Posts Tagged ‘Tehran’
Written by admin on 10 April 2012
Tehran, April 10 (IANS) Iran Tuesday said it has busted a terrorist cell linked to Israel and arrested a number of its members.
The intelligence ministry said “one of the terror and sabotage cells of Israel and a number of its protected cores were identified and a group of criminal terrorists were arrested”, Xinhua quoted Mehr news agency as saying.
“A chain of operations, conducted in the bordering and central provinces of the country, led to the arrest of the terrorists linked to the Zionist regime,” the report said.
Some operational teams were dismantled and arrested “while they were preparing for terrorist acts” inside Iran, the ministry said.
A number of “heavy bombs” ready to be blasted, different kinds of machine guns and military and communication equipment were seized from the terrorists, the report said.
Iran has in the past accused Israel of carrying out intelligence work inside the country and even killing Iranian scientists.
Israel and the West accuse Iran of making weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear programme. Iran denies the charges, saying the nuclear activities were for peaceful purposes.
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Written by admin on 08 April 2012
Tehran, April 8 (IANS) Iran will not stop high-grade uranium enrichment and it will also not close down the Fordo nuclear site, the country’s nuclear chief told ISNA news agency Sunday.
There is no justification for the demands by the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany to stop the enrichment of uranium to the grade of 20 percent in Iran, Xinhua quoted Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Fereidoon Abbasi as saying in the report.
“We won’t enrich 20-percent uranium beyond our needs, because it is not economical to produce and keep it,” he added.
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Written by admin on 07 April 2012
Tehran, April 7 (IANS) All 28 Chinese crew members on board a Chinese cargo ship hijacked by Somali pirates have been rescued, the Chinese embassy in Tehran said.
The cargo ship, Xianghuamen, was hijacked by Somali pirates Friday morning in the Sea of Oman near Iran’s southern port of Chabahar, Xinhua reported.
The vessel, registered in Panama, belongs to the Nanjing Ocean Shipping company in eastern China.
The ship, setting sail from Shanghai, made a stopover in Singapore to unload some goods and then headed for the Imam Khomeini port in Iran when it was hijacked.
At least nine Somali pirates climbed on to the cargo ship, fired gun shots and seized the Chinese crew members on board.
Two Iranian naval warships took part in the rescue operation, and followed the vessel and ordered the pirates to surrender. The pirates later threw their weapons into the sea and surrendered to the Iranian navy.
The Chinese embassy in Tehran has asked Iranian governmental departments to take all necessary measures to ensure the crew members’ safety.
Yu Hongyang, the Chinese ambassador, has requested Iran to put the safety of the hijacked crew members as the first priority. he said the Chinese government and foreign ministry have all expressed concern over the incident.
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Written by admin on 05 April 2012
Tehran, April 5 (IANS) No country would have adopted a hostile attitude towards Iran if the US had not exerted pressure on it to change its policy on Tehran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said.
“If the political pressure by the United States had not been there, no other country would have had problems with Iran because Iran is not a threat to the interests of any European country,” Mehr quoted Ahmadinejad saying in a interview with public service German TV broadcaster ZDF.
He also commented on the approach that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has adopted towards Tehran’s nuclear programme, saying that the UN nuclear watchdog did not act “independently” and is influenced by major powers.
At the end of last year, US President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorisation Act, a part of which is aimed at choking off Iran’s crucial oil revenue by targeting its central bank and financial sector.
The law allows the Obama administration to slap sanctions on foreign banks that engage in oil transactions with Iran’s central bank and cut them off from the American financial system.
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Written by admin on 05 April 2012
Tehran, April 5 (IANS) Kofi Annan, the UN-Arab League envoy, will travel to Tehran next Wednesday to hold talks with senior Iranian officials over Syria, his spokesman said Thursday.
“Mr. Annan will be visiting Tehran on the 11th,” Mehr News quoted Ahmad Fawzi as saying during a news briefing in Geneva.
On Feb 27, Annan had held talks with Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Geneva just days after taking up his post as joint special envoy of the UN and Arab League.
Iran, as the main ally of Damascus, has opposed foreign intervention in Syria.
It says that the reforms announced by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are key to resolving the year-long Syrian crisis.
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Written by admin on 05 April 2012
Tehran, April 5 (IANS) Iran’s national football team will play a friendly match against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in preparation for the final stage of Asian qualifying for the 2014 World Cup to be held in Brazil.
The team has been grouped with South Korea, Uzbekistan, Lebanon and Qatar in the Asian qualifiers.
Iran will face stiff competition from South Korea for the top spot in Group A. The two teams have met 25 times, with nine wins each and seven draws.
Iran was originally scheduled to play Nigeria but the match was cancelled and Iranian officials have since reached an agreement with the UAE to play a friendly, Xinhua reported.
According to the report, Iran is also optimistic about playing a warm-up match against Japan.
“The Iranian officials and their Japanese counterparts have reached a verbal agreement but the Japanese have not officially announced their readiness. Iran wanted to play Japan at the Azadi Stadium in Tehran,” director of the International Relations Committee of Iran’s Football Federation, Omid Jamali, was quoted as saying.
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.JPG "Fuel's Style & Sculpture workshop in Mumbai on Wednesday Evening. (Photo: IANS)")
