LATEST: President’s Office To Take Control of Nuclear Matters?
No respite for Ayatollah Khamenei from economic issues, the nuclear question, and post-election political manoeuvring, it appears: a birthday party for the Supreme Leader in Shiraz has been cancelled.
Monday’s event, planned by the Revolutionary Guards was called off, after Web users circulated images of banners erected across the city, calling on the public to join in the party featuring “fireworks, jugglery, and dinner”.
On Saturday, the Guards base commander, Colonel Hamidreza Gerami, apologised to the Supreme Leader for the actions of “enthusiastic youth and supporters of the leadership”.
The official line is that Ayatollah Khamenei does not like any commemoration of his birthday. His office has been tweeting sections of a 2007 speech: “I’ll never be thankful to 1 celebrating my birthday but consider him responsible 4 spoilage.”
The office did not comment on whether — as President-elect Hassan Rouhani said jobs were not being created and inflation was more than 40% and as Iran faces pressure over its nuclear program and Syria — the current situation had put a dampener on the Supreme Leader’s birthday mood.
Latest Updates, From Top to Bottom
President’s Office To Take Control of Nuclear Matters?
An interesting test message from a source close to President-elect Hassan Rouhani’s office….
The source told Aseman Weekly, linked to Rouhani’s mentor and former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, that one idea of the Rouhani team is to “transfer Iran’s nuclear file from the Supreme National Security Council [SNSC] to the President’s office”.
The SNSC — currently headed by Rouhani’s rival in the Presidential race and Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili — reports to the Supreme Leader rather than the President.
Rouhani has direct experience in these matters: as Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council for 16 years and lead nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005, he was seen as responsible to Ayatollah Khamenei rather than then-President Mohammad Khatami.
In an apparent bridge-building idea, the source said the new President “would choose an individual to be responsible for the file and he would begin work under the direct supervision of Rouhani. In this way, it’s possible that [the Supreme Leader’s foreign-policy adviser] Ali Akbar Velayati would be chosen as secretary of SNSC”.
Conservative Newspaper Shuts Down
The conservative daily Vatan Emrooz has halted publication because of lack of funds.
Parliament Issues Bill To Stop Plan To Pay Off Government Debts From Central Bank
The Majlis has issued an urgent bill to prevent outgoing President Ahmadinejad’s plan to pay off Government debts by using up to 740,000 billion Rials (approximately $30 billion at official rate) from the Central Bank.
Ex-Kayhan Editor: “Rouhani Election Prevented Explosion in Society for 2 to 3 Years”
Mehdi Nasiri, former editor of the newspaper Kayhan, has said that the election of Hassan Rouhani has postponed an “explosion” within society for two or three years.
Nasiri added that all Iranians must support Rouhani, otherwise prospects for the future will worsen.
Supreme Leader Names Islamic Jurists to Guardian Council
The Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has reappointed three Islamic jurists — Ayatollah Mohammad Mo’men, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi and Ayatollah Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi — to the Guardian Council.
He also appointed Hojjatoleslam Mehdi Shabzendedar to the Council, as a replacement for Ayatollah Gholamreza Rezvani who died recently. The appointments are for a term of six years.
Minister of Economy Tells Supreme Leader “Ahmadinejad’s Economy Has Many Strong Points”
In a meeting with the Supreme Leader, the Minister of Economic and Wealth Affairs, Shamseddin Hosseini, praised the economic achievements of the Ahmadinejad government despite the difficulties posed by “pressures and deficiencies.”
Hosseini told the Supreme Leader that:
The Iranian economy was managed with the understanding of these designs and the country progressed in the shadow of Your Excellency’s enlightenment and the courage and guidance of the Eminent President…. From an economic perspective, we thought that the bases of creating advantage in the new economy are advanced sciences such as aerospace, nano and biotechnology and peaceful nuclear sciences.
What I described demonstrates that the Iranian economy, despite all pressures and deficiencies and against the enemies’ lies, has been crippled but also has many strong points.
(Hat tip: American Enterprise Institute)
Head of Central Bank: “We Have Made Billions in Currency Transactions”
The head of the Central Bank, Mahmoud Bahmani, has tried to ease concerns about foreign reserves and Iranian debt by claiming that the Bank has made billions of dollars through exchanges of various currencies in its “basket”. He claimed a reduction of $27.5 billion, despite sanctions, has been “a great achievement”.
Last week, Bahmani said Iran’s foreign reserves were at $40 billion — an apparent halving of the estimated total at the end of 2011 — but he has maintained that these are buttressed by holdings of gold.
President-elect Rouhani Addresses Parliament; Discusses Cooperation, Cabinet and Economy
In an address to parliament yesterday, president-elect Hassan Rouhani promised increased cooperation with parliament, and discussed the selection of his cabinet and economic issues.
In a reference to the Ahmadinejad government’s “disrespect toward the Parliament within the past few years,” Rouhani promised to renew cooperation between his administration and parliament based on “respect and strength.”
He added that “The [Parliament] is the result of jihad by grand clerics and ulama and efforts during the Constitutionalist movement, and is an important populist institution.”
On the formation of the cabinet, Rouhani said he has created four committees — for the economy, foreign affairs, domestic issues, and cultural and social questions — which will oversee 20 “work-groups.” These groups will seek expert advice, and “appeal to [the input] of 500 prominent university figures.”
Rouhani also discussed the country’s inflation and unemployment problems, warning that these issues need to be tackled immediately to prevent worsening trends in youth employment from developing. He said:
The country is facing 42% inflation and unemployment issues will be greater and greater in the future, if no immediate measures are taken. We sent educated youth after the secondary era to the universities and currently have more than four million unemployed who have graduated. According to projections, we will have between four to five million unemployed graduates in the next four years. If this trend continues, the number of those who are employed in the past eight years will have been very very few.
On the question of targeted subsidies, Rouhani commented:
The Parliament predicted a solution for pricing energy transports, but this law was not implemented when it should have been implemented [about a month ago]…Asides from the discussion of subsidies, there are other discussions such as the discussion of banks and their resources and the discussion of currency and currency price, where the Parliament must be consulted at another opportunity and [we] must think about their solutions.
(Thanks to the American Enterprise Institute for translations)
Iran’s New VTOL Drone Looks Suspiciously Like The MicroDrone MD4 200
Iran announced on Tuesday that it had unveiled a new VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) drone, the Mahnad-41.
The drone, Iran said, was “designed and manufactured by Iranian technicians of the Khallaqiyat Kavir Company”.
However, the Mahnad-41 bears a striking resemblance to the MicroDrone MD4 200, which is commercially available on the internet. A used drone costs around 11,000 GBP.
The Mahnad-41:
The MicroDrone:
In November last year, Iran published Photoshopped fake images of its alleged Koker VTOL drone, which it lauded as the “world’s first”. The images used in the Iranian media came from a Japanese university project, at the Chiba University.
Caption Competition
Fars News Agency pictures outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a group of women, but leaves it up to you to provide the caption:
