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/ 24 November 2004

National Geographic banned in Iran

Iran has banned the sale of National Geographic Society publications to protest against the use of the term ”Arabian Gulf” alongside ”Persian Gulf” in its new world atlas, an Iranian official said on Tuesday. Mohammad Hossein Khoshvaght, an official at Iran’s Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, said the atlas, which was released in October, also must be corrected to remove a reference that says Iran has ”occupied” several Gulf islands.

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/ 15 September 2004

Fahrenheit 9/11 gets ‘axis of evil’ premiere

Cinemagoers in the Iranian capital were given their first glimpse of Fahrenheit 9/11 this week, but appeared to also enjoy the rare chance to watch an American movie more than its assault on their regime’s arch foe George Bush. On Tuesday night the film was sold out and the theatre packed with close to 380 people, most of them young.

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/ 9 August 2004

Thousands ‘register for suicide missions in Iraq’

Over 15 000 Iranians have registered for suicide missions in the holy Shi’ite cities in southern Iraq, the Tehran daily Hamshahri reported on Monday. Foruz Rajaifar, head of a local organisation for defending Islamic values, was quoted by the daily as saying that all of the volunteers were ready to defend Islam in southern Iraq or wherever else they were needed.

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/ 28 May 2004

‘Relatively strong’ quake shakes Iran

Iran’s northern and western regions were jolted by a ”relatively strong” earthquake on Friday, state television said, sending many people in Tehran scurrying into the streets. The quake struck at 5.10pm local time, the report said, without giving its magnitude or epicentre. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

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/ 28 May 2004

‘Death to the United States’

Iranian demonstrators clashed violently with security forces on Friday as they again tried to storm the British embassy in Tehran, an AFP reporter witnessed. Riot police made several baton charges to push back a crowd of more than 300 protesters trying to push its way towards the main gate of the embassy compound.

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/ 26 April 2004

Be warned: The internet can damage your health

Iran’s youth has now been warned: the internet can jeopardise your bodily well-being, make you lose your friends and turn you into an anti-social, faithless and mentally damaged individual. A police statement pointed to ”psychological and spiritual tensions in families that have unwisely used computers and the internet”.

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/ 19 January 2004

More quakes hit Iran

Three strong earthquakes shook mountainous areas in central and southern Iran early on Monday, causing fearful residents to spend a freezing night outdoors, the official Irna news agency reported. The tremors struck less than a month after an earthquake devastated the city of Bam and killed at least 41 000 people.

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/ 30 December 2003

Iran quake: 28 000 bodies recovered

About 28 000 corpses have been pulled out of the rubble and buried after the devastating earthquake in and around Bam, in southeastern Iran, state radio reported on Tuesday quoting local government officials. A local governorate official has estimated that the final toll will top 30 000.

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/ 7 October 2003

Iran says it’ll carry on enriching uranium

Iran will not stop enriching uranium for peaceful purposes, despite a request from the UN nuclear agency, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said in remarks published on Tuesday. Last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency imposed a deadline of October 31 for Iran to prove that its nuclear programme is peaceful.