The Iranian Times

Friday June 11, 1999 / Khordad 21, 1378, No. 746


Sehaty Foreign Exchange


    Rumi


Opinion

Let's do business
All is fair in love and trade

By Shahriar Afshar
June 11, 1999
The Iranian

    There have been some recent developments in the sanctions debate in Washington that have significant impact on the business community. This is namely due to a recent presidential announcement and several new congressional bills meant to reinstate the U.S. as a reliable supplier in the international trade community. But we are no there yet.

    An old friend once told me that there is no leadership by consensus. That is a great slogan for a yuppie office poster but truth be known, that old friend of mine is now very alone and generally considered to be like a bull in a china shop. No one relates to him because he does not make an effort to relate to his surroundings or to changing times. In retrospect, I think shortly after the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy took a left turn somewhere and got lost when it came to being a team player. The only way we can find our way back into the international community is to use trade opportunities abroad as our guiding light ... GO TO FEATURE


Outlook

Not only in Iran

By Orit Shohat
Haaretz, Israeli daily
Friday, June 11, 1999

These days, when we talk about the rule of law, as if everyone, apart from those who voted Shas, was irreproachable, it is worth drawing attention to the injustices committed under the very aeges of that law. Shocking things are going on, and not only in Iran.

Here, too, we have people who have been kidnapped from their homes and sent to jail for no reason, or for something unconnected to them or anything they did. One unsettling example is that of 21 Lebanese citizens who are being held in Israel only because one day they may be used as a bargaining chip in exchange for missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad ... FULL TEXT


    Anyway

I wonder what you will think

My name is Don Roberts and I live in New Zealand in the South Pacific. I suspect you know about this country but many people in countries other than my own have never heard of this little country. By the way we are NOT part of Australia.

I might add that I have just been reading on the net a little of the history of your country politically since the fall of the Shah. I understand your favourite sport there is wrestling. Is this true? Ours is Rugby Union and our international team is called The All Blacks. I live in Whangarei. Ever heard of it? It is actually two hours by road from Auckland our main city.

I wonder what you will think of receiving this email from so far away. I would delighted to get a reply from such a far off land.

Kind regards,

Don

PS: Sorry I know nothing of your language


More Letters

* Genetic link

Arman Sepehri writes: As a person involved in medical research, I have something to mention which may be helpful in the big arguement over the article "I must be a Jew".

According to a gentical study done by scientists at Harvard University (published in Human Immunology, September 15, 1997, Volume 57, pages 62 -67), it is very possible that non-Jewish Iranians and all Jews have a common ancestral origin. Does this help?

* Looks/sounds Iranian? It's Iranian

Guive Mirfendereski writes: About a year or so ago, Agassi's now estranged wife, Brook Shields was asked by Jay Leno on the Tonight Show about Agassi's origin. She said he considers himself Armenian ["Andre the great"].

As for why he does not connect with Iran and Iranians? The answer may be in his father's story of coming to America and the disdain which he may have brought with him. Besides, given the anti-Iranianism of the late to mid-eighties, very little would have been gained by this person as a public moneymaker to be wrapping himself in a flag which was not very much appreciated. Remember the Iron Sheikh, the punching bag in professional wrestling and myriad of other subtle and not so subtle anti-Iranian sentiment?

I do not recall Pete Sampras ever making much of his Greek heritage. Why do people root for him? For the same reason that when the credits roll at the end of the movie, I look for Iranian sounding or looking names. Call it a perverse way of vicariously experiencing assimilation.

* Mexican actress

Malihe Evans writes: Who is Iran Castillo [Anyway section, June 10]? She is a Mexican singer and soap opera actress. She was born in Veracruz and you can see her on Univision in a telenovela called "preciosa".

There is another Mexican actress with the first name Iran. She is Iran Eory and who was born in Tehran.

Yes Spanish helps, even if it is helping with little things of not much importance!

Thank god you have the Anyway section.


