Memories of Akbar Hashemi - May 10, 2002

Visit to the Jooyan Green Industry in Sabzevar, factory, farms, orchards, cattle farm, poultry farming, livestock farming, laboratory and factory under construction for citric acid.Continuation of the trip to Golestan province.Full text of the daily report:The governor and the head of the camp came. We visited the sections of the camp together; it's quite remarkable. We headed towards Jooyan - in the north of Sabzevar. On the way, General [NoorAli] Shushtari provided good information. He knows the region very well; he is from Sarvalayat. At the Jooyan Industrial Complex, officials from the company and Sabzevar County, including the representatives from Nqab and Khoghta’i, welcomed us. Engineer [Seyed Mohammad] Hosseini, the CEO of the company, reported. The majority of the company's shares belong to the Cooperative of Basij and veterans; it has 12,000 hectares of land, a sugar factory with a capacity of 5,000 tons, 190 deep wells - which Mr. Mahdavi dug during the Shah's regime - and 8,000 hectares for sugar beet cultivation, with the rest allocated for orchards and other needs, and more than 1,000 workers. We visited the factory, farms, orchards, cattle farm, poultry farming, livestock farming, laboratory, and the factory under construction for citric acid. It is a vast complex and has recently deteriorated. There are disputes with the Foundation of the Disabled. They requested assistance to resolve it.

At three-thirty in the afternoon, after a television interview about the results of the trip, we set off towards Golestan province. [Ali-Asghar Karandish], the governor of Sabzevar, was in my car to explain and answer questions. He believes that the government's employment creation plan will fail; it is not realistic. From the Shahrud area, Mr. [Mohammad Reza] Noori-Shahrudi came to my car to explain. We arrived in Gorgan at ten o'clock at night. We went to the headquarters of the 30th Division in Gorgan. The province's leaders and the Sunni and Shia Friday prayer leaders were waiting. After the reception, we had dinner together. It was drizzling lightly. We performed the Maghrib prayer in a mosque in Khan-Neshin.

In Bahrain, the first free elections for city councils took place. In the first round, women were unsuccessful, and the Islamists secured the majority of votes. With the surrender of the besieged Palestinians at the Church of the Nativity [in Bethlehem], the siege of the church came to an end; 13 individuals were exiled to Cyprus, and several were handed over to the security forces [of the Palestinian Authority] to be interrogated under American supervision. A massive flood caused one million displaced people and thousands of deaths and extensive destruction for the Chinese government. In the state of Gujarat, India, riots and clashes continue. The Pakistani government has arrested hundreds in connection with the explosion of a bus carrying foreign soldiers. In Pakistan, the American base was attacked twice last week. The U.S. claims to have destroyed four Taliban and al-Qaeda weapons stash caves in [the mountains of] Tora Bora.The Mojahedin [= People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran], which is recognized as a terrorist organization by the European Union, has begun desperate efforts for salvation.