0759 GMT: All-Is-Well Alert. Mohsen Jalalpour, the Deputy Head of the Chamber of Commerce, has proclaimed that Iran's non-oil exports rose 32% between March and October: "The non-oil exports this year have compensated for the reduction in oil exports, including petrochemical products and condensates.
Fars' article citing Jalalpour does not give an absolute figure for the rise in income, so it is impossible to assess how much the claimed rise offsets the fall of more than 40% in oil revenue in the same period.
Last year, oil accounted for more than 80% of Iran's export income.
0755 GMT: Sanctions Watch. More from Friday's frank admission by Mohsen Rezaei --- former Revolutionary Guards commander, former Presidential candidate, and currently Secretary of the Expediency Council: "Sanctions have had an impact....The enemy has identified the weak point of the Islamic Republic, and unfortunately people's life is affected by it. Youth unemployment is soaring."
0730 GMT: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with six months to go in his Presidency and amid debates over how much power he holds, is not going without throwing a few punches. In a speech on Friday to officials of Khatam al-Anbia, the engineering branch of the Revolutionary Guards, he put out a far-from-veiled reference to the accumulated wealth of the Guards: "They should sell the real estate and land they possess."
Hojatoleslam Mahmoud Dehqani, the Supreme Leader's Representative to Khatam al-Anbia, defended the organisation. He said that profit was not Khatam al-Anbia's goal: it is "defending the high values of the regime of the Islamic Republic".
Meanwhile, conservative MP Ahmad Karimi Isfahani, was lashing out at the President, saying that principalists should admit that supporting Ahmadinejad was a “mistake": “When Ahmadinejad says he is not a principalist it is correct, and also truthfully principalists have thought correctly and his actions of the last 7 years show that he cannot be a reforming candidate for the presidency.”
Posted via email from lissping
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