From the Office of Michael Rubin at AEI
[Thanks to Ali Alfoneh for his compilation; (E) signifies English link]
Nuclear Issue
· Jahan News wonders how Armenia's national television could air a documentary on the Bushehr nuclear plant showing pictures of areas unauthorized to foreign journalists.
· Foreign minister Mottaki says the Bushehr nuclear plant "God willing" will be operational at the end of this [Iranian] year.
o (E) Bushehr to come online by the Persian New Year.
· Head of Russia's nuclear energy organization cancels his visit to Iran.
· (E) Iranian students to sue Dutch government on nuclear education ban.
Diplomacy
· Fars News Agency publishes the viewpoints of the Supreme Leader on the people of Israel, whom he considers "hooligans, lacking identity and squatters."
· Foreign secretary of Egypt's ruling party accuses the Islamic Republic of the murder of Egypt's ambassador to Iraq.
· Diplomasi-ye Irani analyzes Bolivian president's visit to Iran.
· Ahmadinejad, meeting former Lebanese Prime Minister Kerami, says the only way of victory is a massive political and ideological onslaught against Israel.
· Bolivia supports the Islamic Republic's membership on the U.N. Security Council.
· Foreign minister Mottaki protests against the Saudi authorities' disrespectful treatment of the representative of the Supreme Leader Reyshahri, but Reyshahri claims he has not been treated disrespectfully. Expediency Council chairman Rafsanjani abstains from commenting the Reyshahri affair, but says he has been treated well.
· Gozaresh-e Jomhour [Reports of the Republic] which earlier published reports such as "the Socratic Dialectics of the President in the Victory of the National Nuclear Movement of Iran," "Achievements of the presence of the President at the Gulf Cooperation Council," and "Reinvention of the statute of Imam Ali in Islamic Government, Research into the Executive Methods of the Presidency of the Islamic Republic" has published a new report titled: "Bylines of Ahmadinejad's Visit to Italy." The report claims the Iranian president's participation at FAO Summit in Rome was "unique," and claims "one dares say the only country introducing new words and solutions was the Islamic Republic. The participants listened with great attention to the words of the president of the Islamic Republic and a good number of heads of states nodded their heads...After the Iranian president had left the podium half of the attendees of the meeting left the room..."
Military and Security
· Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force to stage war games during the month of Ramadan.
o Will show performance of Iranian-made fighters
o (E) In English.
· Russia denies secret arms sales to the Islamic Republic. (E) In English.
· Agah-Sazi publishes a Radio Farda report: Spokesman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian parliament Kazem Jalali says only 10 percent of Iran's national budget is dedicated to defense, which equates to between $6 to 7 billion.
· Gholam-Reza Soleymani, chief of the Saheb al-Zaman Revolutionary Guards unit of Isfahan, claims the Basij Resistance Force has 5,000 bases in the province.
o Soleymani also claimed 1.2 million people are members of the Basij in Isfahan.
· Nour-Allahi, chief of the Beit al-Moghaddas Revolutionary Guards unit of Kordestan province, says the Basij are the foundation of the Revolutionary Guards ground forces.
· Shushtar Basij chief Colonel Ali-Akbar Ekhlasi stresses the importance of the Construction Basij.
· Al-Zahra (female) Basij Brigades stage maneuvers in Tehran.
· Basij chief Hojjat al-Eslam Hossein Ta'eb urges Basij members not to remain silent in the face of hooliganism and said the Basij will secure the entire sacred realm of the Islamic Republic.
Economy
· Central Bank to issue 500,000 rial bills.
· Parliamentary speaker Larijani says the private sector in Iran has the capacity to absorb privatized state enterprises.
· Rafsanjani says one can't achieve privatization goals without carefully implementing the policy recommendations enshrined in the 44th clause of the Constitution.
· Vice director general of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic warns of a "tsunami of liquidity" and rising inflation.
· Ansar-e Hezbollah condemns Rafsanjani-era economic stabilization policies and calls it "the unblessed shadow of the U.S. on Iran's economy."
· Entekhab News Agency attacks the Ahmadinejad government's mismanagement of the economy and slams the rising prices of chicken and eggs in the Iranian market.
· Central Bank Director-General Mazaheri says that in an inflationary economy, one does not increase governmental charity to control inflation.
