Iran has the technical and scientific capabilities for constructing a nuclear power station.

TEHRAN, March 4--Energy Minister Parviz Fattah said on Saturday that Iran cannot rely on fossil fuels, stressing that the country has no option but to diversify its energy sources.
According to ISNA, the minister told reporters during his visit to Isfahan’s nuclear fuel production and research center, that the use of new sources of energy is on the top on the Energy Ministry’s agenda.
He said the ministry has counted on the annual 1,000-megawatt power generation capacity of Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in its power generation forecasts for Vision 2025.
The minister hoped that the issue of peaceful use of nuclear energy will overcome its current political problems and private companies can become involved in such projects.
Fattah said last week that the ministry has asked President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to give permission for the construction of Iran’s first domestically made nuclear power plant.
He said that the country has the technical and scientific capabilities for constructing a nuclear power station.
“We will launch the technical side of the project by relying on the expertise of Iranian scientists,“ he said.
He further noted that the country also enjoys exceptional geothermal energy resources as well as an endless source of solar energy.
“However, we really need nuclear energy,“ he said, adding that fossil energies will not get the country anywhere if they were to continue as the main source of energy.
The minister further said that the country needs to generate 4,000 megawatts of electricity annually.
The country’s nominal power generation capacity has reached 39,000 megawatts.
The number of subscribers to the power supply network has also exceeded 19 million.
Some 800,000 new subscriptions are made in the power sector each year.
Iran has one of the world’s highest power consumption growth rates, which currently stands at 10 percent per annum.

TEHRAN, March 4--A senior Oil Ministry official said here on Saturday that the ministry hopes to have the buyback amendment proposal submitted to the High Economic Council within the next few days.
Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian, deputy oil minister for international affairs, told ISNA that the $100-billion buyback deal with China will be deferred until the amended version is approved.
He said the most important weakness with the present buyback deals is their short-term period, stressing that the problem affects both the contractor and the employer.
“The contractor cannot guarantee maximum exploitation of the field under a buyback deal,“ he said, stressing that both the parties need to work together for longer periods to achieve the desired results.
The official said foreign contractors have recommended participation in the projects in the form of a joint venture with Iranian companies, which has been turned down.
Nejad-Hosseinian said earlier that the previous governments resisted calls to rectify buyback deals.
“One of the most important problems facing buyback deals is that the foreign party is absent in the production phase and therefore we cannot commit them to guarantee the amount of production,“ he said.
A senior lawmaker announced last month that joint investment and an amended version of buyback will replace the present contract modes.
Kamal Daneshyar, who heads the Majlis Energy Commission, said that joint investment will require foreign investors to earn profit on the basis of investment, which is different from earlier contracts under which investors benefited from both participation in production and the proceeds.
He said the new contract mode will come into effect soon, stressing that the previous agreements will however remain in force.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, March 4--US President George W. Bush said Saturday he had no objections to an Iranian linked pipeline to supply natural gas to India and Pakistan but ruled out Pakistan’s request for an Indian-like civilian nuclear deal with the United States, according to AFP.
“Our beef with Iran is not the pipeline, our beef with Iran is in fact they want to develop a nuclear weapon and I believe a nuclear weapon in the hands of the Iranians will be very dangerous for all of us,“ Bush told a joint news conference with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Bush said Musharraf raised the need for Pakistan to get a natural gas supply from the region to fuel its growing economy. “He explained to me the natural gas situation here in this country. We understand the need to get natural gas in the region, that’s fine,“ Bush said.

CARACAS, Venezuela, March 4--Venezuela and Iran have signed an agreement worth US$404.6 million (euro336.6 million) to jointly construct 10,000 homes in the South American country, AP said.
Under the deal, four projects of 2,500 homes each will be built in 15 months by an Iranian company, Keyso Corporation, said the Bolivarian News Agency ABN.
Venezuela and Iran also are collaborating on projects to manufacture tractors and auto parts and to produce cement here.
Last month, the two countries agreed to create a joint US$200 million (euro168 million) development fund.
Iran has become the closest Middle East ally to President Hugo Chavez’s government. That has alarmed Washington, which believes Tehran is using its nuclear energy program as a cover for producing an atomic bomb and has sought to censure it.
Chavez, a fierce critic of Washington, has sought to build alliances to counter what he calls US imperialism.
He also has expressed interest in developing a nuclear program for peaceful energy.

The sale of gasoline at one-twentieth and diesel at one-hundredth of international prices is a disaster for the national economy.

