Iran News Round Up

A selection of the latest news stories and editorials published in Iranian news outlets, compiled by Ali Alfoneh and Ahmad Majidyar. To receive this daily newsletter, please subscribe online.

(E) = Article in English 

Politics

• Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addresses the Assembly of Experts.
• News stories about the 2013 presidential election:
  • Presidential election will take place on June 14, 2013.
  • Ahmadinejad on live television:
    • Question: "In 2005, you promised to disclose the names [of corrupt individuals] the list of which you had in your pocket. With only one year left to the end of your tenure, are you not going to announce those names?"
    • Answer: "I have revealed some of the names... How do you know there is one year left of the administration? The cabinet belongs to the nation."
  • Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani, Assembly of Experts chairman:
    • Recommendation to the principled faction: "I suggest they at the very least rally around two candidates."
    • Recommendation to the reformists: "I recommend they think about their country. People who are qualified, and who recognize the revolution and the regime, and who are not trying to topple [the regime] can enter the arena. Why should they also not have a candidate?"
    • To the Ahmadinejad government: "[The government] should not think that they will be there in the future too, or that their candidate will also get the vote in the next round."
  • Mohammad Dehqan, parliamentarian, says, "People will reject Ahmadineajd's Medvedev!"

Diplomacy

• Sheikh Edris Abdulqader, Sudanese Shi'a leader discusses the plight of the Shi'a in the Sudan. 
• Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani receiving a Hamas representative: "The result of popular revolutions in the region is increased power of the Islamic resistance in the world of Islam. In such circumstances one must raise the voice of resistance." 
• [E] Ahmadinejad is scheduled to pay a visit to New York to attend the upcoming session of the UN General Assembly, an Iranian official confirmed.
• [E] The massive participation of the Non-Aligned Movement leaders in the NAM summit in Tehran demonstrated that the US and the Zionist regime of Israel are isolated in the world, Tehran's provisional Friday Prayers Leader Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami underscored.
• Canada closes Iran’s embassy.

Religion, Society and Culture

• According to the National Organization for Civil Registration, 1.4 million Iranian citizens live in the United States. Other countries hosting sizable Iranian citizens include UAE 800,000; Britain and Canada 410,000; Germany 210,000, France 155,000, and Sweden 110,000.

Trade

• [E] Iran plans to deliver the first home-made Aframax oil tanker to Venezuela by the next month. 

Photo of the Day

• Tehran Friday prayer.