President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (c) presents a plaque of honor to a foreign dignitary, as Science, Research and Technology Minister Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi looks on at the international conference on renowned Iranian philosopher Abu-Nasr Farabi in Tehran on Saturday.

TEHRAN, Jan. 26--President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stressed the importance of contemplation in ensuring human bliss.
The Iranian president made the remark on Saturday while addressing an international conference on renowned Iranian philosopher Abu-Nasr Farabi (870-950 AD), IRNA reported.
Prominent instructors and researchers on Islamic philosophy as well as experts on oriental studies attended the Farabi confab to exchange views on the works of the great Iranian philosopher.
“The prosperity of society is tied to the promotion of human sciences,“ he said.
The president further said safeguarding the dignity of humans and addressing their needs will be impossible unless sciences and divine thoughts are institutionalized in societies.
Farabi, who was also a prominent scientist, played a crucial role in promoting philosophy, logic and music as well as other sciences during his lifetime.
The philosopher managed to incorporate Platonic, Aristotelian and neo-Platonic methods into Islamic ideology and chart a new path in philosophy.
Farabi has also written many books on political sciences, the most important of which is `Utopian Views’.

Manouchehr Mottaki

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 26--Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki urged the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to “correct their past mistakes“ and draw up a resolution ending their involvement in the country’s nuclear affairs.
The foreign minister also said on Friday that while it makes sense to talk with Washington over issues of mutual interest such as Iraq, he could not imagine any substantial improvement in ties with the United States even after a change in US administrations.
Mottaki spoke to The Associated Press on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, the Davos gathering of world political and economic leaders, whose focus on areas of international concerns include the Mideast.
His call for an end to a Security Council role in trying to pressure Iran comes amid indications that the council is moving precisely in the other direction and is ready to pass a third round of sanctions for Tehran’s refusal to mothball uranium enrichment and meet related demands.
Elements of a new UN resolution outlined new sanction proposals against Iran, including bans on travel and stepped up monitoring of Tehran’s financial institutions.
Asked what his message to the council was, Mottaki said, “it was time now to correct their previous mistakes“--involving itself in Tehran’s nuclear program and passing the two sanctions resolutions.
At the minimum, said Mottaki, the council should wait until the International Atomic Energy Agency completes its probe of Iran’s past nuclear activities, at the latest in early March.
If that report shows no attempt by Iran to make nuclear weapons--as claimed by the US--council members “should...pass a new resolution“ formally washing their hands of Iran’s nuclear activities, he said.
The investigation of the Islamic Republic’s former nuclear program that started last year is in its final stage, with diplomats admitting that Tehran has started providing information about its nuclear activities.
A US intelligence estimate published last month said Iran stopped efforts to make nuclear arms four years ago. But American officials have demanded that Tehran ’confess’ to such past attempts to make their cooperation with the IAEA probe credible.
But Mottaki said such a confession would not be forthcoming, asserting there was neither “political will“ nor “any practical step for nuclear weapons in my country“ even before 2003.
And he said he saw no room for improved relations between Tehran and Washington, even past the approaching change of US administrations. Formal bilateral ties were severed in the wake of the 1979 Iranian hostage-taking of US Embassy personnel.
“Usually we do not look to individuals in the United States or even to the (political) parties--we look to policies,“ he said.
“Being a realist...I have to say that I do not see room for the time being for the (establishment) of relations between Iran and the United States,“ he added, while acknowledging the sense of bilateral talks on the situation in Iraq.
On the sidelines of the forum, Mottaki discussed bilateral, regional and international issues with his Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt, Swiss counterpart Micheline Calmy-Rey, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah bin Ahmad Badawi and his Malaysian counterpart Seyyed Hamid Albar.

