TEHRAN - Thousands of youths on Tuesday let off firecrackers in Tehran ahead of the Iranian New Year, defying government warnings about the hazards of the celebrations.

Police patrols were out in force as youths jumped over bonfires and lit fireworks to mark the ancient Chaharshanbe-Souri festival, but the celebrations were smaller than previous years due to rain, residents said.

According to tradition, jumping over a fire during the celebrations, held on the eve of the last Wednesday of the old year, ensures health in the new year, which starts later this week….

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, authorities have tried with little success to limit the celebrations because of the scenes of public dancing deemed immoral under Iran's Moslem laws.

The festival, blasted by hardline Islamists as a pagan relic, dates back to Iran's Zoroastrian past when fire was thought to have a spiritual cleansing effect.

 
Iraq Kurd Group Says Iran Tortured Member to Death, Reuter, March 17

ANKARA - An Iraqi Kurdish group said Iran had tortured to death one of its members after arresting him and 19 others for allegedly spying against the Islamic state.

"Twenty Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) officials living in Iran have been arrested," a KDP statement said Monday. "The detainees are being mistreated and tortured...as a result one of the detained was murdered while in custody."

An Iranian newspaper said Monday that Iranian security forces had arrested several KDP members on charges of spying for Turkey and Israel.

"The KDP denies allegations of involvement in spying against Iran," the group said in a statement Tuesday.

The men had been refugees legally living in Iran since the 1970s and 1980s, some of them working as liaison officers between Iranian authorities and Iraqi Kurdish refugees there, it said.

"Their activities were overt and agreed by Iranian authorities," the statement said.

The KDP says Iran is using those detained as leverage to pressure the group to allow Iranian intelligence operatives into northern Iraq to crack down on its dissidents there.

"The real reason behind these arrests is that the KDP did not give Iranian intelligence the freedom it demanded to commit acts of terror and assassinations," Tuesday's statement said.

 
Dim Economic Outlook, Reuter, March 17

LONDON - Weak oil prices have dimmed economic prospects in Iran, the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) said on Wednesday.

"Iran's economic prospects have been dampened by a sustained weakening in oil prices," the EIU said in a statement.

The weak oil prices would affect Iran's real gross domestic product (GDP) growth, which EIU projected would slow to two percent a year in fiscal 1998/99 from three percent in 1997/98.

It said that due to a projected 17 percent slump in oil prices this year, Iran would likely see a return to the harsh import compression applied in 1995/96 and a drawdown of foreign exchange reserves which it estimated to be about $8 billion.

 
Bus Crash Kills Seven Award-Winning Students, Reuter, March 17

TEHRAN - Seven award-winning Iranian students were killed when a bus returning them from a mathematics competition overturned in southwest Iran, Iranian television said on Tuesday.

The two drivers of the bus were also killed and several other students were injured in the accident which occurred on Monday night on a road outside Ahvaz, it said.

Iran Nuclear Energy Chief To Visit Russia, Reuter, March 15

TEHRAN - The head of Iran's nuclear energy program will visit Moscow next month at the invitation of his Russian counterpart, a newspaper said.

Russian firms have been hired to complete an unfinished 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant at the Iranian Gulf port of Bushehr at a cost of $850 million.

The United States and Israel have urged Russia not to go ahead with work at Bushehr, fearing Russian assistance could help Iran obtain nuclear weapons.

Two Russian ministers on Wednesday said Russia would press ahead with the Bushehr project despite U.S. opposition. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Vladimir Bulgak during a visit to Iran this month agreed in principle that Russian firms would help in building a second and third reactor at Bushehr.
 

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