News
Feb 22-26, 1999 / Esfand 3-7,1377
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Today
* Election test for reformists
* Voting picks up in landmark Iranian poll
* Key facts about Iran's first local council polls
* U.N. investigator urges Iran to continue reforms
* Human rights improve in parts of Mideast - U.S.
* U.S. State Department's 1998 human rights report
* Majority of Italian deputies oppose Khatami visit
* Ex-President Carter's son still aims to visit Iran
* Navy to stage war games near disputed island
Previous
* Reformers finally get go-ahead
* Several injured in attack on reformist party HQ
* Moderate party condemns attack
* Iran exiles, Italy MPs denounce Khatami visit
* Germany nears debt deal with Iran
* Russia blasts US over Iran sanctions
* Violence ahead of Iran elections
* Dissidents, yuppies, radicals vie in Iran vote
* New intelligence chief approved by parliament
* Khatami speech for Yunesi
* Three killed in protests in Iranian Kurdistan
* Oil markets fixed on Saudi, Iran mystery
* Threaten to cancel Tehran's city council elections
* Leading reform candidate says disqualification illegal
* Conservatives maintain hold on key electoral council
* Four hurt as protestors attack Iraqi embassy in Tehran
* Pro-Ocalan demonstrations turn violent in Iran
* Iranian president to visit Saudi Arabia soon
* Moderate candidates barred from Iran election
* Iran's reformers campaign for ``Islam of love''
* Four more arrests in dissident deaths
* Carter's son refused Iran visa
* Iran rids German of death sentence
* Iran blames Iraq for killing of senior cleric
* Iran secures $900 mln loan for gasfield-MEES
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Friday
February 26, 1999
* Election test for reformists
Tehran, Fbe 26, (BBC) - Iranians have finished voting in their first
local elections since the Islamic revolution 20 years ago, to choose the
powerful councils that run towns and cities. Turnout in Tehran was reported
to be large, particularly among young people, and authorities extended
polling by two hours both in the capital and many other parts of Iran ...
FULL
TEXT
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* Voting picks up in landmark Iranian poll
TEHRAN, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Iranians voted on Friday in the country's
first local elections, part of ambitious political reforms fostered by
President Mohammad Khatami to challenge the centralised grip of the conservative
clerical establishment. Voter turnout, light in the morning of the Moslem
sabbath, picked up later in the day. Election officials said they expected
the trend to continue into the early evening ... FULL
TEXT
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* Key facts about Iran's first local council polls
TEHRAN, Feb 26 (Reuters) - These are the key facts about elections on
Friday for city, town and village ``Islamic councils,'' the first such
polls in Iranian history. All figures are from reports by state media:
... FULL
TEXT
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*
* U.N. investigator urges Iran to continue reforms
GENEVA, Feb 26 (Reuters) - A United Nations human rights investigator
has urged Iran's government to continue on the path to reform but warned
that opposition to change may be getting increasingly violent. Maurice
Copithorne, the U.N. Human Rights Commission's special representative on
Iran, said President Mohammad Khatami's reformist agenda had made progress
since his last report, published in October ... FULL
TEXT
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* Human rights improve in parts of Mideast - U.S.
WASHINGTON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Human rights improved last year in parts
of the Middle East, including Syria, Iran and the Palestinian territories,
the U.S. State Department said on Friday. The report also saw ``some improvements
in a few areas'' in Iran, even though that country's overall human rights
performance was rated ``poor.'' The Iranian government eased the licensing
for new publications, sparking an increase in reported circulation of print
media, according to the report. However, the report said, ``There was an
increase in the disappearances of prominent writers and dissident figures
during the latter part of the year, many of whom were found dead.'' ...
FULL
TEXT
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* U.S. State Department's 1998 human rights report
Washingon DC, Feb 26, 1999 - Iran Country Report on Human Rights Practices
released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor ... FULL
TEXT
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* Majority of Italian deputies oppose Iranian presidential visit
ROME, Feb 25 (AFP) - A majority of Italian deputies have called for
the cancellation of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami's planned visit
to Italy next month because he leads "a medieval dictatorship of mullahs."
