Mohsen Ansari

Deputy commander of Traffic Police, Brigadier General Mohsen Ansari, unveiled the suspension of plans to prevent dilapidated vehicles from plying the streets of metropolises.
He said the decision was postponed until the responsible organizations would be ready for its implementation.
Talking to ISNA, the brigadier pointed to about half a million rundown automobiles in the country aged 30 years and above, noting 370,000 of the number are in Tehran.
"Based on the bylaw for phasing out dilapidated vehicles, a working group was formulated and assigned to supervise the job. The group declared that license plate numbers of automobiles as old as 30 years and above would be unauthorized in Tehran and six other major cities," he mentioned.
"The Traffic Police is duty-bound to prevent cars with unauthorized plate numbers from plying the streets. Hence, it was decided that the violating motorists would be fined 130,000 rials every time they are observed by the police."
He explained that the Islamic Republic of Iran Police extended the deadline for the scheme to November 21 so that the responsible organizations and carmakers would have enough time to devise strategies and work out facilities for replacing the cars.
"Unfortunately, the expected facilities have not been yet provided for owners of these cars and the responsible bodies have failed to fulfill their commitments. Under the present circumstances, execution of the scheme would impose an extra burden on the low-income groups. IRIP commander has already conveyed the concern to President Khatami in a letter," he observed.
Ansari highlighted the importance of phasing out rundown vehicles, given their role in increasing air pollution, driving mishaps, traffic snarl-ups and fuel consumption.

AIDS is rapidly spreading in developing countries, a member of the Majlis Health Commission, Hossein Ali Shahriyari, warned, Fars news agency quoted.
The official observed that "due to our cultural characteristics, we cannot educate people on efficient AIDS prevention measures transparently."
He said transfusion of infected blood and sharing of contaminated needles which used to be the most common ways for transmission of the HIV virus in Iran are now giving their place to illicit sexual relations, embedded in an increase in the age of marriage and the growth in debauchery.
Shariyati cited official figures according to which the number of AIDS patients in Iran is estimated at 7,000. "The actual number of AIDS victims is believed to be at least five times more than the official reckoning," Shahriyari noted.
"AIDS is regarded as a social taboo in our country. For that reason, a large number of those infected refuse to seek medical help especially during the early stages of the disease. But with the advancement of the ailment, they face no alternatives but to see a specialist."
He warned that the age of AIDS infection is declining at a fast pace and the disease has even been diagnosed among high school students. "It is high time we stared teaching our young ones on how to keep the disease at bay, observing ethical principles and cultural dignity at the same time."
Meanwhile, a member of the State Anti-AIDS Committee, Minoo Mohraz, insisted that education is the only way for warding off the HIV virus.
Mohraz told IRNA that the media can serve as the best tool for upgrading public awareness. "Teaching ways to stay away from AIDS and addiction should start from schools. Parents, too, should be taught simultaneously through the media so that there would be no contradictions between what students are told in school and at home," she proposed.
"Presently, 21 clinics are providing counseling to young people with high-risk behaviors across the country."

A member of the Majlis Social Commission Abolqassem Mokhtari said some 22 million rural inhabitants do not posses medical insurance booklets and the Rural Insurance Cards given to them cannot meet their requirements for therapy and medications.
Mokhtari told ILNA that the Health Ministry had earlier been assigned with the task of unifying medical insurance services for all social groups, but that was later handed over to the newly-established Welfare Ministry.
He noted that the Rural Insurance Cards provided to inhabitants free of charge, are not accepted by private medical centers. Moreover, they have to be first introduced to state-run hospitals to benefit from their services.
"As a result, the inhabitants might not have access to emergency medical services outside office hours and should directly refer to state-run hospitals and medical centers, in which case, the insurance cards would not cover medical costs," he stated. "Also, these cards cannot be used by physicians for writing prescriptions and hence do not cover the costs of medications. This imposes extra pressure on the rural community."

Director general of the Health, Treatment and Medical Education Ministry's
Public Relations Office said that 76,000 health liaison officers provide services to over 18 million urban dwellers across the country, IRNA reported
Houshmand Sefidi added that the liaison officers provide information pertaining to diseases, ways of controlling them, individual health, nutrition and environment to people in health centers of 300 cities.
Sefidi said these officers function as mediators between the Health Ministry and the public.
He said the number of medical emergency services centers in urban areas has increased to 438 and that of ambulances to 937 over the past eight years. "About 1,800 new standard ambulances will be added to the fleet by March 2005," he vowed.
"Supporting domestic manufacturers of medical equipment has saved the country $300,000 worth of foreign currency per annum. The ministry has also allocated a substantial share of its forex resources to factories for supplying raw materials," he stated.
Sefidi then recalled the successful implementation of the measles and rubella vaccination scheme, covering 33 million young people, as well as optimization of emergency wards in 30 hospitals, and establishment of 50 new hospitals with a total capacity of more than 8,000 beds as other measures adopted by the ministry during this period.
The official also referred to 29,000 graduates of medical sciences in eight years, adding the number of long-term scholarship students declined to 40 from 157 and that of short-term scholarships rose from 18 to 490.
He said employment opportunities had been provided to some 35,000 physicians and paramedics during this time.
Sefidi mentioned empowerment of study and research centers, expansion of education in universities of medical sciences and devising bylaws for medical assistant training courses as the ministry's functions to boost education.

Social security insurance should be extended to taxi drivers on inter- and intra-city routes.

