Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

TEHRAN, Jan. 21--Iranian and Qatari presidents on Monday condemned the new wave of Israeli crimes against Palestinians living in Gaza Strip, calling on the international community to come to the help of defenseless Palestinians.
Israel has killed scores of Palestinian youth, women and children in air and ground offensives and indiscriminate bombardment of residential areas, IRNA reported.
Doctors say Israel used cluster bombs because all the 50 wounded admitted to Shifa Hospital on January 16 have lost limbs.
Speaking on phone, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani expressed their abhorrence at the alarming scale of deaths in Gaza and said the international community should hold the criminal leaders of the Zionist Israeli regime accountable for the human tragedy caused by them in the Gaza Strip.
President Ahmadinejad said the Palestinian nation is passing through a critical period and called for serious action to stop the Israeli crimes.
The chief executive urged the Organization of Islamic Conference to force the Israeli regime to stop its crimes.
“Political and humanitarian actions should be taken urgently to alleviate the sufferings of Palestinians,“ he said, adding that the Arab League and OIC would hold emergency meetings to study how to stop the humanitarian catastrophes in the Gaza Strip and dispatch food supplies and medicine to the Palestinians.
The Qatari leader welcomed President Ahmadinejad’s proposal and said the Arab states of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council and the OIC member-states should adopt effective measures in this respect.
Sheikh Hamad criticized the indifference of certain Arab states to the plight of Palestinians and said the Qatari government has decided to send food and medical supplies to Gaza Strip and electricity generators to them.
IRNA’s reporter in Gaza said the city’s main power station has stopped operation due to fuel shortage as a result of the economic blockade Israel imposed on Gaza Strip.
“People do not have electricity and fuel for heating their homes in the freezing temperature,“ he said.
“Schools do not have fuel for heating and they use candles in the near dark days of the winter.“

TBILISI, Georgia, Jan. 21--Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki held separate talks with Georgian deputy prime minister and foreign minister on ways to develop Tehran-Tbilisi relations.
Mottaki is currently on a visit to Tbilisi to take part in the sworn-in ceremony of President Mikhail Saakashvili, IRNA reported.
Saakashvili won a presidential election on January 5 for a second five-year term.
Mottaki told the Georgian deputy prime minister,Giorgi Baramidze, that Iran is willing to further develop ties with Georgia.
In his meeting with Georgian Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili, Mottaki said Iran would welcome closer cooperation with Georgia in the context of North-South Corridor. Mottaki said the two countries could boost their ties but there are also obstacles.
For his part, Georgia’s foreign minister appreciated Iran’s role in the security of the Caucasian region.
He added that the two countries’ willingness for expansion of ties has paved the way for joint investments in the two countries.
Meanwhile, senior Iranian and Ukrainian officials are mulling over ways to promote cooperation between Tehran and Kiev in aircraft production.
In a meeting on Sunday in Tbilisi, Mottaki and top Ukrainian officials discussed plans to promote collaboration in different fields, including energy, economic, aircraft production and transportation.
The Ukrainian officials, for their part, said consolidating ties with Tehran is one of Kiev’s high priorities.
The two sides concluded that launching joint economic commissions would serve as a starting point for the two countries to boost relations.

TEHRAN, Jan. 21--Senior Bulgarian lawmaker Solomon Passy has said his country would like to develop closer parliamentary relations with Iran.
Passy, who chairs the Bulgarian Parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee, described relations between Tehran and Sofia as longstanding and friendly, IRIB reported Monday.
A former Bulgarian foreign minister, Passy added that although parliamentary ties are currently well established, there is potential for improvement.
His remarks came as members of the Bulgarian Foreign Policy Committee and the Iran-Bulgaria Parliamentary Friendship Group, left for an official visit to Iran.
The delegation will meet with the head of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, as well as Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

TEHRAN, Jan. 21--A senior official said the health budget for the next Iranian year (to start on March 20) will increase by 35 percent.
Rahim Mamini, deputy vice president for strategic supervision and programming, said on Monday more than 5,700 billion rials will be set aside for completing the construction of hospitals and purchasing new medical equipment next year.
He said the health budget, which was presented to the parliament last week by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, should be ratified by the Majlis Health Commission.
The official said the credit allocated to the insurance and retirement sectors for the next year will also increase by 23.5 percent.
“In the social rehabilitation sector, we will witness a 26.5-percent growth in the annual budget, which will exceed 2,600 billion rials for the next Iranian year,“ he said.
Mamini further said 300 billion rials will also be allocated to commemorate unemployed war veterans with more than one year of presence in combat zones during the 1980-88 Iraq-imposed war.