Nuclear Issue

Diplomacy

  • Fars News Agency publishes the viewpoints of the Supreme Leader on the people of Israel, whom he considers “hooligans, lacking identity and squatters.”
  • Foreign secretary of Egypt’s ruling party accuses the Islamic Republic of the murder of Egypt’s ambassador to Iraq.
  • Diplomasi-ye Irani analyzes Bolivian president’s visit to Iran.
  • Ahmadinejad, meeting former Lebanese Prime Minister Kerami, says the only way of victory is a massive political and ideological onslaught against Israel.
  • Bolivia supports the Islamic Republic’s membership on the U.N. Security Council.
  • Foreign minister Mottaki protests against the Saudi authorities’ disrespectful treatment of the representative of the Supreme Leader Reyshahri, but Reyshahri claims he has not been treated disrespectfully. Expediency Council chairman Rafsanjani abstains from commenting the Reyshahri affair, but says he has been treated well.
  • Gozaresh-e Jomhour [Reports of the Republic] which earlier published reports such as “the Socratic Dialectics of the President in the Victory of the National Nuclear Movement of Iran,” “Achievements of the presence of the President at the Gulf Cooperation Council,” and “Reinvention of the statute of Imam Ali in Islamic Government, Research into the Executive Methods of the Presidency of the Islamic Republic” has published a new report titled: “Bylines of Ahmadinejad’s Visit to Italy.” The report claims the Iranian president’s participation at FAO Summit in Rome was “unique,” and claims “one dares say the only country introducing new words and solutions was the Islamic Republic. The participants listened with great attention to the words of the president of the Islamic Republic and a good number of heads of states nodded their heads…After the Iranian president had left the podium half of the attendees of the meeting left the room…”

Military and Security

Economy

  • Central Bank to issue 500,000 rial bills.
  • Parliamentary speaker Larijani says the private sector in Iran has the capacity to absorb privatized state enterprises.
  • Rafsanjani says one can’t achieve privatization goals without carefully implementing the policy recommendations enshrined in the 44th clause of the Constitution.
  • Vice director general of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic warns of a “tsunami of liquidity” and rising inflation.
  • Ansar-e Hezbollah condemns Rafsanjani-era economic stabilization policies and calls it “the unblessed shadow of the U.S. on Iran’s economy.”
  • Entekhab News Agency attacks the Ahmadinejad government’s mismanagement of the economy and slams the rising prices of chicken and eggs in the Iranian market.
  • Central Bank Director-General Mazaheri says that in an inflationary economy, one does not increase governmental charity to control inflation.
  • President Khatami’s economy and finance minister Safdar Hosseini says the Ahmadinejad government’s economic performance is even worse than Pakistan’s and Lebanon’s.
  • Head of the Strategic Studies Center of the Presidency Zaker Esfahani claims “the veins of secularism are visible in the Fourth [Economic] Development Scheme.” He elaborates upon the theoretical foundations of the development scheme, the theoreticians behind the development scheme, and names of those academics involved in writing the program, all pointing towards world imperialism and secularism: “Reinvention of secularism took place in the era of reform and follows the same dialogue as the monnavar al-fekr [intellectual in Arabic] of the Qajar era and the Pahlavi era…one can trace any thought but religious thought in the Fourth (Economic) Development Scheme…” Zaker Esfahani also added that the main problem of the Development Scheme was its lack of a theoretical foundation, and ”the destructive nature of the intellectuals.”

Trade

  • Bolivian president visits Iran Khodro (car manufacturer).
  • Hojjatollah Ghanimi-Fard, deputy foreign investments executive of the National Iranian Oil Company, says Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Norway and Turkey are negotiating their participation in different oil and gas projects in Iran. Ghanimi-Fard also says three major Russian companies have declared their readiness in writing. With regard to Asian countries, Ghanimi-Fard mentioned ongoing negotiations with companies from India, China, Korea and Malaysia.

Human Rights and Labor

Politics

  • Ansar News, close to the Ansar-e Hezbollah vigilante organization, warns against infiltrators within the regime structure with reference to Samuel Huntington’s Third Wave of Democratization.
  • Mojtaba Zare’i of the Research Institute of the Presidency publishes a book entitled: Wisdom and Dialectics in Thought and Methods of Dr. Ahmadinejad.
  • A certain professor Mowlana (formerly of American University in Washington) who has recently been appointed advisor to Ahmadinejad has written the foreword of the book and says “recent events of the world have left philosophers and philosophical schools of thought incapable of explanation.”
  • Ahmadinejad’s speech at Columbia University is the central theme of the book.
  • As Azad University dean says his university has never provided interior minister Ali Kordan with any degrees, the bachelor and candidate degrees of the interior minister are now being questioned.
  • Children at an orphanage break the Ramadan fast in the company of the presidents of Iran and Bolivia.
  • According to Asr-e Iran, Davoud Ahmadinejad (the president’s brother) has said that in practice he has been the president of the country, but some one else has taken credit for his job, and that he is considering to run for presidency. But Davoud Ahmadinejad denies such statements.
  • Reformist theoretician Tajzadeh defends his support for Lebanese Hezbollah and stresses that there is a huge difference between Iranian vigilante organization Ansar-e Hezbollah and the Lebanese organization.

Religion, Culture, and Society

Media

Photo of the Day

  • Fire at Chinese market in Abadan-Khorramshahr.