Death Sentence For Three Protesters In Iran Reduced To Prison Time

Economist Mehdi Pazouki says, "The government of President Ebrahim Raisi has been put at the disposal of the Imam Sadeq alumni who have no executive experience." Imam Sadeq University is known for its more than usual religious orientation.

Pazouki added in an interview with the centrist daily Ham Mihan on September 2 that "economic managers of the early years after the 1979 revolution had a far better performance than the current officials."

Meanwhile, the moderate news website Rouydad24 quoted Pazouki as having said in the interview that no foreign investment is likely to be made in Iran without solving the Islamic Republic's problems with the JCPOA and FATF. The economist was hinting that Iran needs to improve its ties with the West by reaching a nuclear deal and accept the terms of FATF, an international financial watchdog.

The Financial Action Task Force, whose evaluations of a country’s financial regulations can impact it ability to interact with the international financial system has black listed Iran and demanded legislation to improve transparency and a ban on financing of terrorism.

Pazouki added that the government's economic team behaves like an organized religious organization. "When you hand over a government ministry to someone whose only accreditation is having studied at the Imam Sadeq University and has no background in executive work, you will obviously leave the government face to face with economic problems," he said.

Journalist Zaynab Ghobayshavi writing in Rouydad24 quoted critics who say Raisi's economic team cannot step up to its job and his aides lack coordination and a teamwork mentality.

Pazouki told Rouydad24 that Raisi’s economic ministers have yet to present an economic plan, but they lack a strategy. Nonetheless, the Raisi administration claims that the budget bill for the current year has been formulated based on the country's sixth development plan that was made under former President Hassan Rouhani while the new administration has been constantly criticizing its predecessor’s economic policies.

"If Rouhani's plans are bad, why are you still following them as your own policy?" Pazouki asked.

During the election campaign in 2021, Raisi had said that he has a 7000-page economic plan, but no one has ever seen even seven pages of that plan, the economist said. He then argued adding that lacking a plan, the Raisi Administration made one of the biggest mistakes in the history of the Islamic Republic, that is increasing the minimum wage by 57 percent overnight while the country was suffering from an inflation rate more than 40 percent. It also increased employment in the government sector by 38 percent.

Even some of Raisi’s political allies, such as hardline conservative politician Hedayatollah Khademi have charged that Raisi's ministers are not fit for their jobs and the President should fire them and demand operational plans from the remaining ministers.

Khademi went on to say that Raisi's ministers failed to meet any one of the nation's expectations during the past 13 months, and even if Iran reaches an agreement with the West, the current ministers will not be able to solve any of the country's problems.

In another development, lawmaker Somayeh Rafiei has also said that after 13 months in office, there is no coherence and coordination visible in Raisi's economic team.

Iranian lawmakers have repeatedly threatened to impeach Raisi's economic team, and tabled motions for their impeachment, but Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf have so far stopped every motion, waiting for Raisi to fire them.

Reiterating the pledge to stop the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons, Nides said at a press conference in Jerusalem that “We understand the aggression of Iran,” adding that “[Biden] was very clear to the prime minister in that belief.” 

“We also would like a diplomatic solution, but only under the conditions the president has laid out with our European colleagues. There are many gaps and conditions that have to be reached before we would actually agree to an agreement,” Nides said.

He made the remarks as a congressional delegation, including Robert Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, is visiting Jerusalem. Menendez told a press conference that Biden has pledged to submit any agreement on Iran’s nuclear program to Congress for review. 

He added that a review would be conducted by his committee and that there would be a vote on such a deal, noting that he was unsure if the outcome of that vote “would meet the threshold under the law to nullify the agreement.”

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, also part of the congressional group, said the delegation was briefed by Mossad chief David Barnea, who will be in Washington this week to attend closed-door classified meetings of House and Senate intelligence committees.

“The Mossad leader’s trip to the US will focus on tightening security and intelligence coordination with the Americans surrounding the Iranian nuclear issue,” read a Sunday statement from Lapid’s office.

Khodadad Afsharian, the head of the referees' committee of the country, said on Monday that although it was one of FIFA's demands, there is no requirement to do so and all national matches in men's and women's categories will continue to be judged by their respective referees.

Last week, he told the media that FIFA has asked the country’s federation to employ women referees for men's games, adding that the issue will be taken into consideration for the youth leagues.

He also said that women referees will participate in training courses on the use of Video Assistant Referee (VAR) Technology, which will be added to the country’s matches in the near future.

Late in August, under pressure from FIFA, 500 female fans were allowed into Tehran's Azadi Stadium to watch a local league football match.

Tickets were sold only to 500 female fans and a special forces unit consisting of female anti-riot police was present to lead them to their secluded section of the 100,000-seat stadium.

The world’s soccer authority had tried to convince Iran’s government to lift an unwritten ban on women attending stadiums to watch male players for nearly a decade. The ban has led to many arrests, beatings, detentions, and abuses against women. 

Addressing the unveiling ceremony in the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas on Monday, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Iran's chief of staff for the Armed Forces, said the Soleimani patrol combat warship is a multi-hulled watercraft that can carry choppers and can unload strike speedboats and vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drones, adding that it is the first Iranian military vessel equipped with air defense missiles with a vertical launching system that can fire mid- and short-range missiles.

He claimed that the hull of Shahid Soleimani-class missile corvette is made with radar-evading stealth technology construction techniques, meaning that it has a very low level of radar cross-section thanks to its shape. 

In addition to Bagheri, the IRGC Chief Commander Major General Hossein Salami, Commander of the IRGC Navy Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri and a number of other high-ranking military officials, commanders and state officials attended the ceremony. 

The IRGC Navy also delivered Shahid Rouhi and Shahid Dara high-speed and missile-launching assault boats. 

In July, the United States Naval Institute published satellite photos showing that Iran was constructing new stealth missile boats on the island of Qeshm in the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.

On Sunday, two surface-to-surface missile launchers, one logistic vessel and one Ghadir-class submarine were added to the South Fleet of the Iranian Army Navy of the country.

Brigadier General Hamid Vahedi said on Monday that buying Su-35s is on the agenda of the Air Force but the country has no plans to buy Sukhoi Su-30s, both developed from Sukhoi Su-27 which was a Soviet-origin twin-engine supermaneuverable fighter aircraft. Su-35 is single-seat but Su-30 is a two-seat, multi-role fighter. 

According to reports, the Army’s Air Force needs at least 64 aircraft, 24 of which will come from Egypt's order which remained undelivered due to US pressure on Cairo. 

Tehran-Moscow deals for drones, satellites and other aviation equipment have been increasing in recent months. Russia not only launched a satellite for Iran in August, but its personnel were also reportedly sent to train on Iranian military drones to use in Ukraine.

As tensions remain high between Washington and Tehran, the United States military said earlier in the day that it flew a pair of nuclear-capable B-52 long-distance bombers over the Middle East in a show of force, the latest such mission in the region as tensions remain high between Washington and Tehran.

The bombers took off from the Royal Air Force base at Fairford, England, and flew over the eastern Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula and the Red Sea on Sunday in training missions together with Kuwaiti and Saudi warplanes. Three Israeli F-16 fighter jets accompanied the American bombers “through Israel’s skies on their way to the Persian Gulf,” the Israeli military said, describing the country’s cooperation with the US military as key to “maintaining aerial security in Israel and the Middle East.”