Iran News Round Up

(Thanks to Ali Alfoneh for his compilation and Meir Javedanfar for his suggestions)

Economy and Trade

• Agahsazi publishes the complete report of the parliamentary commission investigating public sector corruption in Iran.
• Iranian parliament holds special session to discuss housing market crisis.
• Shafi’i, head of the internet communications in Tehran, says individual internet providers are to blame for lack of internet access in certain neighborhoods of Tehran.
• Executive Director of the Dairy Products Cooperatives says the price control policies of the Ahmadinejad government are threatening the dairy products industry in Iran.
• Commenting the natural gas pipeline to Pakistan and India, the so-called Peace Pipeline, the Iranian president said China’s participation in the project is under consideration.
• Iran-UAE trade tops $12 billion.

Politics

• According to Entekhab News Agency, the splits in the Grand Principalist Alliance faction are widening as the election of the speaker of the parliament nears.
• In an open letter to the head of the Judiciary, the Student Basij demands legal action against a number of personalities and reopening of a number of legal cases involving those related to former president Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafanjani.
• Rafsanjani takes his gloves off and takes on Ahmadinejad and says “enough, no more trial and error.” In other words, three years have passed and you still haven’t learned. So your time is up.
• Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of the Expediency Council, says the government should be under the administration of the council. More here.
• Fatemeh Rajabi, the wife of the government spokesman, supports Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi and attacks E’temad Melli, the mouthpiece of Mehdi Karrubi.
• Ansar News publishes a speech from last year by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei discussing the Revolutionary Guard.
• Ahmadinejad to meet the people of Tehran tomorrow.
• Friday prayer leader of Shiraz: “The coming of the Supreme Leader to Fars Province is the coming of the wind of spring to which we should expose ourselves.”
• Raja News publishes a detailed plan of the Supreme Leader’s trip to Fars Province.
• The representative from Mamasani in the Iranian parliament, Ali Ahmadi: “The people of Fars are long waiting pilgrims of their Leader, and in reality consider this visit as their lailat al-qadr.

Religion, Culture, and Society

• Shaffeqqat, governor of Mazandaran, says public servants dressed deficiently will be fired.
• Mohammad-Ali Ayyazi, member of the Society of the Professors and Scholars of the Elmiyyeh Theological Seminary says Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who has criticized the Iranian universities as “the den of secularism and liberalism,” knows little about the real state of affairs at Iranian universities.
• Esfandiar Mashayee, head of the Cultural Heritage Foundation of the Islamic Republic: “It is a deviation to believe that beauty can serve evil…? If we believe we are right, why should the foreign tourists enter to our country install fear in our hearts? There are those who still think if the headscarf of a woman is removed a bit the entire cosmos will be in chaos, but this [notion] is not in religion…Beauty can never serve evil, and this logic is flawed. Poverty, misery and ugliness… they serve as the instruments of Satan. We must search for God in beauty and science…Tourism makes the population of the world brothers and sisters…Do you understand the meaning of mysticism now?”

Military and Security

• Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran appoints Hojjat al-Eslam Seyyed Jamal al-Din Mir-Mohammadi to be chief of the Ideological/Political Bureau of the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.
• Hossein Ahmadi explains the need for reform in the Basij.
• Commander Yadollah Javani, head of the Political Bureau of the Revolutionary Guards, explains the philosophy behind the existence of the bureau.
• Commander Mohammad Javadzadeh Kamand, chief of the general service unit of the Law Enforcement Forces, says there is no reduction in the service of his organization.

Diplomacy

• The Iranian president arrives in India.
• Ahmadinejad at a press conference in India: “The United States is like an unruly child who also lies a lot. But if they don’t listen to reason, we will show them…”
• Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi and Esfandiar Rahim-Mashayee are in the entourage of the Iranian president.
• $7.4 billion pipeline tops agenda.
• Persian Gulf Day and small protest in Tehran at UAE embassy.
• Former president and chairman of the Expediency Council, Ayatollah Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani: “No individual or country is allowed to forge the name of the Persian Gulf.”
• Pour-Mohammadi, outgoing minister of interior, tells Saudi deputy minister of interior that security cooperation is to the benefit of both countries and the region.
• Switzerland, after signing $20 billion gas deal with Iran, accepts Iranian nuclear package.

Human Rights and Labor

• Imprisoned student activists Ehsan Mansouri, Majid Tavakoli and Ahmad Qasaban write a letter of protest to the head of the Judiciary.
• Student Protest at Sahand University in Tabriz

Photo of the Day

• Demonstration in front of the embassy of United Arab Emirates on the occasion of the Persian Gulf Day.