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:
- Ahmadinejad for the first time comments on the arrest of his associates: "The position of the government in the face of pressures is silence, since the country is in need of unity and solidarity."
- According to Farda News, 75 out of 100 parliamentarians who have called on Ahmadinejad to come to parliament for questioning were serving in Ahmadinejad's 2009 election campaign.
- Parliament’s Speaker Ali Larijani, rather than Ahmadinejad, presents the revised bill on the Intelligence Ministry due to the president's delay.
- A group of parliamentarians submit a 100-page report on illegal activities of Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei and Hamid Baghaei to parliamentary Point 90 Committee.
- Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in a message to the parliament says that he has no opinion about the merger of the ministries of Welfare and Cooperatives and that "the parliament can take the decision."
Diplomacy
- Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei addresses the "authorities and representatives of various classes of the people" on the occasion of the Mab'ath [Ascension]:
- "The Americans, the Zionists and their mercenaries and fellow travelers in the region used all their capacities to derail the great movement of the nations, and revive the unjust equations of the past by making mercenary elements come to power. But when a nation awakens and is ready to sacrifice its life in the arena, one can't defeat it."
- "The people’s movement in Bahrain resembles in its nature with the movement of the Egyptian, Tunisian and Yemeni nations. It does not make any sense to distinguish between similar movements, but unfortunately, there are some who, instead of listening to the words of the nations, follow the path of the enemies of Islam."
- "By imitating the events of Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Libya, in Syria the Americans are trying to make trouble for this country, which is at the frontline of opposition [to Israel]. But the nature of the events in Syria is different from the nature of events elsewhere in the region."
- [E] Heads of state of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan are due to attend a tripartite summit in the Pakistani capital city of Islamabad in December, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi announced.
Military and Security
- Basij Chief Mohammad-Reza Naqdi: "There was a time when only one phone call of the Westerners would change the Shah and cabinet ministers of Iran. But today, only with a single movement of the Iranian nation, the composition of the European and the United States cabinets changes.
- [E] Enemies' threats, sanctions and pressures against Iran have merely consolidated Iranians' national resolve to continue the path of progress, a senior commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) stressed.
Religion, Society and Culture
- The controversy over the equestrian statue of Ariobarzanes in Yasouj continues as the local Revolutionary Guards commander demands dismantling of the statue, but Ayatollah Malek-Hosseini, representative of the Supreme Leader to Yasouj, says the statue honoring the Iranian general defending Persia from the Alexander the Great invasion should remain in its place.
- According to Shi'a News, a United States based evangelical organization had tried to "smuggle 10,000 Bibles" into Iran.
Photos of the Day
- Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's address on the occasion of Ascension Day.