A letter signed by 320 of the parliament's 630 deputies has been sent to
Italian Prime Minister Massimo d'Alema, said Forza Italia deputy Marco
Taradash ... FULL
TEXT
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* Ex-President Carter's son still aims to visit Iran
ATLANTA, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's son
said on Thursday he still hopes Iran will grant him a visa for a May visit
and also hopes his father will visit Tehran in the near future. James ``Chip''
Carter III had been scheduled to lead a private, 50-member U.S. delegation,
including 25 former U.S. Peace Corps volunteers stationed in Iran during
the 1960s and 1970s, on a cultural visit to Tehran from May 21 to June
2 ... FULL
TEXT
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* Iranian navy to stage war games near disputed Persian Gulf island
TEHRAN, Feb 26 (AFP) - The Iranian navy is to stage war games near the
strategic Gulf island of Abu Musa, one of three islands claimed both by
Iran and the United Arab Emirates, the official IRNA news agency reported
Friday. The nine-day exercises, dubbed Fateh-77 or Conquest, will start
on Saturday between Abu Musa and the Strait of Hormuz at the entrance to
the Gulf, military spokesman Fariborz Fazel told IRNA ... FULL
TEXT
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Thursday
February 25, 1999
* Reformers finally get go-ahead to stand on eve of landmark poll
TEHRAN, Feb 25 (AFP) - Less than 24 hours before polls were due to open
for Iran's first ever municipal elections, a dozen leading reformist candidates
in the capital finally received the green light to stand from moderate
President Mohammed Khatami Thursday. In a last-minute statement carried
by the official news agency IRNA, Khatami overruled a disqualification
order issued against the candidates by the conservative head of the election
Supervision Council, Ali Mohavedi-Savoji ... FULL
TEXT
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* Several injured in attack on reformist party HQ in Tehran: reports
TEHRAN, Feb 25 (AFP) - Gunmen opened fire on the Tehran headquarters
of Iran's leading moderate party, wounding up to three people amid a wave
of political violence ahead of Friday's landmark municipal elections. Several
bursts of automatic weapon fire riddled the northern Tehran offices of
the Executives of Construction Party on Wednesday, the Hamshahri newspaper
reported Thursday ... FULL
TEXT also see... REPORT
IN PERSIAN
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* Moderate party condemns attack
Tehran, (Hamshahri) - The moderate Servants of Construction party issues
a statement condemning the armed attack on their headquarters in Tehran
... IMAGE TEXT
IN PERSIAN
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* Iran exiles, Italy MPs denounce Khatami visit
ROME, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Italian parliamentarians and Iran's exiled
opposition said on Thursday it was a bitter irony that Iranian President
Mohammed Khatami's forthcoming visit to Italy would begin on International
Women's Day. ``It's a bit of a joke that Khatami is arriving on March 8,
International Women's Day,'' communist deputy Maria Celeste Nardini told
a news conference in Italy's lower house of parliament. ``The rights of
all Iranian citizens, but above all women, have been abused.'' ... FULL
TEXT
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* Germany nears debt deal with Iran
BONN, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Talks on making it easier for Iran to service
billions of marks in debts to Germany in the wake of a world oil price
slump have reached an advanced stage, German officials said on Thursday.
Details of the talks were sketchy, but an official at the Ausfuhrkreditanstalt
(AKA) in Frankfurt, which represents 40 lender banks, said a restructuring
could be announced in March ... FULL
TEXT
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* Russia blasts US over Iran sanctions
MOSCOW, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Russia turned up the volume in a dispute
with the United States over nuclear cooperation with Iran on Thursday,
saying it would not accept being talked to in the ``language of sanctions
and pressure.'' The Foreign Ministry dismissed U.S. accusations that Russian
firms were helping Iran develop nuclear and missile programmes, and reiterated
its condemnation of sanctions imposed by Washington on 10 Russian companies
and research institutes ... FULL
TEXT
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Wednesday
February 17, 1999
* Violence ahead of Iran elections
February 24, TEHRAN, (AP) -- A gunman opened fire on a moderate party's
election headquarters Wednesday as reformers and hard-liners bickered over
candidates in Iran's first local elections in 20 years. Witnesses said
there were no casualties in the attack, in which a passenger on a motor
scooter sprayed bullets at the Servants of Construction offices in Tehran.
Dozens of volunteers were inside at the time. The gunman and driver escaped
... FULL TEXT
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* Dissidents, yuppies, radicals vie in Iran vote
TEHRAN, Feb 24 (Reuters) - The range of images was unthinkable even
six months ago: A clean-shaven aristocrat in a coat and tie, bearded revolutionary
volunteers, Western-educated yuppies and dissidents once banished to the
scrap heap of Islamic history. In a land where political and religious
symbolism has been raised to an art form, few will fail to ``decode'' the
messages conveyed by simple newspaper advertising and campaign posters
for Iran's first city, town and village elections, on February 26 ...
