Selected Headlines

Press Roundup provides a selected summary of news from the Iranian press, and excerpts where the source is in English. The link to the news organization or blog is provided at the top of each item. Tehran Bureau has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. Please refer to the Media Guide to help put the story in perspective. You can follow our news feeds on Twitter.

national

Iran Reformist Tries to Enlist Labor and Teachers

NYT

The Iranian opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi released a video statement on Thursday calling on workers and teachers to join the reformist cause, in a bold new attempt to broaden and energize the country's flagging protest movement.

The statement came as groups representing laborers and teachers called for demonstrations, and a labor coalition issued its own list of economic grievances to mark International Labor Day, on May 1, opposition Web sites reported.

Mr. Moussavi and other opposition leaders have previously urged workers and teachers to join them, but not as directly or as urgently. Now the possibility of laborers taking to the streets -- as they did during the 1979 Islamic Revolution -- has rattled the hard-line establishment.

On Wednesday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, issued a veiled warning to workers not to allow themselves to be politicized, saying "the enemy has tried to use the workers as a leverage against the Islamic regime" in the past, but had always failed, according to the semiofficial ILNA news agency.

In his video appeal, Mr. Moussavi said the challenges workers faced -- low wages, inflation, economic mismanagement and the inability to create independent organizations -- were also essential grievances of the Green movement, as the opposition calls itself.

He urged the creation of a united front against government malfeasance and injustice, and even linked President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's foreign policy to workers' circumstances. "The government's illogical actions have a direct effect on what the people of Iran can put on their table," Mr. Moussavi said.

national

Political corruption added to administration's economic charges

Rooz Online | April 28, 2010

While "economic corruption" cases relating to several officials in the Ahmadinejad administration are under investigation by the judiciary, some prominent Principalist lawmakers in the eighth Majlis, including Ahmad Tavakkoli, warned about the increasing "political corruption" in the administration and bureaucratic state, characterizing it as "much worse than economic corruption."

Ahmad Tavakkoli, who heads the Majlis Strategic Research Center, said in his latest remarks, "We have reached a state where political corruption is rampant, with some even trying to influence decision makers through bribes. This kind of corruption is much worse than economic corruption, because in economic corruption individuals pursue base and materialistic interest, but in political corruption it is possible that legal decisions would be made to facilitate certain people's corrupt pursuits and lead to the interference of some in distributing the enormous oil proceeds."

Discussing "political corruption," he said, "political corruption is the involvement of politicians in economic corruption, whereby they buy and sell laws and regulations. This is a much more important disease that some are afflicted with now by trying to infiltrate the Majlis using bribes, threats or promises. Unfortunately we don't have comprehensive laws dealing with political corruption."

The head of the Majlis Strategic Research Center explained, "If this problem is not dealt with today, tomorrow would be very late. The judiciary is now facing a difficult test, because it has moved forward to investigate two important cases. One deals with an administration official and the other with a relative of a senior regime official. If the judiciary falls short of dealing with either case, in my opinion it would flunk the public opinion test and won't have any standing left for combating corruption."

This prominent Principalist lawmaker added, "People who are themselves accused of corruption shouldn't be in charge of combating economic corruption; because if the accusations are true the result is what the supreme leader declared, that you can't clean glass with a dirty towel."

Ahmad Tavakkoli's was referring to Mohammadreza Rahimi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vice president, who represents the administration in the anti-economic corruption taskforce, despite being under investigation by the judiciary in an economic corruption case.

Popular Google-owned blogger service filtered in Iran

Rahana | April 25, 2010

"Blogger", one of the most popular blogging services in the world has been filtered in Iran.

According to Kaleme, on Saturday night April 25, this globally-popular website which offers several free services to its users was filtered in Iran.

Many Iranians use Blogger to publish their blogs, and it seems the authorities have decided to filter the whole Blogger domain instead of filtering individual blog addresses.

Back in 2002, Blogger improved its service in an interaction with Google and added Persian to the list of its supported languages. A lot of experienced Iranian bloggers had started writing their blogs via Blogger as no Iranian blog service existed at the time.

international

Executive linked to Iran probe is sentenced in NYC

AP

The former president of a foundation prosecutors say has provided services to the Iranian government has been sentenced in New York City to three months in prison for obstructing justice.

Farshid Jahedi was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Manhattan. He was fined $3,000.

He pleaded guilty in December to an obstruction charge. He admitted throwing away documents he knew would be subject to a subpoena issued in connection with a grand jury investigation of a bank accused of helping fund Iran's nuclear program.

Jahedi is the former president of the Alavi Foundation.

economy

Iran Adds 3 Supertankers To Storage Fleet

Zawya | April 29, 2010

Iran, OPEC's second-biggest oil producer, added three supertankers to its fleet of vessels storing crude, matching a similar program in 2008 that helped freight rates to triple, ship tracking data show.

At least 15 such vessels are idling in the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and Gulf of Suez, according to data from the ships collected by AISLive Ltd. The tankers can store a combined 30 million barrels of oil, more than a week of national output, Bloomberg reported.

Two years ago, Iran used as many as 15 tankers for storage, constricting vessel supply and helping to more than triple freight rates in less than three months.

Iran is likely storing oil because of weakening demand as refineries across Asia, accounting for almost two-thirds of global demand for supertankers, carry out maintenance. National Iranian Tanker Co., which operates the supertankers, also has a laden suezmax tanker idling off Iran, ship-tracking data show. A suezmax can hold about 1 million barrels of oil.

"They don't want to shut down their production," said Ole-Rikard Hammer, an analyst at Pareto Securities ASA in Oslo who's tracked tanker markets for more than two decades. "The refining clients are buying less because of maintenance and the Iranians seem to prefer to keep oil in floating storage."

The discount on Iran Heavy crude compared with Oman and Dubai petroleum is at its widest in more than a year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The discounts on Iran's Forozan, Soroush and Norouz crudes have also widened.

National Iranian Tanker has a fleet of 28 supertankers, according to Lloyd's Register-Fairplay data on Bloomberg. The remaining 13 carriers are all either moving or have been at their present locations for less than two weeks, according to the tracking data.

The extra vessels now storing are the Davar, Daylam and Hatef, according to the data.

Eni to pull out of Iran oil field

Press TV | April 29, 2010

Italy's Eni says it will not extend its contracts to develop an Iranian oil field as it may lead to US sanctions against the oil firm.

State-controlled Eni, Italy's biggest oil and gas company, signed contracts in 2001 with the Iranian government to develop Darkhovin oil field.

In an annual report filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Eni said it would not extend its contracts for the third phase of the project because of the government pressures and fear of US sanctions against the company, Reuters reported.

"Our activities in Iran could lead to sanctions under relevant US legislation," the report said.

"Specifically, activities are progressing to hand over operatorship of the Darkhovin oilfield to the local partners as development activities were concluded at this field in 2009."

Eni's Chief Executive Paolo Scaroni also said on Thursday that the company intends to sell off its shares in the oil field.