LATEST: Journalist Bastani Given Prison Furlough

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Khordad News asks whether four men — Mohammad Bagher Nobakht Haghighi, Mohammadreza Nematzadeh, Mohammad Nahavandian and Akbar Torkan— are the “keys to Iran’s safe deposit box”, i.e. whether they are the team President-elect Hassan Rouhani has assembled to provide expert advice and consultancy on his most pressing issue as new President — Iran’s faltering economy.

An economist, Mohammad Bagher Nobakht is secretary general for Moderation and Development Party and acted as spokesman for Rouhani’s Presidential campaign. He is also Deputy of the Economic Research Department at Rouhani’s Center for Strategic Research.

Rouhani has appointed Nobakht as his liaison to the Government’s legislative branch, with a mandate to “establish communication and moderation” between the legislative and administrative branches.

Mohammadreza Nematzadeh, a former Minister of Labor and Minister of Industry and Mines chaired Rouhani’s Presidential campaign. Like Rouhani, he studied abroad — his degree in Environmental Engineering is from California state Polytechnic University in 1968.

Akbar Torkan, a former Minster of Defense in Hashemi Rafsanjani’s government in 1989. An engineer, he has no ties to the Revolutionary Guards.

Mohammad Nahavandian is President of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce.


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Journalist Bastani Given Prison Furlough

Journalist Masoud Bastani, detained in July 2009 and serving a six-year sentence, has been released on furlough.

Bastani’s wife and fellow journalist Mahsa Amrabadi is still in prison serving a one-year term.

A Political Prisoner’s Poem to Mark a 1999 Suppression

Student activist Majid Dori, serving a five-year sentence in exile in Behbahan Prison, has written a poem marking the 18th of Tir, the anniversary of the regime’s violent suppression of student riots in July 1999.

Since his arrest in 2009, Dori has not been allowed any furlough, and his family must travel 20 hours to see him:

I swear with my tired legs and not from running,
That don’t want to stay behind the broken sobs,

I swear in the prayer that was read,
Fearful of the last visit,
Hoping to meet again,
In the greedy and dirty politics of some,
And not getting to experience another moment,

I am suffocating, suffocating, suffocating,
Hoping to be granted another living breath,
My time is not my own,
My tears have broken yet again

Supreme Leader: Recite And Memorize The Quran, Avoid Western Culture

In a speech on Wednesday to mark the first day of Ramadan, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that just because the majority of people around the world adhered to a Western culture, did not mean that Iranians should follow suit.

Western culture, he said, “does not constitute a model or [good] reason to follow this culture in an Islamic society.”

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/07/11/313297/leader-encourages-quranic-lifestyle/

Khamenei tweeted:

Instead, Khamenei said, Iranians should live a Quranic lifestyle. The Supreme Leader noted that the 1979 Revolution in Iran had led to a larger number of young people reciting and memorizing the Quran:

“US Weapons Reaching Iranian-Backed Militias in Syria”

The “Iran scare” theme is combined with Syria to produce a train wreck exclusive in USA Today.

Headlined, “U.S. Arms Showing Up in Hands of Pro-Assad Militias“, the article opens:

U.S. and Western weapons have been reaching Iranian-backed Shiite militias fighting to keep Bashar Assad’s forces in power in Syria.

Analysts say it’s unclear if the weapons were captured, stolen or bought on the black market in Syria, Turkey, Iraq or Libya. Propaganda photographs from Shiite militias posted on dozens of websites and Facebook pages show the weapons were acquired in new condition, said Phillip Smyth, an analyst for Jihadology.net, a site affiliated with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Many of the weapons are things the militias “shouldn’t really have their hands on,” Smyth said. Iranians love to show “they have weapons and systems that are very close to the Americans.”

Smyth — who starred in a satirical EA article last weekend, “Is Iran’s Qods Force Behind Tartous Summer Festival?” — claims to have studied “more than 30 online forums and 100 Facebook pages” to find “images of U.S. and Belgian weapons in the hands of members of various Iran-backed militias”.

Liwa’a abu Fadl al-Abbas uses Iraqi, Lebanese and Afghan fighters. Liwa’a Zulfiqar uses Iraqi fighters who prefer working with Iraqi and Shiite commanders, under the leadership of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps rather than Syrian leadership.

In fact, Smyth’s lengthy post for Jihadology asserts that “Liwa’a abu Fadl al-Abbas” is made up of Syrian, Lebanese, and Iraqi fighters and has links with Hezbollah — nowhere in his article is there any evidence for direct Iranian involvement.

Similarly, Smyth’s recent presentation of “Liwa’a Zulfiqar”, made up primarily of Iraqi Shia, has no reference at all to “Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps leadership”.

Smyth is joined by Christopher Harmer, “senior analyst for the Institute of the Study of War”:

Harmer said there’s a propaganda aspect to everything Iran does, and the images probably have a dual purpose, for both domestic and Western consumption.

“They’re heavily involved through state-owned media and attempting to influence Shiite groups throughout the Middle East,” Harmer said. “It’s absolutely plausible Iran is purposely highlighting U.S. weapons in their hands.”

Unfortunately, USA Today does not post any of the claimed images of US weapons in the hands of the “Iranian-backed” brigades to test its case — it only displays an M-16 rifle and someone’s feet.

“Iran Could Have Intercontinental Ballistic Missile by 2015”

There are a bumper crop of Iran scare stories around at the moment, even as Tehran’s President-elect Hassan Rouhani puts out a line of “engagement”.

A Congressional hearing this week was the opportunity for “analysts” to make — unsubstantiated — claims of Iran trying to take over Latin America, and the political wing of the Mojahedin-e Khalq, which seeks the overthrow of the Iranian regime, has declared that photographs of tunnels prove a “secret nuclear site”.

Now some more grist for the scary mill: the US National Air and Space Intelligence Center, with contributions from the military, asserts, “Iran could develop and test an ICBM capable of reaching the United States by 2015.”