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Prayer Time (Tehran)
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Dawn: 5:28
Sunrise: 6:53
Noon: 12:19
Evening: 18:03
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Weather Guide
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TUE |
WED |
Tehran: |
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High: |
12 oC |
11oC |
Low: |
7 oC |
6 oC |
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Athens |
3 |
6 |
Ankara |
-6 |
-7 |
Paris |
8 |
10 |
New Delhi |
30 |
29 |
Rome |
11 |
12 |
Riyadh |
28 |
31 |
Frankfurt |
1 |
2 |
Cairo |
16 |
14 |
Kuwait City |
22 |
25 |
Karachi |
27 |
28 |
Copenhagen |
10 |
11 |
London |
10 |
11 |
Moscow |
-9 |
-9 |
Madrid |
16 |
17 |
Vienna |
0 |
0 |
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Identification
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Published by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA)
Address:
Iran Cultural & Press Institute, #212 Khorramshahr Avenue Tehran/Iran
Managing Director: Mohammad T. Roghaniha
Executive Editor: Amin Sabooni
Editorial Dept. Tel: 8755761-2
Editorial Dept. Fax: 8761869
Advertising Dept. Tel: 8753119, 8757702, 8733764
Internet Address:
www.iran-daily.com
E-mail Address:
iran-daily@iran-daily.com
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Ahmadinejad:
Tehran Believes
In Dialogue
No Problems With American People
TEHRAN, Feb. 13--President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told USA Today that the Iranian nation basically has no problem with the American people, stressing that Tehran believes in dialogue and interactions.
According to president.ir, the chief executive told the American newspaper’s reporter, who was in Tehran to cover the Islamic Revolution’s anniversary rallies, that Iran can have dialogue with all countries except the Zionist Israeli regime, provided the conditions for dialogue exist.
He did not elaborate on the conditions.
Asked whether he has any message other than “Down With USA“ for the Americans, Ahmadinejad said Iran has many things to tell them.
“We basically have no problems with the American people and were ready to send humanitarian aid to the Katrina-affected population, but the US government obstructed it,“ he said, adding that the Iranian government also proposed direct flights between Tehran and Washington to facilitate mutual contacts between the two countries’ people.
“You can see that the American journalists can easily come to Iran and interview all Iranian officials. But in your country, despite claims about democracy and free speech, the Iranian reporters are not working freely and face too many restrictions,“ he said.
He further said Iran respects human beings and believes that humans are entitled to live in peace and dignity.
Ahmadinejad pointed out that the US government is solely responsible for the growing hatred of the international community toward them.
“They (US government) only recognize their own friends, but not the other six billion people who might not like to think differently,“ he said.
The chief executive noted that the Iranian nation has demonstrated throughout history that it can stand on its own feet and that it will not be intimidated by threats. He said many countries are willing to cooperate with Iran today.
“If certain countries intend to create restrictions for Iran, their efforts will boomerang because unilateral equations are a thing of the past,“ he said.
Questioned about capital flight and brain drain, Ahmadinejad said Iran has favorable economic ties with regional countries and that it does not restrict people’s overseas travels.
“We have no sensitivity or restrictions regarding the people’s travels (abroad) and they are free to decide about themselves,“ he said, stressing that reports that well-educated Iranians are leaving the country or businesspersons moving their capital to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, are false propaganda.
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Nuclear Program
In Line With NPT
Russia Talks Not Cancelled
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Gholamhossein Elham
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TEHRAN, Feb. 13--The government pursues the national nuclear program in line with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the government spokesman Gholamhossein Elham said on Monday.
Addressing his weekly press briefing, Elham added that the government is committed to its legal undertakings and pursues the nuclear program in the context of NPT and Safeguards Agreement of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), IRNA reported.
Asked about reports in the western press that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on February 11 said western states should respect Iran’s legitimate rights enshrined in the treaty otherwise Iran would see no reason to abide by NPT, Elham said, “Iran signed the treaty over 30 years ago and the Iranian nuclear program has been devised in compliance with NPT. We carried out voluntary measures even beyond the IAEA Safeguards Agreement in the past two years to remove all ambiguity and false perceptions about the national nuclear program.“
He stressed that the European states and the IAEA should officially recognize Iran’s inalienable right and support the country’s peaceful nuclear achievements.
