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Pedro Gonçalves

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Iran's currency crisis due to psychological war | World news | The... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ran-currency-psychological-war

Iran

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • The Iranian president accused his conservative rivals of complicity in exacerbating the crisis over the rial, saying they had contributed to the situation by launching a propaganda campaign against him. The president pointed the finger at Ali Larijani, the parliament speaker, and criticised him for giving an interview in which Larijani said mismanagement accounted for 80% of the problems and the sanctions 20%, comparing government policy to "Robin Hoodian economics"."The respected head of parliament should come forward and help instead of giving interviews," Ahmedinejad said.The deputy speaker, Mohammad Reza Bahonar, echoed Larijani, saying on Tuesday that the government's only enemy was "illusion". At least one Iranian MP accused the government of manipulating the country's foreign currency reserves amid speculation that Ahmadinejad might be summoned for questioning.
  • "The president has deliberately kept the market agitated," said Elias Naderan, of the parliamentary economics committee, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency. "I really don't know what Mr Ahmadinejad is thinking. What plan does he have, what is his expectation of the system, and how does he plan to manage this disorder?" Despite several attempts to calm the markets, the government has failed to bring the rial under control. It has lost at least 57% of its value in the past three months after US and EU sanctions targeting the regime's nuclear programme came into effect in July.On Monday the rial experienced its biggest devaluation in a single day, dropping more than 15%.
  • On Tuesday, a senior official indicated that the government was relying on its security services to curb speculators, who are blamed for the rial's drop.
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  • Many Iranians have lost faith in the rial and are now rushing to convert their assets and properties to foreign currency and gold.
  • Ahmadinejad expressed regret over the arrest last week of his media adviser, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, and criticised his culture minister for speaking against a reformist newspaper, Shargh, which was closed down at the same time over a cartoon deemed insulting.
Pedro Gonçalves

Larijani congratulates Ahmadinejad over re-election - 0 views

www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx

Iran Iran Elections 2009 Ali Larijani

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 05 Jul 09 - Cached
  • Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani has met with President Ahmadinejad on Saturday to congratulate his re-election as the country's president. Parliament members congratulated Ahmadinejad's re-election and renewed their support for him in an earlier meeting with the president on June 22.
Pedro Gonçalves

Iran Council Certifies Ahmadinejad Victory - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...30iran.html

Iran Iran Elections 2009 Iran Guardian Council Ahmad Jannati EU

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 30 Jun 09 - Cached
  • The powerful Guardian Council touched off scattered protests in Tehran Monday night when it formally certified the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a second four-year term, saying there was no validity to charges of voting fraud.
  • As the certification was announced, security and militia forces flooded the streets, and protesters who were already out marching down Tehran’s central avenue, Vali Asr, broke into furious chants. The marchers were quickly dispersed, but other Iranians, urged by opposition Web sites, went to their rooftops to yell “God is great!” in a show of defiance.
  • Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the Guardian Council’s secretary, sent a letter to the interior minister saying the panel had approved the election after a partial recount, according to state television. “The Guardian Council, by reviewing the issues in many meetings and not considering the complaints and protest as valid, verifies the 10th presidential election,”
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  • Earlier in the day, apparently in an attempt to create a semblance of fairness, state television said the Guardian Council had begun a random recount of 10 percent of the ballots in Tehran’s 22 electoral districts and in some provinces.
  • On Monday, the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of Parliament was scheduled to visit the holy city of Qum to meet with two grand ayatollahs. A day earlier it met with two former presidents, Mohammad Khatami and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, in an effort to ease the strains that have developed since the June 12 election. The speaker of Parliament, Ali Larijani, a former nuclear negotiator, has emerged as a powerful opponent of Mr. Ahmadinejad.
  • The nation’s intelligence chief charged that the protests were inspired by Western and “Zionist” forces, and Mr. Ahmadinejad called Monday for an investigation into the shooting of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young protester who became a symbol when a video of her dying moments in the streets was seen all over the world. Witnesses said she was shot by a member of the Basij, the government militia. But now the government is pressing an account that foreigners killed her to undermine its credibility.
  • On Sunday, the authorities arrested nine Iranian staff members of the British Embassy in Tehran, and while five had been released Monday, four remained in custody for what the intelligence service said were efforts to incite and organize the protests.But as the arrests ratcheted tensions up between Iran and the European Union, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman tried to ease back on Monday, however slightly. “Reduction of ties is not on our agenda with any European country, including Britain,” the spokesman, Hassan Qashqavi, said.
  • Iran’s economy, even before the electoral crisis, was suffering from the drop in oil prices, with inflation of at least 15 percent — and by some estimates 25 percent — and damaging unemployment. On Sunday, the government announced that it had to end all subsidies for gasoline used by private vehicles, a decision that was expected, but given the timing, suggested serious strains to the state budget. Antagonizing the European Union, Iran’s largest trading partner, could do further damage.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iran reformists held after street clashes - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8099218.stm

Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Mir Hossein Mousavi Ali Khamenei Mohammad Khatami

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 14 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Up to 100 members of Iranian reformist groups have been arrested, accused of orchestrating violence after the disputed presidential election result.
  • Backers of defeated reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi were rounded up overnight, reports said, including the brother of ex-President Khatami.
  • Mr Mousavi's whereabouts are unknown but he is thought to remain free.
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  • Mr Ahmadinejad is due to hold a news conference on Sunday before attending what is expected to be a huge victory rally. In a TV address on Saturday, he condemned the outside world for "psychological warfare" against Iranians during the election, which he called "totally free and fair". "This is a great victory at a time and condition when the whole material, political and propaganda facilities outside of Iran and sometimes... inside Iran, were totally mobilised against our people," he said.
  • The streets of the Iranian capital were reported to be calm on Sunday morning, but concrete barriers are being erected in the city centre.
  • Senior Iranian political figures have offered their backing to Mr Ahmadinejad, among them parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani and the head of the judiciary.
  • The president already has the backing of the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who endorsed his election win on Saturday.
  • World reaction has been muted, with major powers slow to welcome the Iranian result. The European Union and Canada have voiced concern about allegations of irregularities, while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said only that Washington hoped the result reflected the "genuine will and desire" of Iranians. Long-time allies such as Venezuela and Syria, as well as neighbours Iraq and Afghanistan, are among those who have recognised Mr Ahmadinejad as the winner.
Pedro Gonçalves

Iran elections: Khamenei warns protesters to stay off streets | World news | guardian.c... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ections-ayatollah-ali-khamenei

Iran Iran Elections 2009 Ali Khamenei

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 19 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Speaking in front of an audience of tens of thousands, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Khamenei attacked foreign powers for conspiring to deligitimise the vote, and to destroy the Iranian people's trust in their political leaders. Khamenei's descripton of Britain as the "most treacherous" of Iran's enemies was met by roars of "Death to the UK" from the massed ranks of Basiji militiamen assembled in the prayer hall.
  • In repsonse, Iran's ambassador to London was summoned to the Foreign Office this morning to explain why Britain had been singled out.
  • Mousavi was conspicuous by his absence from Friday prayers at Tehran University, where Khamenei was making his first public appearance since controversially endorsing Ahmadinejad's election as president.
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  • Some followers of Mousavi had called for a boycott of prayers at the university because of the refusal to annul the result of the poll, but TV pictures showed thousands of people listening to Khamenei and occasionally chanting affirmation of his words.
  • The speech now creates a clear dilemma for Mousavi and his supporters: do they return to the streets in open defiance of Khamenei or drop their demands? Prior to today's speech, Mousavi had called on the opposition movement to gather in Tehran tomorrow afternoon for a rally, but many may now feel too fearful of a crackdown by the authorities.
  • Ahmadinejad and his cabinet ministers attended the prayers, as did the parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, the mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, and senior military officers from the revolutionary guards. Many of those in the audience appeared to be government employees or members of the president's militia.
Argos Media

The Waiting Game: How Will Iran Respond to Obama's Overtures? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News -... - 0 views