TEHRAN, March 4--Gasoline rationing proposal is still on the table, said the head of Iran’s key planning body on Saturday.
Farhad Rahbar, who heads the Management and Planning Organization (MPO), told ISNA that if the projected $2.5-billion earmarked for gasoline imports in the year to March 2007 fall short of meeting the growing demand, the government will have to resort to rationing fuel.
He said, however, that the government will try its best to prevent a shortage of supply by making use of fuel consumption management.
“We will have to consider rationing, if we are left with no other option,“ he said, adding that the government will not resist any possible parliamentary decision to withdraw money from the Foreign Exchange Reserve Account in the March 2006-2007 period for funding fuel import.
Despite several months of intense publicity for smart cards for gasoline, lawmakers are now saying the project is unlikely to be implemented.
This is while fuel consumption is constantly rising. Gasoline consumption hovers around 67 million liters a day.
Iran has one of the lowest gasoline prices in world. Gasoline sells for only eight cents per liter in Iran while mineral water sells for 13 cents a liter.
Last week, a lawmaker defended the proposed two-tier gasoline prices, saying it would help resolve the national economy’s long-standing dilemma of high consumption and the import of this oil derivative.
Hassan Moradi, a member of the Majlis Energy Commission, said the sale of gasoline at one-twentieth and diesel at one-hundredth of international prices is a disaster for the national economy.

Caviar export quota for 2006 stands at 50,505 kilograms for Iran, which is also allowed to catch 500,000 kgs of sturgeons.

TEHRAN, March 4--Fisheries Organization is unable to check rising illegal catch of sturgeon and the black market caviar trade by itself, said a senior researcher here on Saturday, adding that statistics on the exact amount of the smuggled delicacy remains unavailable.
Mohammad Pour-Kazemi, who heads the International Caspian Sea Sturgeon Research Institute, further said that a sum of 90 billion rials has been allocated for the campaign against poaching in the year to March 2007, which is inadequate.
“A thorough study is underway to find out the exact amount of smuggled caviar until March 2007,“ he said, adding that a cultural campaign is also required in this respect.
“We also believe that the offenders (poachers and smugglers) need to be dealt with in accordance with the penal code and greater state facilities, including funds, should be earmarked for this purpose,“ he said.
Pour-Kazemi said Iran has reached agreements with Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to keep caviar production below 72 tons in 2006.
Iran announced last month it has joined the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) plans for protecting sturgeon reserves in the world’s largest landlocked sea, the Caspian.
The organization has reportedly allocated $380,000 for the project.
Some five million people in the Caspian Sea coastal states earn their living from fishery and caviar industry. Local economies in coastal cities will be irreparably damaged following the huge decline in Caspian Sea’s seafood reserves due to increasing environmental pollution.
Iran’s caviar production reached 1.6 tons during March-December 2005, showing a decline of 39 percent against the figure for the corresponding period the previous year.
Fish catch also declined by 44 percent during the period to reach 16.6 tons.
Iranian fishery officials blame unchecked fishing by other Caspian Sea littoral states as well as poaching, pollution and unsuitable climatic conditions for the decline in sturgeon reserves of the world’s largest inland sea.
Each kilo of Persian caviar fetches 1,700 euros on international markets.
Caviar export quota for 2006 stands at 50,505 kilograms for Iran, which is also allowed to catch 500,000 kgs of sturgeons. For Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, caviar export quota stands at 39,000, 13,270 and 6,500 kilos respectively. The three countries can also net 258,000, 195,000 and 90,000 kilos of sturgeons respectively.
Turkmenistan did not attend the Astana meeting late last year, when the quotas were determined.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka, March 4--Iran and the United Arab Emirates have pledged technological assistance to Sri Lanka to exploit oil resources, IRIB reported.
Transport and Petroleum Resources Development Minister A.H.M. Fowzie said during his recent visit to the Middle East that the two countries agreed to provide expertise on petroleum resources to Sri Lanka.
“During my discussions with the Iranian oil minister it was agreed that Iran will send a team of experts to Sri Lanka to help formulate proposals for exploiting our oil resources,“ he said. The Iranian business community has also agreed to take part in the bidding for drilling oil in Sri Lanka which will take place within the next six years.
Fowzie said the UAE energy minister also pledged to send experts to Sri Lanka to assist in oil drilling.
The Sri Lankan government disclosed last year that a massive oil deposit has been detected along the Puttalam to Hambantota sea belt.
The drilling of the oil deposits is set to start in 2007.

TEHRAN, March 4--Iran said Saturday it has developed a new generation, user-friendly computer, named ’Colonizer’.
According to Fars news agency, Mehdi Kashani, the project manager, said the groundbreaking scheme has taken 150 billion rials to become operational.
“The Colonizer can replace many office and home computers and as it is easy to use and does not need second language proficiency,“ he said, adding that the users can easily learn how to work with the system.
He further noted that out of the total investment, some 115 billion rials has been spent on purchasing equipment and 35 billion rials has gone for research and development activities.
“Some 20,000 sets will be produced in the first year and this figure can be increased to 240,000 using existing equipment,“ he said, adding that a Japanese company has announced its willingness to purchase the technology from Iran and set up a Colonizer production unit in Malaysia.
“We have submitted a copy of the agreement with the Japanese side to the Informatics Promotion Company of Iran,“ he added.
It was announced earlier that the ’national computer’ would enter the market by September 2005. The Persian computer is said to have been completely designed and manufactured by Iranian engineers.
It is not known whether the national computer and the Colonizer are one and the same, or not.
There are 500 software companies in Iran, where software market has grown by 41 percent per annum over the past two years.
Software exports doubled in the year to March 2005 to reach $10.9 million.
There are also plans to increase the official international software sales to $100 million by March 2007.