· President Khatami's economy and finance minister Safdar Hosseini says the Ahmadinejad government's economic performance is even worse than Pakistan's and Lebanon's.
· Head of the Strategic Studies Center of the Presidency Zaker Esfahani claims "the veins of secularism are visible in the Fourth [Economic] Development Scheme." He elaborates upon the theoretical foundations of the development scheme, the theoreticians behind the development scheme, and names of those academics involved in writing the program, all pointing towards world imperialism and secularism: "Reinvention of secularism took place in the era of reform and follows the same dialogue as the monnavar al-fekr [intellectual in Arabic] of the Qajar era and the Pahlavi era...one can trace any thought but religious thought in the Fourth (Economic) Development Scheme..." Zaker Esfahani also added that the main problem of the Development Scheme was its lack of a theoretical foundation, and "the destructive nature of the intellectuals."
Trade
· Bolivian president visits Iran Khodro (car manufacturer).
· Hojjatollah Ghanimi-Fard, deputy foreign investments executive of the National Iranian Oil Company, says Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, Norway and Turkey are negotiating their participation in different oil and gas projects in Iran. Ghanimi-Fard also says three major Russian companies have declared their readiness in writing. With regard to Asian countries, Ghanimi-Fard mentioned ongoing negotiations with companies from India, China, Korea and Malaysia.
Human Rights and Labor
· Radio Farda: Concerns Growing Over Fate of Detained Christian Ramtin Soudmand. Soudmand is the son of priest Hossein Soudmand who was executed in Iran in the early 1990s.
Politics
· Ansar News, close to the Ansar-e Hezbollah vigilante organization, warns against infiltrators within the regime structure with reference to Samuel Huntington's Third Wave of Democratization.
· Mojtaba Zare'i of the Research Institute of the Presidency publishes a book entitled: Wisdom and Dialectics in Thought and Methods of Dr. Ahmadinejad.
o A certain professor Mowlana (formerly of American University in Washington) who has recently been appointed advisor to Ahmadinejad has written the foreword of the book and says "recent events of the world have left philosophers and philosophical schools of thought incapable of explanation."
o Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia University is the central theme of the book.
· As Azad University dean says his university has never provided interior minister Ali Kordan with any degrees, the bachelor and candidate degrees of the interior minister are now being questioned.
· Children at an orphanage break the Ramadan fast in the company of the presidents of Iran and Bolivia.
· According to Asr-e Iran, Davoud Ahmadinejad (the president's brother) has said that in practice he has been the president of the country, but some one else has taken credit for his job, and that he is considering to run for presidency. But Davoud Ahmadinejad denies such statements.
· Reformist theoretician Tajzadeh defends his support for Lebanese Hezbollah and stresses that there is a huge difference between Iranian vigilante organization Ansar-e Hezbollah and the Lebanese organization.
Religion, Culture, and Society
· Judiciary chief Shahroudi joins women protesting against reform of the family legislation of the Islamic Republic which gives the husband more rights with regard to additional marriages.
· Shi'a News propagates temporary marriages as the solution to the sexual crisis of the Iranian society.
· Shi'a News announces the beginning of the twelfth century of waiting for the emergence of the Imam of the Era.
· Jahan News reports spread of witch doctors and self proclaimed mediums.
· Hojjat al-Eslam Ghera'ati, appointee of the Supreme Leader to the Friday Prayer Headquarters of the Islamic Republic, asks why the value of religion in the society has been degraded so much that "not even clerics buy a house which is built near a mosque!"
· Basij chief Ta'eb says the society must be formed to fit the security scheme of the Basij.
· Iranian authorities demolish the Abou-Hanifeh religious school of the Sunnis in Sistan va Baluchestan province. Local Sunnis say a great number of Qurans were buried and that the municipality workers involved in the job of dismantling the school insulted Sunni caliphs in the process of their work.
Media
· Jahan News Agency claims the BBC World is training Persian language journalists in Turkey.
· Al Arabiya bureau chief in Tehran is declared persona non grata in the Islamic Republic. More here. (E) And here.
o Student organizations supporting the Ahmadinejad government attack Al-Arabiyah television and say some Arab countries are involved in a conspiracy against Islam in the same way "the Jews conspired against the prophet Muhammad."
Photo of the Day
· Fire at Chinese market in Abadan-Khorramshahr.
