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Prayer Time (Tehran)
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Dawn: 5:46
Sunrise: 7:14
Noon: 12:12
Evening: 17:31
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Weather Guide
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SAT |
SUN |
Tehran: |
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High: |
-6oC |
-8oC |
Low: |
-15oC |
-11oC |
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Athens |
13 |
10 |
Ankara |
-8 |
-10 |
Cairo |
16 |
17 |
Copenhagen |
7 |
4 |
Frankfurt |
6 |
4 |
Karachi |
18 |
21 |
Kuwait City |
6 |
6 |
London |
8 |
10 |
Madrid |
11 |
11 |
Moscow |
-1 |
0 |
New Delhi |
24 |
24 |
Paris |
8 |
8 |
Riyadh |
11 |
7 |
Rome |
14 |
11 |
Vienna |
8 |
4 |
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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
Executive Editor:
Editorial Dept. Tel: 88755761-2
Editorial Dept. Fax: 88761869
Advertising Dept. Tel: 88500616,88500617
Internet Address:
www.iran-daily.com
E-mail Address:
iran-daily@iran-daily.com
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ElBaradei
In Tehran
TEHRAN, Jan 11--Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei arrived here Friday on a visit aimed at resolving outstanding issues over Iran’s nuclear program.
The visit comes amid ongoing talks between the UN nuclear watchdog and Tehran over some aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, IRNA reported.
Accompanied by his deputy, Olli Heinonen, ElBaradei declined to make any comment on arrival.
The IAEA chief may seek to capitalize on signs of improving Iranian cooperation with his inspectors in recent months, observers said this week.
He is expected to meet President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Chief Gholam Reza Aqazadeh, and possibly Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei.
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said recently that ElBaradei will visit Iran in a bid to add momentum to his agency’s investigation of Iran’s past nuclear activities and seek fresh knowledge of present programs.
Fleming said ElBaradei will help the IAEA ’’provide assurance about Iran’s past and present nuclear activities.’’
Last summer ElBaradei had expressed his hope that all outstanding questions could be solved by the end of 2007.
The IAEA and Iran agreed on a so-called work-plan, aimed at clearing up remaining questions regarding Iran’s nuclear activities.
In a report in November, besides hailing the cooperation extended by Iran, the IAEA said Iran had also made progress in solving outstanding issues.
A diplomat close to the agency said Tuesday its inquiries had entered a final phase.
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Gov’t Orders Help
To Cold-Hit Regions
SARI, Mazandaran, Jan 11--President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here Friday ordered a probe into the problems in the northern regions created by the unprecedented cold weather in recent weeks.
Addressing a meeting of the Joint Council of the Natural Disasters Headquarters in Mazandaran, Gilan and Gorgan, he said swift action should be taken to address problems of the regions hit by below-freezing temperatures, IRNA reported.
The president arrived in this northern city Friday on a brief visit. He returned to Tehran after a 4-hour meeting with provincial officials related largely to the latest situation of the people hit by the biting cold.
Mazandaran province, the central and eastern regions in particular, have been suffering from fuel shortages for almost 10 days after Turkmenistan cut off gas supplies apparently for technical reasons.
Provincial authorities and the weatherman have consistently urged the people to stay indoors and travel only if very essential.
Casualties
At least 28 people are reported to have died in the heaviest snowfall in recent years.
Eight people froze to death as severe blizzards left 40,000 people stranded in their cars, authorities said.
Although most have now been rescued, nearly 20 people are reported to have been killed car crashes due to the freezing weather and treacherous roads.
The mercury has dropped in many regions to -24 degrees Celsius, and for the first time in recent memory snow has fallen on the country’s southern deserts.
There are mounting fears that the severe temperatures may lead to new shortages of gas and heating fuel.
Tehran’s new airport has re-opened but the situation remains chaotic.
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Leader:
Voting Demands
Knowledge, Foresight
TEHRAN, Jan. 11--Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that the nation should participate in the upcoming Majlis elections with foresight and determination.
The statement came in his meeting with a group of people from Qom marking the anniversary of massive demonstrations in that holy city three decades ago to protest an article published in Ettela’at newspaper denouncing religious identity of the nation before the victory of the Islamic Revolution, IRNA reported.
Several people including religious preachers were martyred by the deposed Shah’s regime on January 9, 1978.
“Election always demands insight and the nation must go to the polls with full knowledge about the candidates in the eighth Majlis election. With reliance on the Almighty, this time too the nation and the Islamic Republic will be successful,“ the leader said.
He noted that the uprising in Qom indeed left its mark on the subsequent revolutionary movement of the Iranian people against the former pro-western monarchy.
The 1978 mass protest was a major event in the history of the Islamic Revolution and should be kept alive, Ayatollah Khamenei said.
“It is the day on which the people of Qom expressed allegiance to the late (founder of the Islamic state) Imam Khomeini.“
The leader also recalled the anniversary of the ’hijab ban’ imposed by the former ruler Reza Shah in the 1920s and said Iranian women had then resisted the conspiracy and tolerated immense hardship to uphold their religious rights.
Ayatollah Khamenei said the illegal ban on the veil by the former king was a failed attempt to undermine the religious identity of a great nation.
Elsewhere in his speech, the leader cited a direct appeal by George Bush to the Iranian nation four years ago to boycott the parliamentary polls and said the people had dismissed the
Call as unwanted interference.
All elections after the 1979 revolution were held in free and fair atmosphere, the leader said, and added that recent calls by some pro-western groups for foreign observers to monitor the March Majlis vote are shameful and an insult to the great nation.
“Any group in Iran supported by the US president should think about their shortcomings -- something which made the US support them,“ the leader said.
