'Five Dead in Iran Riot'
December 05, 2003
bbc.co.uk
BBC World Service
Reports from south-east Iran say several people have been killed in clashes between demonstrators and police.
An Iranian member of parliament from the region, Jafar Kambouzia, was quoted as saying five people were killed in the clashes.
They took place on Thursday in Saravan, in Baluchistan province, near Iran's borders with Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Mr Kambouzia said the clashes broke out when police shot and killed a motorcyclist who had refused to stop.
Correspondents say there is often tension in Baluchistan province, which has a Sunni Muslim majority, unlike the rest of Iran.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3295337.stmhttp://www.radiofarda.com/transcripts/topstory/2003/12/20031203_0230_0306_0541_EN.asp •The Supreme Leader handed over to President Khatami the 20-year planning document, prepared as part of the fourth five-year economic development plan. The 20-year plan had been drafted by the Expediency Council and does not go beyond the same general guidelines and goals that during the past 25 years have been repeatedly pronounced by the authorities: elevation and deepening of religious philosophy and religious outlook, implementation of Islamic values in thought and action, strengthening national unity and identity based on Islam and the Islamic revolution, deepening the spirit of enemy-recognition, purifying the country's cultural atmosphere, endeavoring to implement social justice, job creation and lowering the jobless rate, endeavoring to reduce the economy's dependence on oil income, struggle against (Western) cultural aggression, and the like. What is new in this document are the slogans adopted from the reformists' platform, such as religious democracy and institutionalization of “permitted” freedoms and avoiding tensions in relations with foreign countries. Observers say, at the outset of the upcoming Majles elections, the conservative majority of the Expediency Council and the Supreme Leader, who have been blocking the reformists for the past six years, have now adopted the reformists' campaign slogans. (Fereydoun Zarnegar)
•The cabinet is due to review the fourth five-year economic plan next Sunday, deputy director of the macro economy office of the management and plan organization Mohammad Kordbacheh said. The government has more or less finished reviewing the budget bill for the next fiscal year, which will begin on March 22, 2004. The budget bill will soon go to the Majles for final approval, he added. (Baktash Khamsehpour)
--Same old, same old.. by the way if you haven't figured out, it's now so plan and obvious that Khatami was a 'figure-head', working within the hard-line establishment the entire time. The new slogans of the hard-liners are the same Khatami used, and he's regularly used for lucrative oil deals with the EU while human rights conditions and overall conditions in Iran worsen.
Both Khatami and Khameini have been calling for mass turnouts at the elections, other words Khameini is willing for the selected group of people GC picks to win as Reformists because he knows they mean nothing and they're just a part of the system controlled by the GC rather than the people boycott the elections which most are calling for.