Social Security and Welfare Ministry has approved a proposal on providing taxi drivers with insurance coverage, managing director of the Taxi Organization said.
As reported by ILNA, Seyyed Jamal Hashemi Arab commented, "Given that the scheme imposes extra financial burden on the government, the state-run commissions are presently studying ways and means of securing financial resources for the scheme."
He expressed optimism that the cabinet would endorse the proposal and predicted that it would also be approved by the parliament. "In 1989-90, about 4,000 taxi drivers were brought under the coverage of the Law on Freelancers and Self-Employed which provided them with insurance coverage. However, the rest of them were deprived of any insurance until a specific budget was allocated to the Taxi Organization this year," he recalled.
"As per the proposal, social security insurance should be extended to taxi drivers on inter- and intra-city routes, as well as truck and bus drivers."
Hashemi Arab commented that once the proposal is ratified, drivers will be provided with their minimum legal rights. "The total number of taxi drivers, transferring passengers inside and between cities, together with their families is 1.5 million people," he said.

A local woman with her shopping basket is walking through the wreck and ruin in Bam, 10 months after the city was leveled by a magnitude 6.7 tremor. (Photo by Saman Aghvami)

Close to 5,700 prisoners detained on financial charges need support for their freedom, head of the Popular Taskforce for Assisting Needy Prisoners said.
Speaking to IRNA on the sidelines of a ceremony in Semnan, Seyyed Assadollah Joulaei, said about 1,800 individuals are presently in jails for being unable to pay blood money.
"A total 400 billion rials is required for releasing this number of inmates," he added.
Joulaei noted that 20,000 prisoners are in jails for bad checks.
"The taskforce is doing its best to convince the plaintiffs to reduce the prisoners' debts," he pointed out.
He said an entire 160 billion rials in credits had been set aside for the release of indebted prisoners in the current year (started March 20).

Oxfam, an international NGO, is preparing to launch a massive drive against killings in the name of family honor in Pakistan. The campaign will start in March 2005 in the southern province of Balochistan and will be extended across the country in November next year running until 2011, an Oxfam official told IRIN.
"We recognize that a lot of good work is going on--on the legal and policy reforms side of the honor killing issue. So we decided not to focus on that, but rather on attitudes and changes to values and behavior," Farhana Faruqi Stocker, Oxfam Country Representative said in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.
"We want to create the kind of social environment which would ensure enforcement of any legal framework that might be introduced to discontinue the practice of honor killing."
Honor killings are widespread in Pakistan. During 2003, a total of 1,261 women were killed in the name of honor, according to the Pakistani human rights' group, Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA). In the first half of 2004, 268 cases of honor killings were reported in the province of Sindh, according to the women rights' organization, Aurat Foundation.
Highlighting the main features of the forthcoming campaign against honor killing, Stocker said that a number of main target groups had been identified-- rural women and men, youth, social, tribal, and political leaders, members of the lower judiciary and police and national electronic and print media.
Pakistan's lower house of parliament has recently passed a law proposing the death penalty for the killings of women committed in the name of honor. Human rights activists have long been campaigning for such legislation, however they have reservations about how well it will be implemented.
Stocker said, "Its not so much the law itself, which needs to be looked at but the attitude of the people who are supposed to be implementing it, that's why we have identified the lower cadres of police and judiciary as primary target groups."
This campaign is a part of Oxfam's South Asia regional program to End Violence Against Women (EVAW), which has different country specific themes. The theme of Pakistan's campaign is 'honor killing' with the slogan 'We Can End Honor Killing'.
According to the Oxfam campaign manager, Arif Mehmood, 23 districts have been identified across the country where the incidence of honor killing is known to be high.

Malaria is widespread in Angola because of poor sanitation, insufficient preventive measures and poverty.

Malaria claims some 20,000 lives each year in Angola, more than half of them pregnant women and children under five years old, making it the main cause of death in the southwest African state, a top Angolan health official said.
Filomeno Fortes, Angola's director of programs to fight malaria, told Portuguese radio TSF the mosquito-borne disease infected more than two million people each year in the country of 13 millions, and cost state coffers over 100 million dollars (77 million euros) annually to treat.
He said the disease was widespread in the oil-and-diamond rich former Portuguese colony because of poor sanitation, insufficient preventive measures and widespread poverty.
Malaria kills more than one million people a year around the world--more than 90 percent of them in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Health Organization.
There is no vaccine to prevent malaria, but it can be suppressed by taking anti-malarial medicines which are also used in larger doses to treat the illness.
Health experts recommend mosquito nets treated with insecticide as the best defense against the malaria-bearing mosquitoes, but the majority of people in Africa cannot afford these.

More than 38,000 squatter families, living alongside the railroad tracks passing through the Philippine capital, will be relocated, the presidential palace said. President Gloria Arroyo has ordered the speedy implementation of a project where some 38,206 squatter families living alongside the railroad tracks stretching from Manila to the former US airbase of Clark, will be relocated, the palace statement said, AFP reported.
Some 8,127 families living alongside a stretch of the tracks from Manila to the nearby town of Valenzuela, would be the first to be moved before the end of November at a total cost of about 912.5 million pesos ($16.2 million), the statement said.
It did not say when the rest of the squatters would be moved.
The government has offered financial assistance to squatters in Manila to get them to move to rural areas. However in many cases, the squatters refuse to move or take the money, then come back to the capital, saying there are no economic opportunities in the relocation sites.
Large squatter colonies have mushroomed alongside the railroad tracks in Manila where trains pass just inches away from their shanties.
The squatter colonies have hampered the operations of the railway system, slowed down the passage of trains and blocked efforts to expand and modernize the railways. Accidents involving trains and squatters often occur.
However the squatters and leftist advocate groups have resisted efforts to forcibly relocate them away from the tracks.