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

• Addressing the people of Qazvin, Rafsanjani complains of the Intelligence Ministry and "Hezbollahi kids" troubling him and the Azad University.

Diplomacy

• Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addresses the Islamic Awakening Conference in Tehran: "Never trust NATO and the criminal regimes of Britain, France, and Italy..."
  • Ahmadinejad addresses the Islamic Awakening Conference in Tehran: "We must strengthen the awakening of Islamic countries..."
• Mashregh News releases some of the names from Ahmadinejad's 100-man entourage to the United Nations General Assembly:
  • Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi,
  • Hamid Baqaei, Executive Affairs deputy
  • Industry, Mines and Commerce Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari
  • Energy Minister Majid Namjou
  • International Affairs Deputy Ali Saidlou
  • Women and Family Affairs Center Director Maryam Mojtahedzadeh
  • Cooperatives, Labor and Social Security Minister Abd al-Reza Sheikh al-Eslami.
  • Missing is Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei.
• [E] Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani rapped the Yemeni regime for its brutal crackdown on peaceful protests, and cautioned the rulers of the Arab country to take a lesson from the fate of the toppled Libyan dictator, Muammar al-Qaddafi, who is now a fugitive, hiding in an unknown place.
• [E] Iranian military expert says remnants of the former Yemeni regime are using hi-tech Israel weapons to kill protestors in the country, adding that the highly destructive weapons are purchased and supplied to the Yemeni military by the Saudi regime.
• [E] Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani blamed certain countries for their intense efforts to fuel unrests in Syria through arming Damascus' opposition groups.

Military and Security

• Yadollah Javani, Revolutionary Guards Political Bureau chief: "The Islamic revolution belongs to the people and interventions of the Guards are interventions of the people in their own affairs... The clergy has managed to remove politics from the claws of politicians who were dependent on foreigners and has restored it to the strong hands of the real owners of the country, meaning the oppressed masses... Opponents of the Revolutionary Guards’ intervention in politics are descendants of those who did not allow the people and the clergy to prevent betrayals of dependent individuals in the constitutional era.  Today, they consider activities of the Guards as interventions in politics and shout and scream." The piece concludes: "Interventions of the Guards in politics is realization of the dreams of the constitutionalists."
• 6 individuals are arrested based on allegations of cooperating with the BBC.
• Nomads of Iran will not receive arms permit unless they are members of the Basij.

Economy

• According to Prosecutor Hojjat al-Eslam Mohseni Ezhehi, 19 individuals have been arrested in the $3 billion embezzlement case.
  • Supreme Audit Court head Hojjat al-Eslam Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi says "the Office of the President has assisted in the $3 billion embezzlement."

Trade

• Thailand refuses fuel to Iranian airplanes.

Religion, Society and Culture

• Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi addresses the inauguration ceremony of the theological seminary in Tehran: "Many moral corruptions and deviations are visible in Tehran and the brother and sister seminarians must resist in the face of these deviations, otherwise there will no longer be anyone to dress in death shroud and meet the enemy...There will not be anyone to go to the front!"

Photos of the Day

• Islamic Awakening Conference in Tehran.