Iran Offers Oil Block To Indonesia's Pertamina: Official
Monday September 15, 2:06 PM
JAKARTA (Dow Jones)--Iran has offered an oil block to Indonesia's state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina (P.PTM), an Indonesian government official said Monday.
Oil and gas director-general at Indonesia's Mines and Energy Ministry, Iin Arifin Takhyan, told reporters the government received a letter on the offer from Iran.
"We will forward the letter to Pertamina soon," he added.
He didn't name the Iranian block offered.
Pertamina has been looking to explore for oil outside the country amid falling proven oil reserves in Indonesia, the only Southeast Asian member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC.
Last year, Pertamina was awarded Iraq's Western Desert block, which is estimated to contain 3 million barrels of crude oil.
http://sg.biz.yahoo.com/030915/15/3e6cw.htmlThird Shooting Targets British Mission in Iran
Mon September 15, 2003 03:31 AM ET
By Christian Oliver
TEHRAN (Reuters) - A motorcycle passenger fired shots at the main gate of the residential compound of the British embassy in Iran, the third time the mission has been targeted this month, a British diplomat said Monday.
As with the previous incidents, nobody was hurt in the latest shooting which took place Sunday evening, British diplomat Andrew Greenstock told Reuters.
Tensions have been rising between Tehran and London over Britain's arrest at Argentina's request of a former Iranian diplomat in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
Britain protested "strongly" to Iran last week after the second of two drive-by shootings around the British embassy in central Tehran in under a week.
Witnesses at the sprawling, leafy Gholhak compound where British embassy staff and their families live in northern Tehran, said they heard two shots Sunday night.
"There were witnesses. It seems to be two men on a bike again," Greenstock said.
He said the shots were fired around 6:10 p.m. (1340 GMT). Iran's government was quick to condemn the shooting.
"These kind of moves are completely unacceptable," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told Reuters. He said the government would ensure those responsible were brought to justice.
Witnesses said an increased number of guards had been posted at the Gholhak compound Monday.
The Gholhak compound is a high-walled haven in the north of Iran's crowded capital, filled with trees, gardens and diplomatic residences.
British diplomats said there have been two drive-by shootings at the embassy in central Tehran but this was the first time the residential compound had been targeted.
In the first incident on September 3 gunshots, also apparently fired from a passing motorcycle, pierced windows in the embassy building that stands near a busy street.
On September 9, witnesses said three or four shots were fired at or near the embassy, coming from two men on a motorcycle.
Iran was outraged by Britain's arrest in August of Hadi Soleimanpour, who was Iran's ambassador to Argentina at the time of the Buenos Aires bombing. The arrest followed a provisional extradition request from Argentina.
Iran insists the case is politically motivated and called for the swift release of Soleimanpour, who was studying in Britain. Soleimanpour was released on bail of 730,000 pounds ($1.2 million) Friday.
(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi)
http://asia.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=3442469