* Play: Bayzaie's play opens in Berkeley Saturday

Written By: Bahram Bayzaie
Translated By: Bella Warda and Zara Houshmand
Directed By: Jim Cave
Location: South Berkeley Community Church, Berkeley, California

A joint production by Darvag and Shotgun Players (also based in Berkeley California). Opening Night: Saturday, June 12, $20... DETAILS HERE


Book of the Week

The Subject Tonight Is Love
60 Wild & Sweet Poems of Hafiz

Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

    For centuries Hafiz has been called, "The Tongue of the Invisible." Through his sublime works he continues to sing beautiful and wild love songs ... GO TO BOOK

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More news

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TEHRAN, June 11 (AFP) - Iran's judicial chief warned Friday that 13 Jews charged with spying for arch-enemy Israel risk execution in a case that threatens to cloud efforts by moderate President Mohammad Khatami for detente with the West. "These people are charged with selling out the rights of 60 million Iranians to the Zionist regime," Yazdi told the crowds at Tehran University ... FULL TEXT

Jesse Jackson to try to help accused Iranian Jews

LOS ANGELES, June 11 (Reuters) - The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who secured the release of three U.S. soldiers captured in Yugoslavia, indicated on Friday he might be on the verge of another mission -- to Iran, where 13 Iranian Jews have been imprisoned on espionage charges. Jackson also announced a private effort to help ethnic Albanian refugees from Kosovo with airlifts of medical aid and supplies to refugee camps and to the Yugoslav province, which is awaiting the return of hundreds of thousands of people ... FULL TEXT

Baghdad accuses Tehran of firing missiles into Iraq, threatens riposte

BAGHDAD, June 11 (AFP) - Baghdad on Friday accused Tehran of firing three long-range missiles into a military base of the Iranian People's Mujahedeen in Iraq and threatened a riposte. "The Iranian regime carried out a cowardly attack against Iraq by firing on Thursday at 8:46 p.m. (1646 GMT) three long-range surface-to-surface missiles at one of the bases of the People's Mujahedeen," a government spokesman told the official news agency INA ... FULL TEXT

Statement in support of student movement in Iran

Statement in Support of the Pro-Democracy Movement of Iranian University Students, Faculty and Researchers by Iranian Exiled and Immigrant University Academics: We, the undersigned, the Iranian exiled/immigrant university faculty and researchers, express our admiration for your struggle and our concern about the detrimental circumstances against which you struggle. Some of us, who were involved in similar struggles in the past, are familiar with the sheer danger confronting you ... FULL TEXT

Khatami calls for legalization of opposition groups

TEHRAN, June 11 (AFP) - Iran's reformist President Mohammad Khatami has called for greater tolerance for dissenting views and the legalization of opposition groups, the official IRNA news agency reported Friday. Differences of opinion are a "normal phenomenon" and "should be recognized as a normal and accepted trend," the president told a reformist group which backs his policies, the Islamic Iran Participation Front ... FULL TEXT

U.S. Administration pressured on food sanctions

10 June 1999 (RFE/RL) -- Members of the U.S. Congress pressured the administration of President Bill Clinton on Wednesday to help finance sales of food and medicine to nations that have been subject to U.S. embargoes. In a hearing of the House of Representatives (lower chamber) Agriculture Committee, several congressmen urged the administration to provide U.S. official financing for food sales to embargoed countries like Iran. Such a move would go beyond President Clinton's recent policy decision of simply allowing exports of food and medical items on humanitarian grounds ... FULL TEXT

Moody's rates Iran foreign currency bonds

NEW YORK, June 10 (Moody's press release) - Moody's assigned a B2 foreign currency ceiling for bonds and notes to the Islamic Republic of Iran and a B3 ceiling for foreign currency bank deposits. The long-term domestic currency bonds issued by the government were rated at Ba2. The B2 ceiling reflects a weak economic structure that is prone to balance of payments crisis when oil prices collapse ... FULL TEXT

Another disaster: Iran 0 - Bahrain 2

Tehran, (IRNA) - The national under-23 soccer team has been defeated again, this time by Bahrain. Prospects for qualifying for the Sydney Olympics now look grim ... FULL TEXT IN PERSIAN

Khakpour in America

Tehran, (Donya-ye Varzesh) - National team player Mohammad Khakpour may join an American soccer team ... FULL TEXT IN PERSIAN

Here and there

Tehran, (Donya-ye Varzesh) - Latest rumors from the Iranian soccer scene... Arsenal is seeking Mahdavi-kia? ... FULL TEXT IN PERSIAN


BBC

Persian Service


$ Rate

Updated June 10

The dollar now offered at 840-875 tomans in the U.S. and 880 tomans in Iran

Source: Sehaty Exchange (U.S.) Tel: 602-595-0777

Business news


The Web

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Donya-ye Varzesh

Iran's oldest sports magazine published by Ettelat'at newspaper.

Beyond Iran

Samarkand

One of the oldest and most important cities amongst the many in the historic region of Central Asia.

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Quote Unquote

Regaining lost goals

Your movement correctly seeks to regain the lost goals of the [Iranian] Revolution [of 1979] and give them back to the people of Iran.

Statement signed by a group of Iranian exiled/immigrant university faculty
June 1999


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