Business
Jan 18-22, 1999 / Dey 28 - Bahman 2, 1377
News
| Sports
| Arts
| Rights
| Community
Today
* U.S. senator calls for end to food embargo on Iran
* Albright: Iran should not be in isolation forever
* US: Caspian oil pipeline deal near
* Russia to continue Iran cooperation, minister says
Previous
* U.S. moving toward looser sanctions on Iran
* Iran blasts US sanctions on Russia
* Iran sets petroleum exports at $12.1 bln
* Iran raises petrol prices
* Russia defends nuclear fuel sale
* Russia, Iran discussed nuke research reactor
* Iran says President Khatami plans France visit
* Iran oil capacity exceeds estimates-Dresdner Bank
* U.S. says considering sale of farms goods to Iran
* U.S. weighs grain sales may improve ties
* Russian denies work in Iran on germ weapons
* Iran approves tax-free sales to foreign visitors
* Ex-KGB blames West for Iran technology
* MPs reject bill to liberalise car imports
* Official wants less state sugar price controls
News
| Sports
| Arts
| Rights
| Community
Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday
| Thursday | Friday
Get Persian fonts from Hamshahri
or Payvand
email us
$ Rate
Updated January 22, 1999
* To send money to Iran, the rate is 702-720 tomans per
dollar, depending on how much you wish to send.
* To send money out of Iran, the rate is 722 tomans per
dollar.
Source: Sehaty Foreign Exchange. Preferntial rates for readers of The
Iranian Times. Call in U.S.: 602-595-0777 OR 500-288-8881,
Fax: 602-595-0222. Address: PO Box 3230, Carefree, AZ 85377,
USA. Mention this code: BAJ 07
Friday,
January 22, 1999
* U.S. senator calls for end to food embargo on Iran
WASHINGTON, Jan 21 (Reuters) - The chairman of the Senate Agriculture
Committee has called on President Bill Clinton to approve a possible sale
of more than $500 million of U.S. farm goods to Iran and to end a unilateral
U.S. food embargo on that country. ``Lifting or modifying the prohibition''
on U.S. food sales to Iran could encourage leaders in that country ``to
respond by modifying its international behaviour in ways more compatible
with our interests,'' said Sen. Richard Lugar, an Indiana Republican, in
a letter to National Security Advisor Sandy Berger ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
* Albright: Iran should not be in isolation forever
WASHINGTON, January 22 (Itar-Tass) - US Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright believes that such a country as Iran should not be in isolation
forever. She said this in a speech to the Centre for National Policy on
Thursday, motivating this view by Iran's size, importance and geographic
position ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
* US: Caspian oil pipeline deal near
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Negotiations involving Azerbaijan, Turkey and major
oil companies on building a pipeline to carry Caspian Sea oil to the West
are progressing and may soon bear fruit, a senior U.S. official said Thursday.
Richard Morningstar, the Clinton administration's special adviser on Caspian
Basin Energy Diplomacy, also said that despite a growing number of dry
wells drilled in the Caspian, he believed there was sufficient oil to make
it a productive region ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
* Russia to continue Iran cooperation, minister says
MOSCOW, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said on Friday
that Russia would continue to cooperate with Iran in peaceful areas despite
U.S. concerns that Moscow is helping Tehran's missile and nuclear programmes.
``We will develop cooperation with Iran in all peaceful spheres, while
strictly maintaining a policy of non-proliferation,'' Ivanov told a news
conference ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
Thursday
January 21, 1999
* U.S. moving toward looser sanctions on Iran
Prague, 20 January 1999 (RFE/RL) -- The following is an RFE/RL interview
with Ambassador Robert H. Pelletreau, former U.S. assistant secretary of
state for Near-Eastern Affairs under President Bill Clinton and now a lawyer
and an advocate for improving U.S.-Iran relations. Our correspondent asked
Ambassador Pelletreau to speculate on the likely direction U.S. trade sanctions
on Iran will take in the months ahead ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
* Iran blasts US sanctions on Russia
TEHRAN, Jan 21 (Reuters) - Iran slammed as ``gross interference'' sanctions
imposed by the United States against three Russian institutes over their
ties with Tehran, newspapers reported on Thursday. ``The ... propaganda
campaign launched by the United States is aimed at damaging relations between
Iran and Russia,'' said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi, quoted
by the daily Iran News ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
Wednesday
January 20, 1999
* Iran sets petroleum exports at $12.1 bln in 1999/2000
TEHRAN, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Iran is planning to earn $12.1 billion from
its petroleum exports in the next Iranian year under a budget measure approved
on Wednesday. In a session broadcast on Tehran radio, parliament deputies
passed the measure forecasting $10.6 billion in crude exports and $1.5
billion in exports of petroleum products and liquefied natural gas in the
year starting on March 21 ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
* Iran raises petrol prices
Jan 20 (BBC) - The Iranian parliament has approved a seventy-five per
cent increase in the price of petrol from March ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
* Russia defends nuclear fuel sale
MOSCOW (AP) -- The nuclear fuel Russia plans to supply to Iran for a
power plant cannot be used to build nuclear weapons, a top Russian official
said Wednesday. Russia signed an $800 million deal with Iran in 1995 to
help build a 1,000-megawatt light-water nuclear reactor in Bushehr. The
United States and Israel have strongly criticized the project, saying it
might help Iran obtain technology needed to develop nuclear weapons ...
