Iran Focus: Washington, Apr. 07 – A leading Iran-policy group
in Washington discussed U.S. policy options towards the clerical state, in a conference on Capitol Hill yesterday, at the invitation of the Iran Human Rights and Democracy Caucus of the U.S. House of Representative.

AFP: Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi has rebuffed calls from Ottawa for an independent inquiry into the death in custody here of an Iranian-Canadian journalist, Tehran newspapers said Thursday. Kharazi insisted the case was a matter for Iran’s hardline judiciary and not his government, and dismissed testimony advanced by Canada to support its charge that journalist Zahra Kazemi had been tortured, saying the doctor cited was an imposter.

AFP: A gunmen took teachers and young children hostage in a school in Tehran on Thursday has given himself up and his captives have been freed, an AFP journalist at the scene said. Iranian special forces had surrounded the Raz boys’ primary school in the upmarket north of the Iranian capital after the man armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle seized the hostages at about 0830 am (0400 GMT).

Canadian Press: The federal government has pulled out of a coming conference called “Doing Business with Iran” amid Ottawa’s stepped-up calls for justice in the brutal death of Zahra Kazemi. The Iranian-born Canadian citizen died in July 2003, several days after being arrested for taking photos of a demonstration outside a Tehran prison.

Xinhua: Iranian Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei here Wednesday criticized the Greater Middle East plan proposed by the United States, calling on all Muslims to resist it. Khamenei made the call in a meeting with representatives of central banks of the Islamic states, reported the official IRNA news agency.

AFP: Iran’s hardline judiciary has barred the head of the journalist’s association from travelling to an international conference in the Netherlands, the student news agency ISNA reported Wednesday. Rajab-Ali Mazroui, who is also a reformist former MP, had his passport confiscated, the news agency said.

AFP: Iranian security forces have been blamed for the deaths
of seven people in a post-match crush following last month’s World Cup qualifier with Japan, the judiciary was reported as saying Wednesday. “The lack of unified management in the security forces, positioning a (helicopter) in front of the main
60-metre (yard) wide gate… and diverting the spectators to a secondary seven-metre wide gate… are the main reasons for the incident,” Tehran newspapers quoted spokesman Jamal Karimi Rad as saying.

The Washington Times: Members of Ukraine’s intelligence service and two Russians took part in an elaborate plan to sell 20 long-range cruise missiles to China and Iran, according to
a Ukrainian government official. Details of the transfer are outlined in a letter from Hrihory Omelchenko, deputy chairman of the Ukrainian parliamentary committee on organized crime and corruption, to the country’s new president, Viktor Yushchenko.