The Sky is Dusty

The newspaper Ebtikar reported on its front page on June 20 that there is a "competition for the presidency this time in the commissions," stating: "The election of the board of directors of specialized commissions is the last stage of competition between conservatives and reformists in the tenth parliament to achieve the presidency." According to the newspaper, after the parliamentary elections and the permanent board of directors, "the identification of the heads of specialized commissions seemed obvious since prominent figures or heads of commissions who have entered this period from the previous parliament have the highest chance of sitting on the presidency." Ebtikar also mentioned the presence of seventeen female representatives in the tenth parliament's commissions, stating: "The economic, social, and cultural commissions have the highest number of female representatives, while women are also present in other commissions, including education and research, energy, and councils." With the competition between Soheila Jelodarzadeh and other male representatives in the social commission for the presidency of this commission, "hope for the active presence of women in various positions of parliament has been revived." The newspaper also reported on the competition between Aladdin Boroujerdi, Kazem Jalali, and Mostafa Kaveh-Kabir for the presidency of the "National Security and Foreign Policy Commission," noting that "one conservative, one moderate, and one reformist will compete for the presidency of the parliament's most political commission." The newspaper Etemad, however, paid special attention to the fate of the presidency of the tenth parliament's Article 90 Commission, reporting on the "announcement of candidates for the presidency of the Article 90 Commission minus the main option." According to this newspaper, while the names of the candidates for the presidency of Article 90 were announced in the open session, there was no sign of Mohammad Ali Pourmokhtar among them, and "hours after the announcement of the candidates for the presidency of the Article 90 Commission, it was reported that he had joined the legal and judicial commission of parliament and is no longer a member of Article 90." Thus, "soon, one of Davood Mohammadi, the representative of Qazvin, and Farhad Tajri, the representative of Qasr-e Shirin, will take over the leadership of the Article 90 Commission of the tenth parliament by a vote in the open session." Etemad emphasized that "politically, there may not be much difference between Davood Mohammadi and Farhad Tajri," stating: "Both Tajri and Mohammadi are considered conservatives close to Ali Larijani's faction, with the difference that Mohammadi may be a step closer to the reformists, while the name Farhad Tajri became known in the eighth parliament when he was the first person after the arrest of Mostafa Tajzadeh following the events of 2009 to report on his meeting with him and his health in Evin prison, and since then, Tajri has been a reference for many legal news in Baharestan." The newspaper also referred to the judicial backgrounds of both candidates for the presidency of the Article 90 Commission, noting about Farhad Tajri: "Although he became a well-known figure in the political space of Iran after one term in parliament (the eighth term), he did not find the opportunity to continue his representation in his electoral district, Qasr-e Shirin, and was left out of the ninth parliament, but now, having re-entered parliament, he is a candidate for the presidency of the Article 90 Commission." The newspaper Qanoon reported in a piece titled "The Wall of Accountability" criticizing the neglect of the shortcomings of other agencies in the case of multi-million dollar salaries, stating: "The reprimand of the government as the primary culprit in this scandal should be examined, but that some only consider the government as the cause of these embezzlements is inappropriate. Undoubtedly, many oversight and security organizations operate in the country and have budget lines to prevent these actions so that no Khavari and Zanjani emerge again." This newspaper named the Court of Audit, the oversight arm of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, as the "second culprit" in the case of the mentioned salary slips, stating: "An organization like the Court of Audit was established in this country to oversee these matters, and it is also complicit in the government's fault like many other agencies." The newspaper Javan, close to the Revolutionary Guards, in one of its main headlines titled "The Bonus Scandal" wrote: "The 60 billion tomans bonus of an oil manager who worked without expertise and specific performance and less than an hour a day has brought the issue of astronomical government salaries to a new level." This newspaper simultaneously emphasized in its editorial the "necessity of legal action against astronomical managers," stating that "the public demands legal and decisive action against guilty managers, a demand that would restore the trust and confidence of the people in the ruling system and its officials." The newspaper Javan also noted that Fayyaz Shajai, the prosecutor of the Court of Audit, "based on Article 50 of the Fifth Development Plan, believes that no