FULL
TEXT
Go to top
* Russia, Iran discussed nuke research reactor
MOSCOW, Jan 20 (Reuters) - A Russian atomic energy official said on
Wednesday that a leading Moscow science institute held talks on selling
Iran a nuclear research reactor, but that no contract resulted from the
negotiations. The acknowledgement by Deputy Atomic Energy Minister Bulat
Nigmatulin came a week after the United States imposed sanctions against
three Russian institutes for allegedly helping Iran develop missile and
nuclear capabilities ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
* Iran says President Khatami plans France visit
TEHRAN, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Iran's President Mohammad Khatami will visit
France after March, the first visit to Western Europe by an Iranian president
in 20 years, an official said in remarks published on Wednesday. Foreign
Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Khatami would visit France in
the next Iranian year which starts on March 21, newspapers reported ...
FULL
TEXT
Go to top
Tuesday
January 19, 1999
* Iran oil capacity exceeds estimates-Dresdner Bank
LONDON, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Iran produced more oil in recent years than
outside experts believed and even more than its own officials disclosed,
Dresdner Kleinwort Benson (DKBR) said. The bank said in a World Oil Report
that Iran could pump sustainably at 3.9 million barrels per day (bpd).
``Broadly speaking, our own data agrees with the Iranian view that secondary
market sources have substantially under-estimated Iran's sustainable production
capacity in 1998,'' said the report by Mehdi Varzi, a director of research
at the bank ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
* U.S. says considering sale of farms goods to Iran
WASHINGTON, Jan 19 (Reuters) - The United States is considering the
sale of U.S. farm goods to Iran but no decision has been made, the State
Department said on Tuesday. ``An application for a license to broker a
sale of U.S. agricultural products to Iran has been filed with the Treasury
Office of Foreign Assets Control and is under consideration,'' spokesman
James Rubin said. ``I don't think any decision has been made on this,''
he said ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
* U.S. weighs grain sales may improve ties
Jan 19, (The Washington Post) - Just as the Clinton administration was
reluctantly concluding late last year that its effort to rebuild ties to
Iran was going nowhere, Iran surprised Washington with a request to buy
more than $500 million in U.S. grain and sugar, a move described by Iran's
U.S. purchasing agent as an effort to reach out to the United States ...
FULL TEXT
Go to top
* Russian biologist denies work in Iran on germ weapons
Jan19, 1999, (The New York Times) - A Russian biologist in Iran has
denied conducting research that could have helped the Soviet Union or Iran
develop germ weapons. The biologist, Dr. Valery Bakayev, said in a brief
telephone interview that while he has worked at the Pasteur Institute in
Tehran for more than five years, his work has focused solely on the civilian
development of vaccines against diseases like tuberculosis and on other
nonmilitary research. He denied having worked in any offensive germ warfare
program for the Soviet Union or Iran ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
* Iran approves tax-free sales to foreign visitors
TEHRAN, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Iran's parliament on Tuesday approved regulations
allowing sales tax refunds to foreigners shopping in the country. In a
session broadcast live on Tehran radio, deputies passed a budget measure
on the refunds after backers said it would encourage tourism and boost
non-oil exports ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
Monday
January 18, 1999
* Russian ex-KGB blames West for Iran technology
MOSCOW, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Russia's FSB national security service said
in a newspaper interview published on Monday that Iran possessed Western
equipment which could be used to build missiles. The United States placed
sanctions on three Russian scientific institutes last week and threatened
further action, accusing Russia of providing aid to Iran's missile and
nuclear weapons programmes. But FSB spokesman Alexander Zdanovich told
the Sevodnya daily newspaper that Washington had provided no evidence to
back up its accusations ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
* MPs reject bill to liberalise car imports
TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) - Iran's parliament Sunday defeated a bill that
would have removed a virtual ban on car imports into the country. In a
session broadcast on Tehran radio, deputies voted against a budget item
that would have allowed car imports subject to heavy customs duties. Under
Iran's protective laws, car imports are allowed only in few cases, including
when the payment for the vehicles is made in hard currency obtained from
exports ... FULL
TEXT
Go to top
* Iran official wants less state sugar price controls
TEHRAN, Jan 17 (Reuters) - An Iranian industry official called in remarks
published on Sunday for a partial removal of state sugar price controls
to encourage investment and revitalise Iran's ailing sugar industry. Ebrahim
Mahbod, an official at a state-affiliated economic foundation, also said
the government should drop its monopoly on the distribution of sugar, allowing
bodies such as his foundation to sell sugar directly to food industries
... FULL
TEXT
Go to top