www.spiegel.de/...0,1518,618764-2,00.html

Iran Israel Mir Hossein Mousavi Nuclear Proliferation Politics US

shared by Argos Media on 14 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Israel's new right-leaning government, with its Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his warmongering outbursts, is more or less openly threatening a strike -- even without American consent. The Israelis, who have their own nuclear weapons, cite the Iranian president's irrationality as justification. They assume that Ahmadinejad is planning a nuclear attack on the Jewish state, without consideration for Israel's certain vehement retaliation.
  • In fact, Ahmadinejad has made no secret of his desire to see Israel wiped off the map of the Middle East. But he has also repeatedly stressed that he has no intention to attack "the Zionist entity" with armed force.
  • The conservative Arab nations, with their Sunni majorities, are now just as concerned about Iran's nuclear ambitions as the fact that the Iraqi government now enjoys the best of relations with its fellow Shiites in Tehran. Tehran's increasing power also strengthens its militant clients in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: Hamas and Hezbollah.
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  • Iran is not simply a medium-sized regional power that can be ordered around at will. Ironically, America's disastrous war in Iraq has allowed its fierce adversaries in Tehran to benefit from a massive shift of power in the Middle East.
  • Before his ascent to the office of president, not even diplomats stationed in Tehran and familiar with all of the ins and outs of Iranian politics were familiar with this short man with the sparse beard and piercing eyes. The fiery revolutionary, hardworking to the point of exhaustion and filled with contempt for earthly wealth, rose to power from humble beginnings and became the hope of all "Mostasafin," the disenfranchised millions without whom the Islamic Republic probably would not exist today and for whom Ahmadinejad has fashioned himself into an Iranian Robin Hood.
  • This places the Americans before the virtually impossible task of joining forces with Iran to resolve the classic Middle East conflict and its 30-year conflict with Tehran itself. For this reason, the Iraq question is also becoming increasingly urgent for Washington.
  • Obama knows that the United States could derive substantial benefits from cooperation with Tehran. Without Iran, for example, it will be almost impossible to bring peace to Afghanistan in the long term. In Afghanistan and Pakistan -- the center of conflict that Washington describes in its new strategic concept as a single unit known as "AfPak" -- the Americans and Shiite Iran have many interests in common. Tehran's rulers battled the Sunni Taliban radicals, whom they have always seen as dangerous neighbors and ideological foes, before the Americans did.
  • And Tehran, with the world's second-largest natural gas reserves and its third-largest oil reserves, has the capacity to do a great deal of damage to the international economy -- or help it overcome the global economic crisis.
  • Conversely, rapprochement with the United States and Europe would also bring enormous benefits to the Iranians. Without know-how from the West, the country will hardly manage to achieve the modernization it needs so urgently. With inflation approaching 30 percent and real unemployment exceeding 20 percent (12 percent, according to official figures), and more than a million drug addicts -- a distressing world record of addiction -- the country faces practically insurmountable problems.
  • Whether the internally divided Palestinians will manage to come to terms and form a unified government for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is no longer in the hands of the inconsequential negotiators in Cairo, but will be decided instead by Hamas's patrons in Tehran. Tehran also decides whether the Lebanese Hezbollah or Hamas's extremists use primarily words to express their hostility toward Israel or, as is currently the case, resume their bloody terrorist attacks instead.
  • Ahmadinejad feels obligated to the permanently downtrodden members of society. As if he were one of them, he campaigned for president four years ago in Tehran's massive poor neighborhoods, traveled to the country's most remote places and promised the underprivileged their share of Iran's riches. He told them that he would fill their empty plates with the proceeds from the sale of oil, and that he would declare war on corruption and nepotism. The "era of oppression, hegemonic regimes, tyranny and injustice has reached its end," Ahmadinejad told supporters after his election.
  • But the political achievements of President Ahmadinejad have been more miserable than stellar. In addition to isolating his country even further in the world, he has ruined its economy with his chaotic economic policies. In the devastating assessment of Ali Larijani, the president of the Iranian parliament and Ahmadinejad's biggest domestic rival, whom he previously removed from his position as Iran's chief nuclear negotiator with the West: "The confusion is the result of the government arbitrarily dissolving offices and dismissing experts, ignoring parliamentary resolutions and stubbornly going its own way."
  • Nevertheless, it is quite possible that this man, who has probably done more damage to his country than any other president in the 30-year history of the Islamic Republic, will enter a second term this summer -- simply because he lacks a convincing and courageous opponent.
  • Moussavi is of a significantly more robust nature than Khatami. As prime minister during the years of the Iraq war, he successfully managed the country's wartime economy. Critics note, however, that Moussavi's tenure was marked by a sharp rise in arrests and repression. He has not held any public office in 20 years and is virtually unknown among younger Iranians, who make up about 60 percent of the population.
  • On the surface, the elegant Moussavi would undoubtedly represent Iran more effectively on the international stage than Ahmadinejad. He appears to be more open to negotiations with the Americans. And yet, when it comes to the central nuclear conflict, the new candidate is just as obstinate as the current president. At a press conference in Tehran just last Monday, he noted that he too would not back down on the issue.
  • Which candidate the powerful religious leader Khamenei ends up supporting will likely be the decisive question. When Ahmadinejad came into office, he kissed Khamenei's hand. The two men were long considered extremely close ideologically, although since then Khamenei has more or less openly criticized Ahmadinejad's economic policies. Only recently, however, the religious leader spoke so positively about the president that many interpreted his words as an endorsement of his candidacy. Many observers of Iranian politics believe Ahmadinejad, because of his lasting popularity in rural areas, will be elected to a second term.
  • There are no questions that the Iranian president does not answer with questions of his own. He insists, most of all, on a few core concepts. One of them is justice, but he defines what justice is. Another is respect. He claims that he and his country are not afforded sufficient respect. This desire for recognition seems almost insatiable.
  • In Ahmadinejad's view, "hagh chordan," or the act of trampling on the rights of the Iranians, is a pattern that constantly repeats itself and comes from all sides, leading to a potentially dangerous mix of a superiority and an inferiority complex -- but not the irrationality of which the president is so often accused, especially by the Israelis.
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