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| FarsiNet News Archive
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October 2000, Week 4 |
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Weather
forcast of 50 cities in Iran
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Iran Slams U.S. Terror Compensation Bill
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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Tuesday rejected as illegitimate a U.S. bill that would make it easier for victims of terrorism to collect damage claims from Iranian assets frozen in the United States, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the bill, passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress, was "in violation of international law and obligations of the American government," IRNA said. "The Islamic Republic of Iran considers this bill to be illegitimate and invalid and views any action based on this measure as null and void," Asefi said. "This bill is based on groundless accusations of (Iranian) backing for terrorism." Congress passed the measure earlier this month as an attachment to a bipartisan bill aimed at fighting international traffickers who force thousands of women into sexual slavery. President Bill Clinton is likely to sign the bill. U.S. courts have awarded victims, former hostages and their families multimillion-dollar judgements against nations that allegedly sponsor terrorism. But the Clinton administration has blocked the payment of damages from the foreign assets of countries such as Cuba and Iran frozen in the United States. An Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal, set up in The Hague under a 1981 bilateral agreement, has been litigating on claims by the two hostile countries. The United States froze Iranian assets, originally worth billions of dollars, after Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran following the 1979 Islamic revolution. The militants held 52 Americans hostage for more than a year.
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Iranian Poet Fereydoun Moshiri Dies at 74
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TEHRAN(Reuters) - Fereydoun Moshiri, one of Iran's most illustrious modern poets, died in Tehran at the age of 74, his friends said on Tuesday.
"Moshiri's verse was noble, sensual and full of love of life," Sadeq Samiee, a publisher and long-time friend, told Reuters.
Unlike many modern poets, who had fraternised with the Russian-backed communist movement in past times, Moshiri had remained nationalist and his epic verse flowed with romance. "Moshiri suffered from anaemia and was taken to hospital on Monday with a fever, where he unfortunately passed away," Samiee said. A former state employee, Moshiri was on the book committee of Iran's prestigious Ketabsara publishing house up to his death. He developed a simple, free-flowing style based on the tightly-balanced rhymes of classical Persian poetry and unlike many of his left-leaning contemporaries did not infuse his poetry with sexual immodesties. Poetry commands a wide audience in Iran, where sales of other books are comparatively small.
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Iran Students Question Supreme Leader Over Silence
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DUBAI(Reuters) - A radical Iranian student group has questioned the silence of Iran's supreme leader over the apostasy charges issued against a reformist cleric who may face the death penalty.
The Islamic association of students at Sharif University of Technology protested at the charges brought by the Special Court for Clergy, controlled by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a statement sent to Reuters on Saturday. "How is it that the leader...has chosen silence with regard to what has happened in an organ under his control? How is this silence to be interpreted?" the statement asked. The hardline Special Court for Clergy recently charged Hassan Yousefi-Eshkevari, an outspoken cleric, with apostasy, spreading corruption on earth and waging war against God -- crimes that carry the death penalty. The court, which answers only to the leader, ordered Yousefi-Eshkevari's arrest on August 5 on his return to Iran after attending a conference on the future of Iran's reforms in Berlin. His trial was held behind closed doors. The 51-year-old cleric, who suffers from diabetes, was not allowed to choose a lawyer. All hearings took place with a court-appointed lawyer representing him. "The (court) is a reminder of the dark mediaeval years and the inquisitions of the Church," the statement said. "In those days the reactionary officials of the Church would issue death sentences for apostasy, while today the same narrow-mindedness has been manifested in the officials of the Special Court." Khamenei is widely seen to be close to hardliners who dominate Iran's judicial system and are bitterly opposed to the reformist ideas of the intellectuals grouped around the moderate president, Mohammad Khatami.
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Iran Minister Waiting Khatami Reply to Resignation
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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's embattled minister of culture, accused by the conservative establishment of being too liberal, is still waiting for the president to accept his resignation, newspapers said on Thursday.
Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Ataollah Mohajerani is a close ally of President Mohammad Khatami and his resignation would be a blow to the moderate president and his promised programme of reforms. Mohajerani resubmitted his resignation earlier this month after his first, very strongly worded, letter was rejected. "I have officially handed in my resignation," Mohajerani told the reformist daily Hambastegi. "I am waiting for a reply from the president." Mohajerani has been under sustained attack by conservatives who accuse him with failing to stem the tide of "Westoxification" in newspapers, books and cinema. Unconfirmed reports on Wednesday said he had withdrawn his resignation. Reformist activists have criticised Mohajerani's resignation saying that he should resist hardliners' pressure to leave the cabinet. "Mohajerani should stand firm," Hamshahri daily quoted reformist editor Abbas Abdi as saying. "If anyone wants him removed (from the cabinet), he should be willing to bear the costs."
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