Iran News Round Up

[Thanks to Ali Alfoneh for his compilation; (E) signifies English link]

Religion, Culture, and Society

• The Mobile Phone Police unit starts its operations as guardians of morality at street level in East Azerbaijan province by examining the mobile phones of by-passers to see if the Bluetooth function of the phone has been used transmit immorality.
• Hajj Ali Akbari head of the Iran National Youth Organization says drug addiction is a great problem in Iran, but also says the statistics are secret.
• Ahmadi Moghaddam, general secretary of the Headquarters for the Fight Against Drugs, says seventy five percent of the treatment for drug addiction is being conducted in the private sector.
• Ahmadinejad signs the fifth cultural engineering scheme of the Islamic Republic.
• Iraqi authorities declare readiness to receive 2,500 Iranian pilgrims to the Shi’a shrines in Iraq via local airports.
• Academic Hossein Omid-Khah warns against “explosive growth of temporary marriages in Iran,” and says children of such marriages would have unclear family relations.
• The population of Tehran is urged not to die because of delays in expansion of the city’s largest cemetery, Behesht-e Zahra.
• Tehran Islamic City Council discusses naming a street “Dr. Mossadeq Street.”
• Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi’s daughter Narges Tavasolian says she does not approve of Bahai religion and is proud to be Shi’a.
• Ayatollah Amini, opening the Dawn of Emergence exhibit, says the Imam of the Era will not reemerge to start his world revolution by the means of conferences and poetry readings and urges the Shi’a to fight injustice in all over the world to prepare the grounds for the reemergence of the Shi’a messiah.

Nuclear Diplomacy

• Former chief of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezai, says that one should not sell out of nuclear rights in exchange for chocolate.
• Jalili, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of the Islamic Republic, and Javier Solana ensure each other of continuing negotiations in a phone talk.
• The United States sanctions five Iranian companies believed to be engaged in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear efforts.
• (E) In English.
• Ilam parliamentarian Daryoush Ghanbari says insistence on the right to uranium enrichment harms the possibility of further negotiations with the 5+1 Group.
• Foreign Ministry spokesman Ghashghavi Iran will accept no Turkish offer of mediation in the nuclear issue.
• Ghashghavi adds Iran will answer the minimal threats with a maximalist answer.

Politics

• Referring to Ahmadinejad, Larijani says it is bad manners to attribute one’s own failures to the prophets and Shi’a imams.
• Rafsanjani says the Supreme Leader has, for the past three years, asked various power centers to deal softly with Ahmadinejad’s government, but now the time has come to hold the government to account for its economic policies.
• In an official statement, Oxford University declares that the newly-appointed interior minister of the Islamic Republic has never obtained any degree from the British university: “The University of Oxford has no record of Mr. Ali Kordan receiving an honorary doctorate or any other degree from the University.” The university also adds that “Professor Edmund Rolls, Professor Peter Bryant, and Professor Alan Coway have all at some stage held posts at the University of Oxford. However, none of them work in the field of Law, and none of them would sign degree certificates.”
• Parliamentary speaker Larijani urges an investigation into Kordan’s academic degree.
• 18 members of the parliament attempt to impeach parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani who, against the rules of the parliament, arranged a closed session for the questioning of the newly-appointed interior minister.
• Ahmadinejad formally installs Dr. Seyyed Shams al-Din Hosseini as minister of economy and finance, Dr. Hamid Behbahani as minister of roads and transportation, and Ali Kordan as interior minister. Kordan is no longer entitled “Doctor.”
• According to Tabnak, newly-appointed Economy and Finacne Minister Seyyed Shams al-Din Hosseini will extend an invitation to his predecessor, Hamid Pour-Mohammadi, to return to the ministry.
• Khatami advisor Hojjat al-Eslam Derayati says Ahmadinejad advisor Ramin’s statements on barring Khatami from running for the presidency only poisons the political atmosphere in the Islamic Republic.
• Mousavi Khoeini-ha urges Mehdi Karrubi not to run for presidency and not spoil former president Khatami’s chances by splitting the reformist vote.
• Mosharekat reformist movement’s Azar Mansouri says the allegations of disloyal behavior are the reaction of those who don’t know how to answer the criticism of the reform movement.
• Alef News has been censored after revealing news of the Interior Minister’s fake Ph.D. Ahmad Tavakoli says he will continue his political fight with or without Alef News.

