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 subscribe to this daily newsletter, please visit this page, fill out the "New Subscribers" section, and check "Iran News Round Up" listed under "Projects." 

(E) = Article in English

Politics

• Senior presidential adviser Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi: "Ahmadinejad believes Iran’s next government will be even more active than the current cabinet. This will be so because the level of thought, piety and loyalty of the people towards the Islamic revolution will be elevated. And when the people's demands are based upon purity, belief and resistance against injustice and repression, God will help the people. Therefore, the next cabinet will be better and greater."
• Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, addressing the Revolutionary Guards Navy officers, says his "reason is insufficient to understand the many dimensions and personal characteristics of the Supreme Leader... This child of the Prophet has characteristics which I have not seen in anyone else."
• According to Jomhouri-ye Eslami, pictures of political prisoners during the Shah regime, including that of Rafsanjani, have been removed from the Torture Museum.

Diplomacy

• Mohammad-Javad Larijani, Iran’s Human Rights Committee secretary, travels to New York prior to release of a United Nations report condemning human rights situation in Iran.
• The Foreign Ministry warns Iranians against traveling to Canada because of "the rise of Islamophobia," and "discrimination against Iranians, even those with a Canadian passport."
• [E] Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami during sermons of Eid-ul-Adha prayers in Tehran: "Today, the US is bogged down in the quagmires of Afghanistan and Iraq and the notion that Israel is unbeatable no longer holds true."

Military and Security

• Colonel Faramarz Rouhafza, Khatam al-Anbia Air Base Preparedness chief, says "one aim of the Sky of the Guardianship War Game III is to display the anti-cruise missile scheme."
• Rah-e Sabz reports a state of emergency in Kish following the Law Enforcement Forces' demand that the shopkeepers close their stores after midnight.
• Basij of the Central Administration is given more responsibilities to supervise subsidy reforms.
• Basij Chief Mohammad-Reza Naghdi says more than one million Basij members will take part in war games commemorating the Basij Week.
  • Naghdi also warns the public against cartoon figures like the "Spider-Man."
• Law Enforcement Forces Chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam says the Police have not killed anyone in the post-election crisis.
• Revolutionary Guards theoretician Hassan Abbasi says he is the "Kissinger of Islam."

Trade

• Commerce Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari says Iran has "responded to 400 of 700 questions posed by the World Trade Organization." Ghazanfari also said reform of the subsidies system was one of the "important thing to be done and can help us very much with regard to membership of the WTO."
• Khabar Online detects decline in Iran's oil export over the past five years.

Nuclear Issue

• [E] Supreme Leader Khamenei has played down effectiveness of sanctions against Iran. "Enemies of Islam, (Islamic) Revolution and Iran failed to face the (Iranian) people by war and military intimidation. Now too, those thinking of bringing the nation into their knees through sanctioning are doing something in vain," Khamenei said in an address to large groups of Isfahan people on the occasion of Eid-ul-Adha.

Photos of the Day

• Iranian athletes at the Asian Games in China.