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TEHRAN--An Islamic court in Iran has sentenced a German businessman to death for having sex with a Muslim woman.
On Saturday, sources close to the case identified the man as 54-year-old Helmut Hofer. They said the court sentenced him Monday for an illicit relationship with a 26-year-old Iranian woman he met during a business trip last....
[According to Reuter Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel said he and the government were "shocked" by the Tehran court ruling last Monday. He said the sentence violated human rights and justice. Kinkel said relations between Iran and Germany would be damaged if the death sentence were enforced.]
Iranian First Vice President Resigns: Tehran Times
Report, Agence France Presse, February 1
TEHRAN - Iranian First Vice President Hassan Habibi has submitted his resignation to President Mohammad Khatami, the Tehran Times newspaper reported Sunday.
Quoting an unidentified source, the conservative daily considered close to official circles said Habibi had turned in his resignation "several weeks ago."
Habibi is one of the framers of the constitution of the Islamic Republic. He lived for 14 years in France before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Vice President Denies Granting Interview to Israeli Paper, Agence France Presse, February 1
TEHRAN - Iranian Vice President Massumeh Ebtekar denied Sunday having given an interview to an Israeli newspaper in which she was quoted as coming out in favor of a dialogue between Iranians and Israelis.
"I never had an interview with any Israeli newspaper," Iran's vice president for environmental protection told the official Iranian news agency IRNA in Davos, Switzerland.
"Such baseless allegations constitute a straightforward example of malicious speculation in the Zionist media," she said.
The Yediot Aharonot presented the interview, published Sunday, as the first given to an Israeli newspaper by an Iranian official since the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979.
Mullah Who Charmed Iranians Cannot Change Status Quo, The New York Times, February 1
TEHRAN - ... five months after taking office, [Khatami] is finding extraordinary obstacles as he moves within the constraints of the Islamic Republic in which he believes. He admits that he knows little about the economy, whose direction is determined by a five-year plan that he inherited. He lacks a political apparatus or party to give cohesion to his goals...
Most crucial, under Iran's Constitution, Khamenei -- the "supreme leader" of the Islamic Republic -- is more important than the president, with control over the armed forces, the judiciary and the security, intelligence and broadcasting services.
And in the eyes of the Clinton administration, Khatami has yet to prove he has the power or the will to curb groups and individuals engaged in activities the United States defines as terrorism and in programs to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and a ballistic missile capability.
He has yet to articulate his view on Khomeini's decree that the British writer Salman Rushdie insulted the prophet Mohammed in a novel and should be put to death....
But even his supporters ask how long he can keep the confidence of the people in a country where housecleaners earn more than college professors, inflation is running at 30 percent, about 20 percent of the population is unemployed and more than half the population is under 21.
"People are not poking their noses into other people's business as much," said Saied Rajaie-Khorasani, an adviser in the Foreign Ministry. "But the president has not been able to bring about very significant change. The red lines have not changed."
A heavy air of uncertainty hangs over the people around the president, and there is an unwillingness of his ministers and aides to commit themselves to fixed positions.
Even the first lady seems to feel that uncertainty. During the interview, she suddenly interrupted herself to comment about the flower arrangement on the table beside her.
Sticking up in the middle of the bowl of yellow, purple and white flowers was a single pink rose. She appeared to notice that attached to it was a hidden microphone. "There is a microphone here," she announced. "Is somebody listening to what we're saying?"
The official interpreter omitted the
comment from her translation. In the hallway outside, three men with headsets
were recording the interview....