Akbar Hashemi's Memoirs - October 26, 2002

  I gave notes to Mr. Zanganeh and Mr. Irvani about the expert discussions related to the Petropars case that was assigned to the government.

The Moscow hostage-taking ended with a gruesome massacre;  As a rule, Putin's government will be widely criticized;  Because of this violent and costly action.

Full text of the newspaper:

In the meeting of the [expediency of the system] assembly, the new draft of examples of the general policies discussed was raw and did not get anywhere.  I gave tickets to Messrs. [Bijan Namdar] Zanganeh, [Oil Minister] and [Mohammed Javad] Irvani, [Assembly Member] regarding the expert discussions related to the Petropars [Company] case that has been assigned to the government.  
In the afternoon, Mr. [Abbas Waez] Tabasi, [Ali Akbar] Natiq [Nuri] and [Qorban Ali] Dari [Najafabadi and Ahmad Janati, Mohammad Yazdi and Mohammad Ali Mohadi Kermani] were my guests.  Regarding the government bills and the possibility of the resignation of Mr. Khatami, [the President] and possible issues after that, there was a discussion, as well as the opinions of liberal leftists who openly speak of secularism and the removal of religious restrictions from democracy, such as Mr. [Abbas] Abdi, [Akbar] Ganji, [Alireza] Alawitabar, [Saeed]   Faqih Razavi and [Gassim] Sholah Saadi were discussed.  

In the evening, Mr. [Mahmoud] Asghari, the Friday imam of Miandoab, came and offered his support with a report on the situation of the seminaries in the region and said that the people have understood well what services have been done during the construction period, the war and the revolution, and they have realized that some people are only chanting slogans.

Today, the hostage-taking process [in the Moscow theater] ended with a gruesome massacre;  Because the Russian government heavily censored the news, the whole truth was not revealed.  According to reports, Russian special agents attacked the hall this morning.  As a result, the leader of the hostage takers and 36 of them were killed, two were captured and the rest escaped.  It is said that there were about 50 people, half of whom were women.  So far, the news of the killing of about 90 hostages has spread.  A large number are in hospitals for treatment.  As a rule, the government of [Vladimir] Putin, [President of Russia], will be widely criticized;  Because of this violent and costly action.  

In America, [President of China] Jiang Zemin and [President of the United States] George Bush had a meeting at Bush's private farm, and in a joint interview, Bush said that the United States opposes Taiwan's independence from China, which is an important setback.  Jiang also said that China cooperates with the United States in fighting terrorism and convincing North Korea to refrain from implementing the policy of building nuclear weapons.  

There were demonstrations in many countries of the world against America's warmongering policy;  Including in Germany, Holland, Australia, Pakistan, Italy, Mexico and Egypt and the United States itself and in the [United Nations] Security Council, the dispute between the United States, France and Russia has escalated, and at the same time several American warships are heading to the Persian Gulf.