
* Clinton blocks family from moves against
Iran
WASHINGTON, Oct 21 (Reuters) - President Bill
Clinton on Wednesday blocked part of a bill that would have allowed the
family of an American student killed in the Gaza Strip to collect damages
by attaching Iranian government property. But the White House said it would
discuss the possibility of attaching Iranian commercial properties with
the family of Alisa Flatow, 20, who died in the 1995 suicide bombing of
an Israeli bus in the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip. Flatow's family won a
court battle in March when a U.S. federal judge ordered Iran to pay $247
million in damages... FULL
TEXT
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* Iran may extradite US rape suspect
CAIRO, Egypt, Oct. 22 (UPI) -- Iran has offered to extradite a U.S.
citizen charged with rape in the United States in what would mark the first
law enforcement cooperation between the two countries in two decades. A
U.S. law enforcement official in Cairo says today Iranian officials made
the offer through Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization,
of which both countries are members... FULL
TEXT
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* Iran polls provoke more shrugs than passion
TEHRAN, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Iranians from many walks of life look ahead
to Friday's election for an obscure body of Shi'ite Moslem theologians
and ask what difference it will make to them. The polls for the clergy-based
Assemby of Experts, which appoints and can dismiss Iran's supreme leader,
have been billed by conservative clerics as crucial to the survival of
Iran's Islamic system. Voting, they say, is a religious duty ... FULL
TEXT
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* Hard-liners urge people to vote
Thursday, October 22, 1998 TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Fearing an embarrassingly
low turnout in a key election, senior conservative clerics fervently urged
Iranians to vote Friday to show confidence in the 19-year-old Islamic regime.
The hard-line controlled state Tehran radio spent half its hour-long main
news program Thursday broadcasting calls for people to show their ``brave
presence'' at polling stations to elect the Assembly of Experts. Masanao
Goto said... FULL
TEXT
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* Many demands of Iranian refugees' met
October 21, 1998 (International Federation of Iranian Refugees) - The
sit-in of 200 Iranian refugees in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, in protest to
the policies and practices of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) - Iraq, has ended. (See earlier statement) Faced with
local pressure from the sit-in participants as well international pressure
coordinated by the International Federation of Iranian Refugees (IFIR),
the UNHCR finally addressed many of the legitimate demands of the refugees...
FULL
TEXT
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* Swedish police say AIDS man probably Iranian
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A man infected with the AIDS virus who had sex
with at least 70 or 80 women in Sweden was probably an Iranian who had
lived under a false identity for years, police said Thursday. Panicky women
who had sex with the man were lining up for tests to see if they had contracted
the AIDS virus. ``We know he had sex with 70 to 80 women. There are probably
more we don't know about,'' Stockholm detective Christer Sjoblom told Reuters.
Calls were pouring in from scared women, he said... FULL
TEXT
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Wednesday
Oct 21, 1998
* Iran frees on bail journalists of banned daily
TEHRAN, Oct 21 (Reuters) - An Iranian court on Wednesday released on
bail two journalists arrested a month ago after their outspoken moderate
daily was banned, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported. It quoted a court
official as saying Tous daily's managing-director Mohammad Sadeq Javadi-Hessar
and columnist Ebrahim Nabavi, arrested on unspecified security charges
in mid-September, were freed on bail. The move followed the release on
bail last week of Hamid Reza Jalaeipour, the newspaper's business director.
Editor Mashallah Shamsolvaezin remains in jail... FULL
TEXT
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* Rights violated in Iran despite reform moves - U.N.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Significant human rights violations
continue in Iran, though many of the country's leaders wish to move toward
a more tolerant and peaceful society, a U.N. investigator said on Wednesday.
`The obstacles to be overcome in achieving this goal are very evident and
success is by no means assured,'' said the U.N. Human Rights Commission's
special representative for Iran, Maurice Copithorne of Canada... FULL
TEXT
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* Iran conservatives risk prestige in polls
TEHRAN, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Iran's conservative
clerics have staked their prestige on a respectable turnout in Friday's
polls to a powerful state body, but voters seem set to challenge them by
staying at home and handing them a moral defeat... FULL
TEXT
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* Karbaschi's speech at rally
TEHRAN, (Hamshahri) - "We have to use the power of the ballot to
reach our goals," said Gholam-Hossein Karbaschi in a major speech
at yesterday's Kargozaran rally... FULL
TEXT IN PERSIAN
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* Iran says Afghan Taleban still holding Iranians
TEHRAN, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Iran, involved in a
military standoff with the Afghan Taleban, accused the Islamic militia
on Wednesday of holding more Iranians and demanded their release, Iranian
state television reported. The charges came after the Taleban freed 26
Iranians, who were reported to be the last Iranian captives held by Afghanistan's
ruling militia... FULL
TEXT
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* U.S. general warns on Iran nukes
Wednesday, October 21, 1998; WASHINGTON (AP) - Iran could deliver nuclear
weapons within five years and poses a far greater long-term threat than
Iraq, the senior U.S. commander in the Persian Gulf region warned Wednesday.