“If this approach is taken, we will remain committed to our undertakings. Otherwise, there will be no reason for Iran not to enjoy the positive advantages of treaties and not to consider a policy change,“ he said.
The spokesman noted that Iran will not wait for the next session of the IAEA’s Board of Governors before proceeding with its nuclear program.
Elham also said nuclear talks with Russia are not cancelled, but both sides have to agree on a date.
“The important issue is that Russia’s proposal should be based on policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran and take into account changes in circumstances and the government’s determination to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes inside Iran,“ he said.
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US Gov’t Blamed for Poor Katrina Response
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13--Unheeded warnings, poor planning and apathy in recognizing the scope of Hurricane Katrina’s destruction led to the poor emergency response from the White House down to local parishes, a House of Representatives investigation concludes.
The 600-page report by a special Republican-dominated House inquiry into one of the worst natural disasters in US history concluded the federal government’s response to Katrina was marked by “fecklessness, flailing and organizational paralysis,“ AP reported.
It said President George W. Bush received poor and incomplete counsel about the crisis unfolding on the Gulf Coast and that late state and local evacuation orders added to the confusion at the federal level.
On Monday, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was to continue its own investigation into the Aug. 29 storm response by examining potentially widespread abuse in federal emergency cash assistance programs for disaster victims. Up to 900,000 of 2.5 million applicants received aid based on duplicate or invalid Social Security numbers, or false addresses and names, congressional investigators found.
Excerpts released from the House report, which issued a total of 90 separate findings, spreads the blame through all levels of government.
Among the conclusions:
- Late decisions by New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco to issue mandatory evacuations in the New Orleans area led to deaths and prolonged suffering.
- The White House was unable to effectively sort through conflicting reports about levee breaches and other disaster developments, preventing rapid relief.
- Government officials at all levels failed to take into account lessons learned from a 2004 fictional storm exercise, dubbed Hurricane Pam, that was supposed to specifically test the region’s readiness.
The House investigation criticized Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff’s actions, saying his overall responsibilities for the federal disaster relief were fulfilled “either late, ineffectively or not at all.“
The special report concluded that Chertoff unnecessarily delayed naming a top federal coordinator for relief efforts and the activation of an internal disaster management group. More prompt action by Chertoff would have quickened the relief effort, the report said.
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Victims of Terrorism
Address Spanish Confab
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A Spanish victim of March 11 terrorist attack in Madrid, Laura Jimenez, attends the official inauguration of the 3rd Congress of Victims of Terrorism at the Congress Palace in Valencia, Feb. 13. (AFP Photo)
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VALENCIA, Spain, Feb. 13--A spokeswoman for victims of the armed Basque separatist group ETA told an international conference on Monday that political attempts to broker a peace settlement must not obscure their own support needs.
“I can understand things could take a long time as de-activating the machine of hate going back several generations is complicated,“ Maite Pagazaurtundua, president of the Victims of Terrorism Foundation, told Cadena Ser Radio, on the first day of the conference, AFP reported.
Pagazaurtundua made the comment after Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero warned that reaching a settlement to four decades of conflict during which ETA has been blamed for more than 800 deaths will be “long, difficult and tough“.
Pagazaurtundua asked, in allusion to Zapatero’s forecast: “Tough for whom? Not for the victims, right? Because if so, we would not be talking about justice but impunity.“
Opening the conference, which was due to draw survivors of attacks including the train bombings in March 2004 in Madrid and July 2005 in London, the September 2001 attacks in the United States and the Beslan school siege in Russia in September 2004, Spanish heir to the thrown Crown Prince Felipe insisted: “We will never bow to terrorism.“
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Danish PM Criticized by Muslim Groups
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Feb 13--Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Monday met with a moderate Muslim group to discuss the fallout from Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) cartoons and was promptly criticized for cutting out more radical Muslim representatives.
“The objective of the meeting is to start a dialogue with Danes of Muslim faith about, among other things, integration and the current situation,“ the prime minister’s office said, AFP reported.
“Our aim is to show that there are many Danish Muslims who are sad to see their country vilified abroad, and who are seeking dialogue and not confrontation,“ Fathi El-Abed, one of the founders of the Democratic Muslims group, told AFP at the weekend.
But Tim Jensen, an Islam expert at Odense University, said Rasmussen was wrong to exclude more traditional Muslims from talks.