FULL
TEXT
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* New intelligence chief approved by parliament
TEHRAN, Feb 24 (AFP) - The Iranian parliament on Wednesday overwhelmingly
approved the appointment of Ali Yunesi, a 43-year-old conservative cleric,
to head the scandal-tainted intelligence ministry. A total of 197 members
of the conservative-dominated parliament, the Majlis, voted in favor of
Yunesi following two hours of debate while nine opposed his nomination
and 18 abstained ... FULL
TEXT
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* Khatami speech for Yunesi
Tehran (Iran daily) - Here is a report in Persian on President Khatami's
speech in the Majlis today in support of Yunesi's nomination as the intelligence
minister ... IMAGE
TEXT IN PERSIAN
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* Three killed in protests in Iranian Kurdistan: Tehran Times
TEHRAN, Feb 24 (AFP) - Three people were killed on Monday during protests
in Sanandaj, the main city in Iranian Kurdistan, a newspaper said Wednesday,
as a Kurdish MP criticized the handling of the demonstrations. The English-language
Tehran Times did not provide any details on the deaths, but quoted a member
of parliament from the region as criticizing the handling of the protests
by the provincial authorities ... FULL
TEXT
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* Oil markets fixed on Saudi, Iran mystery
DUBAI, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Depressed world oil markets are asking the
big question -- are OPEC titans Saudi Arabia and Iran negotiating a secret
deal or does the silence in the Gulf mean that bad times are about to get
worse? Central to the mystery is Iranian President Mohammad Khatami's travel
plans, which could prove decisive in whether the Organisation of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries resolves the dispute over the baseline from which Iran
cuts its oil output under a cartel pact ... FULL
TEXT
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Tuesday
February 23, 1999
* Threaten to cancel Tehran's city council elections
Tehran, feb. 23, irna -- the head of the central superintendence board
of council elections, ali mowahedi savoji said here tuesday night that
"if the interior ministry does not take appropriate measure to remove
the names of 12 disqualified candidates from the election list currently
at the polling posts in tehran, the board will announce the election process
in the megapolis null and void." ... FULL
TEXT
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* Leading Iranian reform candidate says disqualification illegal
TEHRAN, Feb 23 (AFP) - The leading reformer running in Tehran's landmark
municipal polls said Tuesday that his disqualification by the conservative-dominated
election Supervision Council was illegal. Both the interior ministry and
a conciliation committee have declared the removal from the ballot of 12
reform candidates led by Vice President Abdollah Nuri to be "illegal
and baseless," said Nuri, who is close to moderate President Mohammad
Khatami ... FULL
TEXT... also see ... IMAGE
TEXT IN PERSIAN
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* Iranian president to visit Saudi Arabia soon
TEHRAN, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami is due
to travel to Saudi Arabia some time in late March or in April, Iran's state
television said on Tuesday. It said the president would visit Saudi Arabia
either during the annual Haj pilgrimage, to start in late March, ``or a
little after.'' ... FULL
TEXT
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Monday
February 22, 1999
* Moderate candidates barred from Iran election
Tehran, Feb 22, (BBC) - The first nationwide local elections in Iran
have been thrown into confusion just days before the polls after a conservative-controlled
supervisory board barred several moderate candidates from standing. The
candidates include the former Interior Minister Abdullah Nouri, the student
leader Ebrahim Asgharzadeh and an adviser to the president ... FULL
TEXT
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* Iran's reformers campaign for ``Islam of love''
TEHRAN, Feb 21 (Reuters) - President Mohammad Khatami's reformist allies
kicked off their campaign for Iran's first nationwide local council elections
with demands for ``an Islam of love'' that would break the grip of the
conservative clerical establishment. Former Khatami interior minister Abdollah
Nouri, who heads the biggest pro-reform ticket, told a campaign rally on
Saturday that his coalition rejected conservatives' attempts to hold on
to power by distorting the meaning and application of Islam ... FULL
TEXT
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* Four more arrests in dissident deaths
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iranian authorities have arrested four more suspects
in the deaths of five dissidents, a military prosecutor said today. The
prosecutor, Mohammad Niyazi, told Tehran radio that one of the suspects
was a businessman who fled to Turkey but was brought back with the help
of Turkish authorities ... FULL
TEXT
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* Carter's son refused Iran visa
Saturday, February 20, 1999, TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran has refused a
visa to the son of former President Jimmy Carter, who broke diplomatic
ties with Iran in 1979, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported
today. The agency quoted an unnamed source as saying that James E. ``Chip''
Carter III, who was to lead a group of Americans to Iran in May, was refused
a visa because of his ``past record.'' It did not elaborate ... FULL TEXT
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* Iran rids German of death sentence
Saturday, February 20, 1999, TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran's highest court
has annulled a death sentence against a German businessman jailed for having
a sexual relationship with an Iranian woman, a judicial official said today.
Judiciary spokesman Saeed Nobari told The Associated Press that the Supreme
Court had quashed 54-year-old Helmut Hofer's sentence ``because of some
problems in the case'' but would not elaborate ... FULL
TEXT
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* Iran blames Iraq for killing of senior cleric
TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) - Iran blamed Iraq Sunday for the assassination
of a leading Iraqi Shi'ite Muslim cleric and his two sons, saying the murders
were part of a systematic campaign of repression against the country's
Shi'ite community. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued
a statement condemning the killings of Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr
and his sons Friday, the second attack on senior Shi'ite clerics in Iraq
this year ... FULL
TEXT
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* Iran secures $900 mln loan for gasfield-MEES
NICOSIA, Feb 22 (Reuters) - The National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC)
is understood to have secured a loan worth some $900 million to develop
Iran's huge offshore South Pars gasfield, the Middle East Economic Survey
(MEES) reported on Monday. The Cyprus-based newsletter said the pre-financing
deal for the first-phase development will use crude from Iran's new Sirri
A and E fields as collateral for the credit facility arranged by France's
Credit Agricole ... FULL
TEXT
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