``If I were a betting man, I would say they are on track within five years,
they would have the capability,'' said Gen. Anthony Zinni, head of the
U.S. Central Command ... FULL
TEXT
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* Middle East arms spending soars despite oil slump
LONDON, Oct 22 (Reuters) - Arms spending continues to soar in the Middle
East despite a slump in oil prices, amid growing concern about a regional
ballistic missile arms race, an authoritative study said on Thursday. ``The
Military Balance,'' an annual study of military spending and capabilities
compiled by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said
the Middle East remained by far the world's biggest arms importing region
... FULL
TEXT
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* Problem: School dropouts
TEHRAN, (Hamshahri) - Feature on school dropouts -- and the problem
is more serious with girls than boys...
FULL TEXT IN PERSIAN
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Tuesday
Oct 20, 1998
* Riot police break up rally
Tuesday, October 20, TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Riot police broke up a pro-democracy
rally Tuesday at a Tehran stadium after hard-line vigilantes and protesters
began scuffling.The fighting began as Gholamhossein Karbaschi, the suspended
mayor of Tehran, was urging the 3,000 people at the stadium to take part
in Friday's elections for the Assembly of Experts, a body that elects the
country's supreme leader. A few hundred people from both sides shoved and
pushed each other -- and at least a half-dozen were beaten -- before police
intervened... FULL
TEXT
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* Iran says no Taleban talks until killers punished
TEHRAN, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Tehran said on Tuesday it would not agree
to talks to ease tension with Afghanistan's ruling Taleban militia unless
those responsible for killing Iranian diplomats were punished, the official
Iranian news agency IRNA reported... FULL
TEXT
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* MKO says fought Tehran gunmen in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Oct 20 (Reuters) - The Iraqi-based Mujahideen Khalq Iranian
opposition group said on Tuesday that Iranian agents opened fire on a group's
vehicle on a road north of Baghdad on Monday. It said in a statement that
Iranian ``terrorists'' had opened machinegun fire on a Mujahideen vehicle
near the city of Khalis, 60 km north of the Iraqi capital, in an attempt
to kill Mujahideen passengers. The statement made no mention of any casualties...
FULL
TEXT
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Monday
Oct 5, 1998
* Iran right says not worried about low poll turnout
TEHRAN, Oct 19 (Reuters) - A leading Iranian conservative said on Monday
his faction was not concerned about a possible low turnout in elections
for a powerful state body later this week. ``If the number of participants
shows an increase proportionate to the population growth since the last
elections, then elections will have been successful,'' parliament deputy
Mohammad Reza Bahonar told a news conference... FULL
TEXT
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* Afghan Taleban to hold talks with Iran in Jeddah
KABUL, Oct 16 (Reuters) - Afghanistan's Islamic Taleban militia, locked
in a military standoff with neighbouring Iran, are to hold peace talks
with Tehran in the Saudi Arabian city Jeddah, a militia spokesman said
on Friday. A Taleban spokesman, Abdul Hai Mutmaen, told Reuters from the
militia's headquarters in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, that an
agreement to meet Iranian leaders in Jeddah was reached during a U.N. envoy's
visit on Wednesday ... FULL
TEXT
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* U.N. envoy says Iran-Taleban tensions eased
ISLAMABAD, Oct 19 (Reuters) - A senior United Nations envoy said on
Monday that tensions between Iran and Afghanistan's ruling Taleban militia
had eased, and added he would return to Tehran on Tuesday with a proposal
for direct talks between the two sides. U.N. special envoy on Afghanistan
Lakhdar Brahimi told a news conference he also planned to visit neighbouring
Central Asian states to pursue his long-term mission for peace in war-torn
Afghanistan ... FULL
TEXT
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* IHRWG condemns crackdown on Baha'is in Iran
Iranian Human Rights Working Group (IHRWG), Oct 16, 1998 -- The Iranian
Human Rights Working Group (IHRWG) strongly condemns the recent crackdown
against the Iranian Baha'i community. The Iranian Baha'is have been ruthlessly
persecuted by the authorities of the Islamic Republic and are deprived
of most basic rights, including the right to freely and publicly practice
their religion, the right to higher education, the right to representation,
and access to all jobs ... FULL
TEXT
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* Iran villagers make Rushdie offer
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Residents of a village in northern Iran have offered
land and carpets to anyone who kills British author Salman Rushdie, a newspaper
reported Sunday. The people of Kiapey will give 10 carpets, 5,400 sq. yards
of agricultural land and a house with a 1,800 sq. yard garden in their
Caspian Sea coastal village to Rushdie's assassin, the Farsi-language paper
Kayhan said ... FULL
TEXT
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