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TEHRAN - Hardliners scuffled with Tehran University students on Tuesday as Iran geared up for a brief but contentious electoral campaign.
Several dozen hardline militants clashed with about 40 students attending a speech by Vice-President Abdollah Nouri, witnesses said.
Police, providing security for another rally nearby, did not intervene in the fighting, which took place inside the gates of Tehran University, the witnesses said.
Several leading religious figures, most prominently Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri of Isfahan, have withdrawn their candidacy in protest at the council's ruling. Taheri is the only big-city Friday prayer leader to support President Khatami.
The pro-Khatami Salam newspaper said on Tuesday that Ayatollah Sadeq Khalkhali, once in charge of meting out revolutionary justice, had also quit the race in protest.
Students Stage Rally to Call for Rushdie Death, Agence France Presse, October 13
TEHRAN - Thousands of students belonging to fundamentalist militia groups held an anti-Western rally here Tuesday to demand that the death sentence against British author Salman Rushdie be carried out.
The 2,000-3,000 protesters, among them a number of women in black chadors, protested outside Tehran university, issued a statement denouncing pro-Western "cultural plots" in the Iranian media and expressing support for the fatwa, or religious decree, calling for Rushdie's death.
"Independently of diplomatic negotiations, we are calling for the application of the holy death sentence against Rushdie," the statement said.
More than 150 members of the 270-seat conservative-dominated parliament signed a petition last week describing the fatwa as a "divine order."
"The verdict against Rushdie the blasphemer is death, both today and tomorrow, and to burn in hell for eternity," the MPs said, while a spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry described the fatwa as "irrevocable."
Iran Faces Hurdles in Luring Investors, The Wall Street Journal, October 12
TEHRAN - A shortage of foreign currency is hobbling Iran's attempt to lure foreign investors, who flocked to Tehran for a trade conference amid signs of a political thaw here.
The 24th Tehran International Trade Fair, which concluded Saturday, teemed with foreign and local businessmen showcasing their wares from hundreds of stalls that lined huge pavilions.
Fairgrounds were choked with gleaming new tractors, luxury cars and factory tools from Europe's and Asia's top companies. But few people were buying, businessmen said, because Iran lacks the foreign currency to finance any big deals….
Though official figures are hard to come by, H. Pourian, an economist and editor of a weekly economics journal, estimates Iran's net foreign assets at $6.5 billion in 1997, down from $15 billion in 1996.
As a result, foreign currency is being rationed to a few, state-sponsored projects. And few banks are willing to open letters of credit, used to finance trade deals, for private companies. Even state-run companies have to line up for letters of credit…
Strict regulation is also to blame, said businessmen and government officials. Local banks, in a bid to control foreign-exchange flows, have declared any item imported into Iran and financed outside the country's state-run banking sector as contraband….
High import taxes are also siphoning trade, said businessmen. An agent who imports machinery from Europe said he once smuggled half an engine block into Iran through dozens of overnight-mail packages, largely to escape the country's customs duties, which can reach up to 50% of the value of the product….
Iran Says Six-Month Oil Income Down 39 Percent, Reuter, October 13
TEHRAN - Iran's income from oil exports fell to $5 billion in the six months from March due to a price slump, representing a 39 percent decline year-on-year, a senior Iranian official said on Tuesday.
"The country's oil income in the first six months of the (Iranian) year was $5.025 billion, while this income had been $8.261 last year," said Mohammad Ali Najafi, head of the state Plan and Budget Organization, quoted by Iran's news agency IRNA.
Najafi was speaking to parliament, before deputies passed the outlines of an emergency rescue package to deal with a 19 trillion rial ($6.3 billion) budget deficit, which the government said last week threatened its ability to pay bills and employees.
But the conservative-dominated parliament refused to approve the bill proposed by the government of President Mohammad Khatami, the daily Kayhan said.
Conservatives blasted government economic policies.