News in Brief

***Tehran representative to the Majlis, Ali Motahari, has said that President Ahmadinejad heedlessly insists on his own ideas and theories. "He is so much persuasive in his theories that he materializes them in the end. Knowing that the president would never step back from his own plans, the leadership, would rarely intervene. The obvious example is the law of orienting subsidies. The law is now being implemented, whether good or bad, is not a Majlis law; rather it is what Mr. Ahmadinejad wanted and insisted on it.”

Another example, he said, "was the Chastity and Hijab Law, which Mr. Ahmadinejad devalued it by (what he said in) his interview on Television. Yet another example is the issue of Iranian School of Thought instead of Islamic School of Thought. He and his advisor Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei insisted on it in spite of the elites’ opposition. Now they intend to introduce Nowrouz Charter. Should such acts be done during the reformist government, they would have blown that government up.”

In general, Motahari continued, their thesis is to absorb those 14 million people who voted in favor of Mir-Hossein Mousavi. KhabarOnline

***The ban on circulation of Etemad newspaper would be lifted soon, Elyas Hazrati said.

The ban should have been lifted earlier. However, it is now expected that the newspaper come out before the end of the current Iranian year (March 21, 2011).

Meanwhile, it is not yet clear whether Mohammad Ghouchani would resume his cooperation with the daily or not. KhabarOnline.

***There are currently some 3 to 4 million jobless in Iran, Musarreza Servati, member of the Majlis Planning and Budget Committee has said. Mehrnews.

***Majlis representative Elias Naderan has summoned minister of science, Kamran Daneshjou, to the Majlis to probe the educational background of first vice-president Mohammad Reza Rahimi. Daneshjou has said that he has no information about Rahimi’s educational level because he has not submitted any educational certificate to the government.

Naderan has asked whether Rahimi is a university graduate, post graduate or has a PhD. The minister has said that he has no information in this regard but he has promised to probe Rahimi’s educational background and inform the Majlis of his finding within the next two weeks.