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News
Feb 22-26, 1999 / Esfand 3-7,1377

Sports | Arts | Business| Rights | Community

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

Sports | Arts | Business| Rights | Community


Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday


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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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    * Conservatives maintain hold on key electoral council

    TEHRAN, Feb 23 (AFP) - Iran's conservatives demonstrated their continuing stranglehold on one of the Islamic Republic's key institutions Tuesday with the reelection of conservative cleric Ali Meshkini to the chairmanship of the Council of Experts. Meshkini, 74, was reelected by 66 votes out of 85 at the council's first full session since nationwide elections last October, the official news agency IRNA reported ... FULL TEXT

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* Four hurt as protestors attack Iraqi embassy in Tehran

TEHRAN, Feb 23 (AFP) - Iraqi security guards fired shots in the air and four people were injured as hundreds of Iraqi opponents of President Saddam Hussein attacked the Iraqi embassy here Tuesday, Iraqi opposition sources said. Some 1,000 protestors threw stones at the mission and tried to scale the surrounding walls and get inside, members of the Tehran-based Iraqi opposition group, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), said ... FULL TEXT

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    * Pro-Ocalan demonstrations turn violent in Iran

    TEHRAN, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Demonstrations in Iran in support of captured Kurdish guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan turned to violence on Monday with protesters attacking government buildings and burning cars, Iranian newspapers said on Tuesday. In Iran's biggest Kurdish town, Sanandaj, police fired shots in the air to disperse demonstrators who had gathered in violation of the governor's orders, the newspaper Arya reported ... FULL TEXT

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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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