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 26--Afghan President Hamid Karzai referred to cordial relations with Iran and said Iranians have supported the Afghan government during the past six years.
Karzai, who is in the Swiss city of Davos to attend the World Economic Forum, made the remark in an interview with the US publications Washington Post and Newsweek on Saturday, Fars News Agency reported.
Commenting on Iran’s influence in Afghanistan, Karzai said, “Iranians have helped us in Afghanistan and I hope this trend will continue.“
Asked whether he will run for president in 2009, Karzai said, “I have to fulfill some obligations,“ without giving further details.
Referring to the activities of Taliban in Afghanistan, he stated that they try to prevent the country’s reconstruction and development by killing people, officials, religious leaders and cultural managers in the southern parts of the country.
Karzai stressed that Taliban cannot continue its measures and remain strong without any support.
“Is Pakistan supporting Taliban?“ he asked and went on to say that he discussed the issue with Pakistani officials during his recent visit to the country, calling on all countries to help Afghanistan overcome the problem.
Karzai further said his country is equipping its army and has trained some 57,000 members till now.

A storage facility is seen inside the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant 1,000 km south of Tehran.

TEHRAN, Jan. 26--Russia delivered the seventh of the eight consignments of fuel for Iran’s first nuclear power plant in the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr on Saturday.
“The seventh nuclear fuel shipment arrived at the Bushehr plant on Saturday morning,“ Iran’s Organization for Production and Development of Nuclear Energy said in a statement, IRNA reported.
The delivery brings the amount of nuclear fuel supplied by Russia so far to 77 tons, which is around 94 percent of the total 82 tons.
Russia began delivering the fuel on December 17 and the final consignment is due by February, according to a timetable agreed by the two sides.
Late last month, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the Bushehr reactor would be working at 50 percent capacity by mid-2008.
However, the Russian constructors insist that the 1,000-megawatt plant will not go on line until the end of the year.
The development coincided with the world powers pushing for a new set of sanctions to punish Iran for its nuclear drive, but a scheduled meeting on Friday of the full UN Security Council to discuss the new measures has been put off to early next week.
The new draft, agreed by the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council--Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, plus Germany, includes an outright ban on travel by officials involved in Iran’s nuclear program.
However, China and Russia, which have close trade and energy ties with the Islamic Republic, have been reluctant to back tougher punitive measures.
The US administration’s own intelligence on Iran has made it difficult to convince Beijing and Moscow that Tehran deserves biting sanctions.
A National Intelligence Estimate, the consensus view of 16 US spy agencies, released in early December reported that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, a conclusion that undermined President George W. Bush’s warnings about the Iranian threat.

CAIRO, Egypt,
Jan. 26--A Majlis deputy said Iran and Egypt, as two important countries in the Muslim world, are keen to expand relations in all fields.
Speaking upon his arrival in Cairo, the rapporteur of Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Kazem Jalali, said on Friday that Majlis Speaker Gholamali Haddad Adel would arrive in Egypt on Tuesday to attend the 5th Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union meeting, Presstv
reported.
Jalali noted that Haddad is scheduled to hold talks with Egyptian officials on ways to expand bilateral relations.
Latest developments in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq would top the agenda of the two-day meeting.
The speaker’s visit will take place at the invitation of his Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Sorour.
Haddad will be the first senior Iranian official to visit Egypt officially after the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
Iran was the main impetus behind the establishment of the Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union, which was founded in 1999. The headquarters of the 37-member body is in Tehran.

TEHRAN, Jan. 26--A large group of Basiji (volunteer) forces gathered at Palestine Square in downtown Tehran on Saturday to protest against the latest Zionist crimes in the Gaza Strip.
Chanting slogans such as “Death to the US“ and “Death to Israel“, the demonstrators voiced their anger over the savage Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territories, IRNA reported.
The protestors also carried placards condemning the Israeli brutality in the Gaza Strip and urged international bodies to prevent further crimes by the Zionist regime in the occupied lands.
At the end of their gathering, the Basijis signed a petition urging the United Nations to help end the genocide of Palestinians by the apartheid Israeli regime.