Thursday
May192011
The Latest from Iran (19 May): An Ahmadinejad Albatross Named Rahim-Mashai
1540 GMT: The President's Right-Hand Man. Another shot at Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai....
The weekly Ya Lesarat Al-Hossein quotes a student of Ahmadinejad’s mentor, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi: “Mashai is a freemason and should be arrested.”
Qasem Ravanbakhsh added that the contents of the president’s public speeches prove he has been heavily influenced by Mashai’s ideas.
The head of the conservative Society of Islamic Republic Martyrs, Hossein Fadai, accused the “deviant current” in the government of trying to foster relations with the US and foreign intelligence services (see 0500 GMT).