Tehran

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.

A senior Iranian official on Thursday angrily denied allegations by an exiled opposition group that the clerical regime is running a secret nuclear-bomb facility near Tehran, and indicated that United Nations inspectors will be allowed to visit the site. ”I totally deny these allegations,” top diplomat Hossein Moussavian said.

Iran’s hard-line Basij militia has written to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to ask if the Islamic republic can send observers to the United States presidential election in November, a government newspaper said on Monday. ”We want to ridicule the so-called democratic slogans of the American leaders,” a Basij official said.

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.

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.

With anger mounting that Saddam Hussein has not been charged over his invasion of and use of chemical weapons against Iran, MPs called on Wednesday for the ousted Iraqi dictator to stand before an international court. ”The crimes of Saddam go beyond the national Iraqi framework,” said a statement.

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.

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.

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”.

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.

Several villages in southwestern Iran were damaged on Tuesday when 11 mild earthquakes struck the area in quick succession, state radio reported. An official told state radio that successive tremors are ”a warning of a more powerful earthquake, and inhabitants of the area should be vigilant”.

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.

Iran this week glossed over embarrassing revelations that it had lied to United Nations inspectors about its nuclear programme. The state media and government officials quoted the UN nuclear watchdog as saying that Tehran had recently displayed a more cooperative attitude.

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.

Iran will decide whether or not to accept snap inspections of its nuclear sites after an upcoming visit by legal experts of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said.

Iran warned Washington on Tuesday to stay out of its internal affairs, amid US newspaper reports that the White House was contemplating stirring up a popular revolt against the Islamic republic.

The Iranian authorities have banned several dozen websites for political and pornographic content, including those of US radio stations broadcasting in Farsi, the press reported on Sunday.

Sixty-eight young Iranian men and women have been rounded up by an Islamic militia and accused of using the Internet to arrange illicit sexual encounters, the official IRNA news agency said on Sunday.

A United Nations assessment team in the affected regions of Saturday’s deadly earthquake in northwestern Iran says ”hundreds of people were killed” and an estimated 2 000-4 000 injured.

Iran warned the United States on Monday against establishing an interim military government in neighbouring Iraq if it pushes ahead with plans to invade.