Iran News Round Up

Politics

• Former president Mohammad Khatami unsure if he will run for presidency, but says he will explain later.
• Revolutionary-era radical Hadi Ghaffari urges former president Khatami not to run for presidency.
• Students at theological seminaries in Qom sign and distribute an insulting declaration against the candidacy of Khatami.
• Yasser Hashemi, son of the former president, says Hassan Rowhani will run for presidency.
• Hassan Rowhani organizes his presidential campaign headquarters.
• Rowhani meets 100 members of the parliament.
• Qom governor general Ardakani says the city’s expansion schemes incorporate plans to transfer parts of its central administration to the suburbs of Qom.
• Former Law Enforcement Forces commander Ali-Reza Beygi appointed East Azerbaijan general governor.
• According to Baztab more than half of the cabinet has now been summoned to the parliament to answer questions of parliamentarians.
• An unnamed member of the cabinet says president Ahmadinejad is “forced” to include Ali Kordan and Rahimi in the cabinet because other Principalists have turned their backs to him.
• Jahan News ridicules interior minister Ali Kordan’s claims that he saw a halo of light around him when he was being questioned by the parliamentarians prior to his appointment.
• Petroleum minister supports interior minister Kordan in the face of bribery allegations made against him in Kayhan.

Religion, Culture, and Society

• Expediency Council member Ali Agha-Mohammadi urges the public not to be fooled by those who claim contact with the Imam of the Era.
• Ya-Lesarat al-Hossein weekly slams “overt” and “covert sex” in society and claims anchors at Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting “flirt” with each other, which places them in the category of displaying “covert sex” in public.
• Basirat News’ Mansour Hosseini discusses the meaning of cultural engineering in a lengthy article.
• TABNAK warns against state-sponsored theological seminaries.

Diplomacy

• (E) Iran accuses U.S. of stonewalling visa for Ahmadinejad to attend UN General Assembly.
• The Islamic Republic’s wheelchair basket team boycotts a game with the United States at the para-Olympics.
• (E) Iranian excuse.
• Ahmadinejad says the Islamic Republic will stay with Palestine until “final victory.”
• Ali-Reza Sheikh Attar appointed Islamic Republic’s ambassador to Germany.
• (E) More on Sheikh Attar appointment.
• Hossein Sheikh al-Eslam appointed deputy foreign minister.
• Mir-Abou-Talebi is appointed ambassador to France.
• Islamic Republic foreign minister Mottaki on his way to Baku, Azerbaijan.
• The Islamic Republic Embassy in Japan slams a Japanese newspaper’s claims of military nuclear cooperation between Iran, North Korea and Syria.
• (E) Iran, Azerbaijan call for security cooperation.
• (E) U.S. treachery shocks Iraqis [on Bob Woodward’s book]
• (E) Iranian deputy foreign minister confers with British shadow foreign minister.

Nuclear Issue

• Commenting recent U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic Shipping Company, Russia warns the U.S. against unilateral initiatives.
• According to Deutsche Welle Persian, IAEA director general El-Baradei will release a report Monday showing a sharp decline in the Islamic Republic’s cooperation with the U.N. agency.

Media

• Alef reports widespread closures of the internet; head of the server provider says the problem is due to technical reasons.
• Baztab Online, formerly known as Baztab News Agency, a once-banned outfit close to former IRGC chief Mohsen Rezai, starts its operations: http://www.baztabonline.com/
• TABNAK slams the “anti-Iranian and anti-religious” bent of Saudi MBC’s Persian broadcasts.
• TABNAK warns against advances of foreign media broadcasts to Iran, especially Voice of America and Radio Farda, in the face of incompetence of Islamic Republic media broadcasts.

Economics

• Research Center of the Iranian parliament publishes a report on the consequences of the declining U.S. dollar and oil price on the world market.
• Parliamentary speaker Larijani criticizes the government for excessive spending.

Trade

• Kashan Friday prayer leader (and representative of the Supreme Leader in Kashan) attacks the Spanish Mango Textile Company which has started its operation in Kashan and calls it “cultural onslaught.”
• Tabnak claims saffron produced in Iran is exported to Afghanistan, and from Afghanistan to Spain and is sold to the world market as Spanish saffron.
• A Kuwaiti and an Emirati company to start a $38 billion city beautification scheme in Najaf, Iraq.
• (E) Iranian ships active in international waters.

Military and Security

• Baztab reports arrest of “Wahabi terrorists in Ahwaz.”
• Javani, chief of the Ideological and political bureau of the Revolutionary Guards, explains the role of Hadiyan-e Siyasi [political advisors] in the IRGC and the Basij.
• Sayyari, chief of Islamic Republic of Iran Navy, says the Islamic Republic’s response to any attack would be “crushing.”
• Khatam al-Anbia Construction Base, the main contracting arm of the Revolutionary Guards, commemorates the death of Khadija, first wife of the Prophet Muhammad.
• The Revolutionary Guards arranges Quran recitation seminar at its base in Shahin Dezsh.
• The Revolutionary Guards Air Force chief commander Hossein Salami says the United States can’t find any way to counter the Revolutionary Guards.
• The Revolutionary Guard’s Imam Hossein University chief Seyyed Ali Hosseini Tash says his academic/military institution is capable of educating thousands of officers in the next ten years.
• Deputy chief of the Political-Ideological Bueau of the Law Enforcement Forces Hojjat al-Eslam Beheshti says the enemy utilizes internal fights to pound the Islamic Republic.
• Deputy chief of the Law Enforcement Forces Zolfaghari says “50 anti-religious sects are active in the country.
• Seyyed Mahmoud Alavi, chief of the Ideological and Political Bureau of the Islamic Republic of Iran Army, says it is the political beliefs and mood of the Iranian army which will deter the enemy from attacking the Islamic Republic.
• Hojjat al-Eslam Ali Shirazi, representative of the Supreme Leader in the Revolutionary Guards Navy: “Every year, the Central Command Council of the Armed Forces evaluates the performance of each branch of the armed forces of the country, and the Revolutionary Guards Navy came first in the latest report.”
• (E) Iran paying price for NATO’s drug failure in Afghanistan.

Human Rights and Labor

• Mizan News discusses arrest of Sunni civil rights activists in the Islamic Republic.
• Iranian academic Zakerian, chairs of the Israel Studies center at Azad University, arrested while attempting to leave the country and travel to the United States.
• Raja News close to the Ahmadinejad government discusses arrest of two Iranian doctors active in an NGO fighting HIV/AIDS in the Islamic Republic and claims foreign funding of their activities is a proof of U.S. attempts to infiltrate the Islamic Republic.
• Speaking in the assembly of Basij of Doctors, the Revolutionary Guard’s Yadollah Javani warned against avenues from which the enemy can infiltrate the Islamic Republic.
• Amir Kabir University Student News Agency reports a new wave of arrests of student activists.
• Kurdish student activist Sivan Farrokhzadi abducted by Law Enforcement Forces, imprisoned.
• Engineering student and student activist Pouyan Mahmoudian, who placed 6th at the national entry exam to Iranian universities, barred from studying at Islamic Republic universities.

Photo of the Day

• Shi’a News publishes pictures of a miracle, a sick young lady getting cured at the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf.