TEHRAN - An Iranian anti-drugs official has warned of a rising trend of drug use among high school students in Iran, saying the statistics had doubled in a year, newspapers reported Sunday.

"The number of drug users in high schools has doubled in a year and 100,000 are estimated to be addicted," said the unnamed official, who is in charge of an anti-drug program in the education ministry.

He said up to 1.2 million people were addicted to drugs, while independent sources give much higher figures.

[Iran Zamin News Agency: The clerical regime is itself the main distributor of drugs in the country as its agents deliberately propagate the use of drugs among the youth and teenagers, particularly high school and university students, in order to distract them from involvement in antigovernment activities.

[The regime's leaders control the drug distribution network through certain gangs within the Revolutionary Guards Corps and State Security Forces.

[The mullahs have also relied on illegal drug trade as an important source of badly-needed hard currency, which is partly spent on export of terrorism and fundamentalism abroad.

[The individuals executed as "drug dealers" are in fact those who have no ties with the criminal gangs inside the mullahs' regime and are regarded as "rivals."]
 

Indirect Attack on Khatami by Parliament Speaker, Reuters, August 10

TEHRAN - Iran's parliamentary speaker on Monday said the United States was not an "angel of salvation" that could cure Tehran's economic ills, the official news agency IRNA said.

IRNA said Nateq-Nouri made his comments in response to some local media comments implying closer relations with Washington was a panacea for Iran's current situation.

"They (the press) want to pit the people against the government by introducing the U.S. as the angel of salvation," Nateq-Nouri was quoted as saying.

"We don't yield to the bullying of the arrogant powers. The 'global arrogance' will, however, go on with its conspiracies against Iran," Nateq-Nouri was quoted as saying.

"Global arrogance" is the term the Islamic republic uses to refer to major Western powers, particularly the United States.
 

Freedom From Religious Persecution, The New York Times, August 7

[Excerpts from an article by A.M. Rosenthal]

On July 21 Iran hanged a citizen who follows the small faith of Bahai, on the charge of trying to convert a man who follows the huge faith of Islam.

Fifteen other Iranian Bahais have been sentenced for the same crime; seven are scheduled for hanging. The execution got four paragraphs in The New York Times; other papers gave zero. The State Department condemned the execution.

But next to the story of the hanging was another, continued from the front page. Headline: "Senate Drops Bill Punishing Lands That Persecute Religion..."
 

Kowtowing to Mullahs: British Airways Says Not Flying Rushdie, Reuters, August 10

TEHRAN - British Airways refuses to carry British author Salman Rushdie aboard its planes, the airline's
manager for Iran said at a news conference in Tehran.

Marking the start of non-stop flights between London and Tehran, BA's manager for Iran Bob Chaplin said late on Sunday: "Although we get a lot of adverse publicity within the airline industry, British Airways reserves the right not to fly Salman Rushdie, and we don't fly him."
 

"Shahab-3 a Tool to Defend Muslim Nations", State-controlled Tehran Times, August 6

TEHRAN - The Islamic Revolution's Guards Corps (IRGC) Air Force Commander Brigadier General Mohammad-
Baqer Qalibaf said here on Tuesday that the Shahab-3 missile is a tool for defending Muslim ummah and the oppressed nations...

He... said that experience has shown that Muslims' pacifism has only made enemies' more aggressive. An example of this is the Zionist regime's expansionist and aggressive policies, he added...

He said the first Iranian-made missile was completed in February 1984. The commander further said that the IRGC is presently capable of producing missiles with 100-1,300 km ranges.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Qalibaf said that Shahab-3 missile is 17 meters long and weighs 16 tons and that its warhead can carry at least 1,200 kilos of  explosives. The missile is the least vulnerable to missile-defense systems, he added.
 

 
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