Iran said it had successfully test-fired an advanced anti-aircraft missile on Wednesday which would heavily contribute to its arsenal.
 
"It was fired this morning (Wednesday) and it successfully hit and destroyed a mock enemy target," Iranian state television quoted a Defense Ministry spokesman as saying.

The spokesman said the missile was a locally built  missile, without giving its range.

Iran in July test-fired its medium-range Shehab-3 missile, whose 1,300 km (800 miles) range puts Israel within its reach.

Tehran said the surface-to-surface missile had been designed and manufactured domestically without any foreign help.

U.S. experts said the Shehab-3 was based on a North Korean design, with the addition of Russian-derived technology.

The United States and Israel have repeatedly voiced concern over Iran's missile capacity. Tehran denies receiving any foreign help for its missile program.

Iran said in February it was building a new missile, called Shehab-4, to launch satellites into space.
 
 

Inhuman Punishment of Public Stoning Continues Under Khatami, Reuter, April 14

An Iranian man was stoned to death in northern Iran, a newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The sentence was carried out in public in Babol, a town bordering the Caspian Sea, on Tuesday, Qods daily said.

Ahmad Asqarpour received 60 lashes before his execution, which began when the judge who sentenced him to death threw the
first stone.
 
 

Iranian Cleric Says His Trial Illegal, Agence France Presse, April 14
 
The trial of Iranian cleric Mohsen Kadivar opened Wednesday with the defendant charging that the hearing was unconstitutional and the court incompetent to try his case.

"Investigation into political and press offenses must be carried out in the presence of a jury and by a qualified court of the judiciary. The special court for clergy is not a part of the judiciary," Kadivar said.

The court is "not qualified to investigate these offenses," the cleric said, quoted by the official news agency IRNA.

Jamileh Kadivar, the cleric's sister, lashed out at the court in front of television cameras before entering for the opening session.

"They are worse than the executioners of the shah's regime," she said, referring to the imperial ruler who was toppled by the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Kadivar has been seen as a "political prisoner" since the SCC ordered his detention in March. He has written a number of articles calling for Iran's political life to have more autonomy from religion in the Islamic republic.
 
 

Top-ranking Clerics Reject Relations With U.S., Agence France Presse, April 9

Two top-ranking conservative Iranian officials on Friday rejected any moves to build ties with the United States.

Speaking on the 19th anniversary of the break in Iranian-US relations, the head of the judiciary Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi said: "As Imam Khomeini and his successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei always said we do not want relations with the United States."

For his part, deputy speaker Ayatollah Ali Movahedi-Kermani said "the oppressive nature of the American regime and its leaders rules out any ties with this country." In March, the head of the Iranian constitutional council Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati ruled out relations with the United States, saying it did not uphold the principle of "mutual respect" among nations.
 
 

Egyptian Parliament Speaker Refuses to Visit Iran,  Chinese Xhinhua, April 13

CAIRO - Egypt's parliament speaker has rejected an invitation to visit Iran because a main street in Iranian capital Tehran is named after the assassin of the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

Ahmed Fathi Sorour, speaker of the People's Assembly (parliament) said the invitation was extended to him by an Iranian parliamentary delegation he met in Brussels, Belgium, where he is attending an international parliamentary conference, the Arabic El-Messa daily reported Tuesday.Tehran severed diplomatic ties with Cairo in 1979 after Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel.
 

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