[(E) signifies English link]

Trade

Media

  • Tabnak News Agency asks why Tehran parliamentarian Tavakoli only protests against closure of web sites when his own mouthpiece Alef News is banned.
  • Parliamentarian Ahmad Tavakoli says Alef News Agency’s website has been banned because of the agency’s disclosure of the fake Oxford degree of Iranian interior minister Ali Kordan.
  • Following censoring of Alef News Agency on Iran-based servers, the news agency has decided to continue its news service for users outside Iran.
  • Tabnak News warns against activities of Saudi-financed MBC satellite transmissions to Iran.
  • After closure of Hamshahri Asr, Hamshahri-ye Javan weekly edited by the son of former parliamentary speaker Haddad Adel, is banned.

Politics

Religion, Culture, and Society

  • At the first international conference of “The Final Savior,” a Mr. Stephen Michael St. John, who claims to be a 9/11 survivor, claims the attacks against New York were “conspiracies of Zionists” and that according to “prophecies” the “emergence of the final Savior will end the existence of Zionists.”
  • Following what is considered as spread of “satanism” authorities in the city of Jolfa produce and distribute a CD Rom serving as a practical guide to exorcism.
  • Law Enforcement Forces prohibit use of mobile phone video recordings in the force’ fight against immorality.
  • According to IRNA, a certain Seyyed Kazem Mousavi who is presented as expert in contemporary Iranian history, claims to have gained access to secret official documents on foiled attempts of the Bahais in Iran to conduct terrorist acts.
  • Speaking at a seminar on millenarianism, Hojjat al-Eslam Mahdi-Pour says emergence of the Imam of the Era, in opposition to popular myth, does not entail violence.
  • Shi’a News warns of the start of marketing of a book called “Jewel of Medina” depicting one of the wives of prophet Muhammed Ayesha written by Cherry Jones. According to Shi’a News the book has been called “the second Satanic Verses” by some observers.
  • Shi’a News says an unreleased computer game that culminates with the killing of the Prophet Muhammad is a conspiracy following the Danish cartoons, Dutch politician Wilder’s movie Fitna, and other “conspiracies against Islam and Muslims.”
  • According to Shi’a News “Jewish groups” travel secretly to Iraq as an act of pilgrimage.
  • In an attempt to scare off criminals, Tehran police makes arrested local strongmen Rahim and Said make rounds in Yakhchi Abad and Nazi Abad neighborhoods of Tehran.
  • Speaking to Jahan News, Hojjat al-Eslam Shajouni of Mo’talefeh says “Iran has everything but a Navab Safavi [Islamist terrorist fighting secularists and liberals]…had Navab been alive today he would not allow all these newspapers who freely express their secularist thoughts.”
  • Ahmad Khatami says anyone who claims contact with the twelfth Imam is a charlatan.
  • Torture of a 5 year old boy at the hands of his stepfather causes widespread disgust among the Iranian public.

Diplomacy

Nuclear Issue

  • President Ahmadinejad says the West has retreated from earlier positions in the nuclear crisis.
  • Speaking to youth leaders, Ahmadinejad says: “We need the high ambitions of the youth…when the Imam [Khomeini] made the prophecy of [collapse of the Soviet Union] there were those who did not believe him, but the prophecy was realized and when there is speech of collapse and dissolution of the world order there probably are those who do not believe this. But they will decline and become invisible thanks to divine insight. The most important thing is that we choose a goal….You know the nuclear issue of the country well and I believe it is related to divine teachings.”
  • Foreign ministry spokesman Ghashghavi says the world must reconcile with a nuclear Iran, and that the people of Iran are ready to pay the price.

Military and Security

  • (E) Hizbullah will help Iran fend off threats.
  • Speaking to a select group of civil servants working in the Intelligence Ministry, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei called the ministry “One of the best and most loyal institutions of he Revolution,” and added that the people of Iran have “a very good opinion about the Intelligence Ministry, unlike the fear and terror the people of Iran felt towards the intelligence service of Taghout [revolt against God, reference to the pre revolutionary era].”
  • Pupil’s Basij leaders convene in Mashhad.
  • Pupil’s Basij deputy Colonel Momtahen claims 4.6 million pupils are members of this branch of the Basij.
  • Sobh-e Sadegh’s Yadollah Javani explains under which conditions the Islamic Republic will close the Hormuz Strait.
  • Commander Assadi, the Revolutionary Guards Ground Forces commander, says the world must think of what will happen to sixty percent of the world’s oil if some one does something “stupid” against the Islamic Republic.

Economy

Human Rights and Labor

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