Diplomacy

• The Islamic Republic’s Post issues a stamp honoring Hizbullah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah.
• President Ahmadinejad to visit Turkey today.
• Turkey may establish a Persian language television.
• (E) Ahmadinejad to speak on CNN Turk.
• Jalili, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, says Iran will do everything in its power to stabilize Iraq.
• Algerian president meets the Supreme Leader.
• Speaking with the Algerian president, the Supreme Leader says the key to the problem of the Muslims is to resist, and that the rise of Hamas is a sign of growing resistance among the Muslim communities.
• (E) More, in English.
• (E) Foreign Ministry spokesman: Israel is illegitimate.
• Khatami vice president Ebtahi asks why Vice President Mashayee, father-in-law of Ahmadinejad’s daughter, has forgotten all about the Palestinians and is constantly calling Israelis friends of Iran.
• Alef News Agency analysts consider Vice president Mashayee’s openings towards Israel and the U.S. “incomprehensible.”
• Tehran parliamentarian Ali Mottahari attacks Mashayee, “the loyal friend of the people of Israel,” and wonders how the Iranian president has agreed to open a U.S. interest section in Tehran at a time when the U.S. is undermining the regime through a “soft regime change policy.”
• (E) U.S. has not formally requested to open Interests Section yet.
• Larijani, commenting on Mashayee, says: “We are not friends with the people of Israel. Iran is following its own logic, which is what the Supreme Leader says.”
• In his latest statements, Mashayee discusses Iran’s relations with the U.S. and Israel. He also says “Cute babes don’t fight among themselves, but others fight to get close to them.”
• Hardline student factions announce demonstrations against Mashayee’s “pro-Israeli stance.”
• Cultural Affairs Committee of the Iranian parliament demands Mashayee condemn his words of friendship directed towards the people of Israel.
• Foreign Ministry spokesman Ghashghavi says Shi’ism has been declared forbidden in Gambia.

Military and Security

• (E) Iran plans major naval exercise.
• Defense Minister Najjar claims the Islamic Republic has produced an unmanned submarine.
• (E) More, in English.
• The Basij paramilitary to assist the police at petrol stations all over Iran.
• Jundallah terrorist group claims to have kidnapped three military personnel.
• The Pakistani ambassador summoned to the Iranian parliament to explain activities of the Jundallah terrorist group from Pakistani territory.
• Hejazi, deputy commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards, says it is naive to think there are no threats to the Islamic Republic, and stresses that the enemy has always attempted to harm the Islamic Republic.

Media

• Iran Newspaper on Network starts its operations: http://www.inn.ir/
• Tabnak News Agency explains how BBC Persian Television has devised a strategy to get rid of critical journalists to preserve license to operate in Iran.

Environment

• Lake Hamoun dries out.

Economy

• Caspian Sea coast guard chief says there are no “invisible jetties” [where smuggling occurs] in Iran.
• Ahmadinejad says the common people are the true directors of the economy in Iran.
• Finance and economy minister Hosseini says he has taken office to implement the promises of the Iranian president.
• The Iranian parliament demands to see a written account of the much-announced economic reform scheme of the Iranian president, but the Economy and Finance Minister evades parliamentarians’ questions.
• A number of parliamentarians express their worries about Ahmadinejad government’s policy of introducing an oil dividend.
• Because of Iranian public’s failure to deliver statistical information prior to governmental payment of the oil dividend, the head of the Islamic Republic Statistics says the information will not be shared with “security agencies or the taxation authorities.” More here.
• Spokesman of the Headquarters for Economic Reform in charge of transforming subsidies into an oil dividend, says subsidies for basic products will not stop because of Ahmadinejad’s reform scheme.
• Prior to the beginning of the fasting month of Ramadan, red meat price jump from to 79,000 to 82,500 rials per kilo in Tehran. According to Abrar-e Eghtesadi the rising prices is partially due to drought the animals have been slaughtered far bellow their weight. More here.
• The Islamic Republic to build four electric power plants.
• Banking sector experts discuss influx of foreign banks to Iran.
• The Islamic Republic’s foreign debt reaches $28.6 billion.
• According Central Bank, Iran’s economic growth reaches 6.9 percent.
• (E) In English.
• Expediency Council chairman Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani says the privatization schemes of the government are pseudo-privatizations since nationally-owned enterprises are being sold to other publicly-owned enterprises. Rafsanjani also criticizes the Ahmadinejad government’s negligence in development of the non-oil sector.
• Energy Minister Parviz Fattah evades a parliamentary commission’s call to a hearing addressing water and electricity shortages in the city of Babolsar.
• (E) Iran likely to knock three zeroes off its currency.

Human Rights and Labor

• Imprisoned Iranian journalist Emad al-Din Baghi says the time has come to end the practice of using so-called SAVAK and CIA documents in legal proceedings against dissidents in the Islamic Republic.
• (E) Labor movement update.
• (E) Condemnation of flogging of Iranian workers.

Photo of the Day

• Children celebrating the 2nd anniversary of Hizbullah’s victory over Israel, in Tehran’s Palestine Square.