Selected Headlines

05 Oct 2009 03:39No Comments

Khamenei reshuffles military top brass
AFP | Oct. 4, 2009

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday issued decrees reshuffling several commanders in the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, official media reported.

Reports in all state media said that Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naghdi, a veteran Basiji, had replaced cleric Hojjatoleslam Hossein Taeb as commander of the Basij (Mobilisation) force.

Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi was appointed deputy chief of Iran's armed forces, replacing Naghdi, media reported.

Brigadier General Hossein Salami, commander of the Guards' air force, was promoted to deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guards, the post previously held by Hejazi.

The new commander of the Guards' air wing was named as Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.

No reasons were given for Sunday's top brass changes, and no additional information was supplied.

Cover photo: New Basij top commander Mohammad Reza Naghdi.

Sharif University in Tehran on Saturday (video below).

Hadad Adel and entourage at Tehran University earlier this week (video and story below).

Haddad-Adel struggles to maintain order in university classroom

Tabnak | Oct. 3, 2009

Mohammad Karami, a Kermanshah representative in parliament, expressed displeasure over the inappropriate behavior of students in Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel's class at Tehran University.

According to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), Karami urged students to follow the advice of the Supreme Leader and not allow certain individuals to taint the scientific, educational and research atmosphere of the country's universities.

"Certain individuals are looking for ways to create unrest in the country and students must repel such movements with vigilance," he warned.

Haddad-Adel, a former speaker of parliament, was described as was one of the prominent academic figures of the country.

Video of Elm and Sannat (Iran University of Science and Technology) two days ago

Former student claims Daneshjou no plagiarist

Asr Iran | Oct. 3, 2009

The co-author, along with Iranian science minister Kamarn Daneshjou, of a plagiarized article, has stepped in to claim responsibility for the wrongdoing.

In a letter, a copy of which was sent to IRNA, Majid Shahroudi said that while working on his Ph.D. as a mechanical engineering student, his dissertation was supervised by Daneshjou. The controversial article was a summery of his thesis, he said, which was published two months after his defense date.

Earlier, Nature, a weekly journal, published an article on its website revealing that a paper published by Daneshjou for Springer journal's Engineering with Computers was practically copied word-for-word from a 2002 article by three South Koreans.

Shahroudi said that he took full responsibility for the article. The former student explained that Daneshjou's students have access to his email address and use it to send articles to various scientific journals. That was why journals refer to Daneshjou as the first author, he said.

After listing the differences between his article and the Korean one, Shahroudi claimed that a Zionist conspiracy was in motion to defame Iranian officials. He said Nature writer Declan Butler, who brought the plagiarized article to light, was a known Zionist element and was using this scenario to slander Iranian officials.

"This person [Butler] monitors the developments in Iran's nuclear program and writes articles against it in Nature magazine," said Sharoudi, accusing the scientific magazine of pursuing political objectives instead of scientific ones.

Zarghami faces three conditions to continue IRIB reign

Parleman News | Oct. 3, 2009

Representatives of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have reportedly met with Ezatollah Zarghami, the current head of Iranian state broadcaster IRIB, setting conditions for the continuation of his term in office.

The head of the IRIB is appointed by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei. But in order to better coordinate between the the Ahmadinejad administration and the state broadcaster, cooperation between the two offices has been stepped up.

Ahmadinejad representatives asked Zarghami to agree to making changes in the Jame-e Jam daily, which is the most widely circulated newspaper in the country.

The circulations of Kayhan, Resalat, Vatan-e Emrouz, Javan and other publications combined do not match the daily circulation of Jam-e Jam.

Zarghami has also been asked to change some of his deputies in key IRIB branches. Zarghami was also presented a list containing ten names, including middle managers, presenters, producers and directors. He was asked not to use them in his possible second tenure.

Zarghami has reportedly accepted many of the terms set for him and was currently in discussion over the remaining conditions with his advisers.

Transport minister's article earns 'stop plagiarism!' stamp

Asr Iran | Oct. 3, 2009

Transport, an international academic journal, has retracted the publication of an article the newly-appointed Iranian transport minister Hamid Behbahani co-authored with two others after a the French newspaper Liberation presented proof of his plagiarism.

Earlier, an anonymous Iranian scholar wrote a letter to Christophe Claramunt, the director of research at l'Ecole Navale, informing him that the Iranian minister had plagiarized parts of an article written in cooperation with Chinese scholars and one Canadian researcher, Gerry Forbes.

The articles were originally published from 2002 to 2004, and Behbahani published his article in a Lithuanian journal.

Transport journal had 'Stop plagiarism' stamped across all the pages of the article published on its website.

Hajjrian asks for news

Tabnak | Oct. 3, 2009

In a first meeting with friends after his release from detention, reformist strategist Saeed Hajjarian said he has been unaware of developments in the country for a time. He jokingly added that he was either always sedated or in the water for physiotherapy.

"Since the assassination attempt on my life, I take painkillers that put me to sleep, and in the few waking hours I have, I spend them in water for physiotherapy," he said, referring to himself as a water- and drug-addled creature.

"I live in water [like a fish] and sleep all the time," he was quoted as 'jokingly' saying.

He said he spent the first month of his detention in solitary confinement in Evin prison, and the other two months at another location where he only had contact with his interrogators. He said he was not even given Kayhan newspaper to read.

"My interrogators told me that on the outside people were at one another's throats and that many had been killed. They also told me that there was a widening gap among the higher echelons of the country and that this was all the result of my dual governing theory."

Hajjarian further said that he had heard the sound of Allah o Akbar being chanted in prison and had assumed that people had gathered outside Evin.

SHARE