“The head of government is sending a wrong signal by talking to well-integrated, educated Muslims, intellectuals, and westernized women who don’t wear headscarves, but not the others,“ he told AFP.
“It’s nothing special to be tolerant if we only tolerate those who are like us,“ he said. The 12 cartoons of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) have caused uproar in the Muslim world and violent protests claiming several lives.
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Call for Expediting Afghan Refugee Policies
TEHRAN, Feb. 13--Interior Minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi here Monday underscored the need to accelerate work on formulating policies about Afghan refugees registered in the second phase of the voluntary repatriation program.
According to the Interior Ministry’s Public Relations Office, the minister also discussed issues related to other foreign nationals residing in Iran in his meeting with the Executive Coordination Council for Foreign Nationals, IRNA reported.
Bylaws related to pardoning foreign prisoners, prohibiting employment of and partnership with nationals of certain countries and the procedures of allowing foreign nationals to travel in Iran’s deserts were ratified in the meeting.
The council also decided that vehicles carrying illegal foreign nationals will be confiscated for six months and that fees charged on foreign residence permits will increase.
Pourmohammadi noted that officials dealing with foreign nationals need to take all aspects of the job into consideration and conduct more expert work.
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Orgy of Islamophobia
By Nawab Khan, Brussels
The malicious cartoon provocation by the western media has been aptly described by London Mayor Ken Livingstone as an “an orgy of Islamophobia.“
Much has been stated in the West about the right to express without limitations. This has never been the case in European history. The argument that publication within the law is always right goes against the fact that judgment calls are made on a daily basis by European editors who decide not to publish legally permitted materials.
Moreover, the western world’s claims of freedom of expression have been proved to be a colossal hoax by developments on the ground. The Danish editor, Flemming Rose, who commissioned the cheap cartoons, has been sent on vacation after he said he wants to publish Iranian cartoons of the holocaust.
Hamshahri, one of the important newspapers printed in Tehran, said it was holding a contest inviting cartoonists to depict the holocaust to test the boundaries of free speech in the West.
Jyllands-Posten editor-in-chief Carsten Juste said the paper would not print the Iranian cartoons. Earlier this week, the editor of the paper’s Sunday edition defended a decision three years ago not to publish five cartoons of Jesus Christ. “I turned them down because they were not good - their quality was not good,“ Jens Kaiser said.
Last year two Muslim satellite channels (al-Minar and Sahar) were banned from broadcasting in Europe on accusations of spreading hatred against Jews. Police in European countries regularly raid Islamic organizations suspected of spreading hate literature.
So why does the rule of “freedom of speech and expression“ not apply to Muslims? The state-run Egyptian daily Al-Ahram commented “Those who lecture us about free speech know full well that they cannot say anything that may involve a slur against Jews. And anything other than the mainstream account of the holocaust is a taboo, in both America and Europe.“
“Read the articles of the law passed by the US congress in 2004 concerning the fight against anti-Semitism and you’ll have a clear picture of how things stand. Anyone who criticizes the Zionist movement, or Israel, or Judaism is liable to prosecution. And yet it is still all right, apparently, to slur Christianity and Islam.“
The West is now calling for dialogue with the Muslim world to contain the Muslim fury. But what dialogue, and with whom? Thousands of conferences and seminars have been held since the 11/9 attacks on relations between the West and the Islamic world. The result is more insult to Muslims and trampling of their rights in western societies.
The publication of the cartoons is a systematic campaign that aims at tarnishing the image of Islam and Muslims. Why for example, the western world glorifies and honors blasphemous writers like Salman Rushide or Taslima Nasreen if not to offend and insult Muslims on purpose?
The cartoon campaign cannot be separated from the overall hostile posture of the West against the Muslim world.
The occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, military threats against Iran and Syria, refusal to recognize the democratically elected Hamas in Palestine, depriving Iran of its right to nuclear energy are among the West’s conspiracies against the Muslim world.
The European Union has reacted angrily to the economic boycott on Danish products -- a signal that a boycott can be effective. If Saudi Arabia alone stopped importing, half of Denmark’s economy will be gravely harmed, losing billions in revenues.
For a change the West should get the dose of its own medicine of sanctions and boycotts that it imposes on Muslim nations.
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