Iran News Round Up

(Thanks to Ali Alfoneh for his compilation)

Politics

• Speaking at the Friday prayers at Tehran University, Ayatollah Khatami says Abbas Palizdar’s accusations against the Shi’a clergy and his disclosures are part of a conspiracy, and sabotage against the Islamic Republic.
• Ayatollah Khatami adds spreading such rumors is religiously impermissible.
• Ayatollah Khatami demands to know the key figures behind the conspiracy.
• Former parliamentarian Fatemeh Ajorlou interrogated for 11 hours in the Palizdar case.
• Tabnak News Agency publishes an article on the complex relationship between Sadeq Khalkhali, the revolutionary hanging judge, and the first president of the Islamic Republic, Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr.
• Iranian academic and Rafsanjani protégé Zibakalam says if Bani-Sadr was not so egocentric, he would not have been humiliated.
• Video of the Iranian parliament considering Bani-Sadr incompetence for presidency.
• Official historian Shahbazi bailed out of prison.

Diplomacy

• Nechervan Barzani, prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, asks Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to intervene to stop bombing PEJAK terrorist positions in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Economy

• The Islamic Republic energy authorities announce a timetables for scheduled blackouts across Iran. Tehran timetable, here.
• The Islamic Republic’s minister of energy says electricity blackouts have nothing to do with sanctions, but result from drought; hydroelectric power production, however, is miniscule in Iran.

Trade

• UAE to import gas from Iran.
• Low-cost airline to fly to Shiraz.

Military and Security

• Six arrested following assassination of a judge of Saravan.
• Al Arabiya Television broadcasts a video showing some members of the Law Enforcement Forces taken hostage and held prisoner in Pakistan by the Jundallah terrorist group.
• According to Now-Sazi News, former minister of intelligence, Ali Fallahian says the ministry operative Sa’id Emami did not commit suicide after the serial killings of intellectuals in the 1990′s but was killed by the ministry.
• Interview with wife of Emami, who discloses new information about their time in America.
• Jalal al-Din Farsi, whose candidacy for presidency was revoked because of his father’s Afghan nationality, elaborates upon Forqan terrorist group’s activities in the first years after the revolution.
• Raja News rehashes the history of the Mojahedin-e Khalq terrorism against the Islamic Republic.

Photo of the Day

• Friday prayers.