Iran News Round Up

 A selection of the latest news stories and editorials published in Iranian news outlets, compiled by Ali Alfoneh, Ahmad Majidyar and Michael Rubin.  To receive this daily newsletter, please subscribe online.
 
(E) = Article in English

Politics

• Presidential crisis:
  • According to Ayandeh News, "the current of deviation," a reference to the Ahmadinejad supporters, is spreading the news that "important events" will take place in favor of Ahmadinejad's team. Ahmadinejad's team calls those events "minor" and "secret emergence of the Imam of the Era" in Medina, where the Mahdi prepares his major emergence. 
  • Hamid Baghaei, Ahmadinejad's executive deputy, is barred from government responsibilities for four years due to irregularities at the Iran Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization.
  • Haft-e Sobh, close to the Ahmadinejad team, writes that "considerable energy is used to arrest the engineer," Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei.
  • According to the BBC Persian, Ahmadinejad is not among the speakers at the ceremony to commemorate Grand Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini.
  • According to Arman-e Iran, Ahmadineajd's provincial trips have been canceled.
    • Senior Presidential Assistant Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi says he is unaware of what has happened to Ahmadinejad's planned provincial trips to Qom.
    • Parliamentarian Ahmad Tavakoli urges the public to chant slogans against the government in case Ahmadinejad continues his provincial trips.
  • Fatemeh Rajabi, author of the book Ahmadinejad, the Miracle of the Third Millennium, regrets having written such a book in praise of Ahmadinejad, and urges the public not to read her book.
  • According to Daneshjoo News, Mashaei supporter Abbas Amiri-Far, also known as Abbas the Exorcist, was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards.
  • Hojjat al-Eslam Saqqa-ye Biria says the "strategy of the Ahmadinejad government" is to dismantle the clerical rule.
  • Three more websites expressing the viewpoints of Ahmadinejad are filtered by the Intelligence Ministry.
• Parliamentarian Akbar Alami accuses Supreme Leader Khamenei of playing an instrumental role in house arresting the late Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri in the 1990's.
• Parliamentarian Motavarzadeh urges the authorities to use the public funds to rebuild Khorramshahr rather than on conferences commemorating the liberation of the city during the war with Iraq.

Diplomacy

• Protesters in Syria burn the flag of the Islamic Republic. Video

Military and Security

• The Intelligence Ministry says it has arrested "thirty Iranian agents on CIA payroll."
• Law Enforcement Forces Deputy Ahmad-Reza Radan says the police will increase efforts to fight "bad hijab" and "fortune tellers."
• [E] IRGC chief Ali Jafari played down the possibility of any future military threat to the Iranian borders.

Media

• The security forces raid houses in western Tehran and collect 2,000 satellite dishes receiving foreign channels.

Trade

• [E] Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi in Beijing on Monday underlined the necessity for reinvigorating economic and trade ties between the two Asian powers.

Photos of the Day

• Khorramshahr from occupation to liberation.