The leader called on political parties to distance themselves from the hypocritical self-styled superpower and said the people are vigilant and carefully watching the enemy.
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IFF Gets New Chief
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Ali Kafashian
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TEHRAN, Jan. 11-- The Iranian Football Federation (IFF) on Wednesday elected a new president in a move aimed at ending a row with FIFA over political meddling in Iran’s football, local media reported.
Ali Kafashian, as the sole candidate, was approved after a pro-government candidate withdrew on late Tuesday.
The election was supervised by representatives of soccer’s world governing body FIFA and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
FIFA and the AFC had refused to let a politician take the post, arguing that it would amount to government interference in Iranian football and contravene international regulations.
FIFA and the IFF had long been at odds over the country’s refusal to exclude members of the state-run Physical Education Organization.
Mohammad Aliabadi withdrew from the race last month under orders from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran sought to defuse the row.
Another pro-government candidate, Shahrokh Shahnazi, withdrew on Tuesday, paving the way for Kafashian’s unopposed run.
The vote was initially scheduled for Dec 6 but was postponed after FIFA said it would not recognize the result.
Kafashian’s first task should be appointing the new national team coach as Iran’s first World Cup qualification game will be on Feb 6 against Syria in Damascus.
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US Now Unsure
About Hormuz Claim
DUBAI, UAE, Jan 11--The US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain has expressed doubt on whether a threat radioed to US warships in the Persian Gulf came from Iranian speedboats, saying there was “no way to know“ that.
The US Navy’s remark is contradictory to the earlier US version of confrontation.
Lieutenant John Gay said: “There is no way to know where this (radioed threat) exactly came from. It could have come from the shore... or another vessel in the area,“ Alalam.ir reported.
But the spokesman claimed that the speedboats acted in a “provocative and aggressive manner“ towards the US warships in the strategic waterway at the time.
The Pentagon released a video and audiotape on Tuesday that it said confirmed US charges that Iranian speedboats swarmed around the US ships on Sunday and also radioed a threat to blow them up.
But on Thursday Iran released its own video, showing the crew of a speedboat contacting an American sailor via radio, asking him to identify the US vessels and state their purpose.
The Press TV in Iran said the footage had been released by the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).
Gay said the threat was made through an “open bridge to bridge circuit“ and it would be “very difficult to determine“ that it came from the Iranian speedboats.
However, the US protested formally to the Iranian government on Thursday over the incident in the Strait of Hormuz, the State Department said.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey said a formal diplomatic note was sent via the Swiss ambassador in Tehran who acts as an interlocutor between the US and Iranian governments.
Iran and the US severed diplomatic relations in 1979 and several attempts to mend ties have failed.
A State Department official said he did not expect to receive a response from the Iranian government from the note.
“We certainly don’t want to see the Iranians taking any kinds of provocative actions or steps against our ships or any ships that are transiting what is a primary international waterway,“ Casey said.
The Strait of Hormuz, the most prominent potential “choke point“ in the global crude oil trade, handles 17 million barrels per day of global water-borne crude oil trade, over a third of total global shipments.
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US Ramblings
By Armin Hedayati
The episode of Iranian patrol boats and US navy warships in the Strait of Hormuz has become a new pretext for sections of the western media to indulge in stale propaganda stunts against the Islamic Republic.
Iran has officially announced that the action taken Sunday by its coast guards in the strategic waterway was “ordinary and routine“ stuff.
Iranian vessels conduct daily patrols in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz on the southern flank. If and when necessary, those in charge of the complicated naval operations in their usual professional manner call on the passing ships to radio their identity and other details.
American military officers and their propaganda machines not surprisingly are trying to make some political capital out of the ordinary incident at the weekend.
Senior navy and Pentagon officials in Washington were quoted on Monday as saying that the action of the Iranian speedboats was “unnecessary provocative“ against the three American warships.
The US media hype that five Iranian boats “aggressively“ approached the warships came at a time when the naval wing of the Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corps (IRGC) in charge of patrolling the strait has announced Monday that its boats had been conducting “routine“ operations related to the shipping traffic in the narrow waterway.
According to the Guards Corps, three US navy ships were seen entering the Persian Gulf and were told by the Iranian boats to clarify their identity. The warships complied by announcing their identification numbers and carried on with their journey. The entire incident hardly lasted 30 minutes and ended without any shots fired.
Regional observers say all the unwanted and unhelpful ramblings of the Americans over the Hormuz encounter is geared largely to the upcoming visit by George Bush to the Middle East to encourage “compromise“ over the fate of the oppressed Palestinians.
Many believe the White House is trying to fish in muddy waters in a failed bid to convey that Iran remains a threat to the region.
For almost two decades the American hawks and neocon right wingers have been pushing the Persian Gulf Arab states to deploy US anti-missile shields to counter “Iran’s threat“.
However their efforts have been in vain as more and more Arab leaders come to realize the futility of America’s anti-Iran policy and see how Uncle Sam’s ploys have only contributed to Tehran’s influence in the Muslim-Arab world.
In the most recent setback for the embattled Bush regime, his defense chief Robert Gates toured Iran’s neighborhood last month to intimidate Arab capitals and demonize Iran and its nuclear program. The poor Gates not only failed in his messy mission, he was grilled by reporters keen to know more about US policy on Israel’s formidable nuclear arsenal rightly seen as the biggest danger to regional stability.
Bush’s last ditch effort at “peacemaking“ also deserves mention. Even apolitical sources are unimpressed by the war president’s credentials, especially his standing with the Arab street. How, many want to know, could the lame duck ruler even comprehend about “peace“ in the region when he has blood on his hands and is so obsessed with the security and stability of the world’s most lawless regime occupying Palestine.
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