violation has occurred in this regard and that the law has actually authorized such payments to the government." However, Mohammad Esmaeili, the editorial writer of this newspaper, referred to instances of the "Law on Increasing Punishments for Bribery and Embezzlement" and the "Islamic Penal Code," accusing managers receiving unconventional salaries of "betrayal of public assets" and "embezzlement," stating that the laws mentioned provide for imprisonment, flogging, and restitution for offenders. The newspaper Shahrvand in its front page titled "Salary Slips: A Post-JCPOA Stronghold for Government Critics" wrote: "Salary slips seem to be another stronghold that government critics have taken position behind these days." Farshid Ghazanfarpour in this newspaper emphasized that "critical media have used the salary slips of some managers as a pretext to attack the government," stating that while the President has issued a serious order to combat astronomical salary slips to his first vice president, this issue has now "transformed from a social-economic criticism to a position against the government, and now critics are trying to emphasize that the government of Hassan Rouhani is in a position of weakness." The newspaper Ebtikar also described the continued revelations by critics of the eleventh government regarding salary slips as a "bombardment of the government with past salary slips," stating: "Critics of Rouhani's government, who have raised this issue as an excuse to attack the policy of hope and prudence, on the one hand, do not consider that the managers in question are not government managers, and on the other hand, this trend is not related to today, and it is unclear why such complaints were not raised during the previous government." According to this newspaper, "Critics of the government mock Hassan Rouhani's order to his first vice president regarding serious and uncompromising action against potential offenders in this matter and the apology and promise of follow-up from the government spokesman, while in the previous government, there was no news of apology and follow-up in such cases." The newspaper Javan has a report about "the possibility of changes in the composition of the Guardian Council," stating that the term of office of three clerical members of the Guardian Council, including Ahmad Jannati, Mohammad Reza Modarresi Yazdi, and Mehdi Shabzendeh Jahrami, will end, and their membership status "will be determined by the opinion of the Supreme Leader." This newspaper also noted the end of the term of membership of Mohammad Reza Alizadeh, Siamak Rahpeyk, and Mohammad Salimi as three legal members of the Guardian Council, stating: "Based on investigations conducted from some sources, Abbas Ali Kadkhodai, Mohammad Hassan Sadeqi Moghaddam, Fazlollah Mousavi, Ismail Misbah Askui, and Firooz Aslani are the most prominent candidates who will likely be introduced to the parliament by Sadeq Larijani, the head of the judiciary, for the selection of three new legal members of the Guardian Council by the end of July." The newspaper Shargh dedicated its front page to the meeting "Shariati and Our Era" at the Baran Foundation and reported in a piece titled "Contradictory Enemies of Shariati" that tensions arose during this meeting, publishing parts of the speeches of Hatam Ghaderi, Hashem Aghajeri, and Masoud Pedram. According to Shargh, "After Hashem Aghajeri's speech, the event host announced the end of the program, but Hatam Ghaderi asked the participants to listen to him for a few more minutes. He criticized Aghajeri's remarks, stating that this type of speech leads society towards 'living like a herd,' but Ghaderi's speech was met with strong reactions from attendees, each of whom requested time to respond to him." Shargh also referred to Mohsen Armin's reaction to Hatam Ghaderi's remarks, stating: "A young man also spoke after Mohsen Armin in support of Hatam Ghaderi, which was met with reactions from some and caused a brief altercation between him and an elderly man who did not allow him to speak." Ahmad Naghibzadeh, in an interview with the newspaper Donya-e-Eqtesad, while referring to two previous approaches of Iran towards Saudi Arabia, which were "confrontation at one point and interaction and cooperation at another," emphasized that "neither of these policies has yielded results, and this duality has led to a lack of a clear policy towards Saudi Arabia." This university professor told Donya-e-Eqtesad: "Due to the current situation, there is no space for cooperation, and we must enter a third phase of confrontation with the Saudis," and "the best strategy is neither cooperation nor war, such that in some cases, we should overlook the actions of the other side and wait to see how Saudi Arabia's fate will unfold." With the escalation of the dust crisis, the newspaper Hamdeli dedicated its front page to an image of severe air pollution, reporting with the title "The Sky is Dusty" that half of Iran is occupied by dust storms. Asareh Kiani, the reporter for Hamdeli, stated that "the pollution of the air in various provinces of the country, although it does not lead to the immediate death of the people in these areas, will gradually cause their slow death by creating various diseases, including respiratory diseases." The newspaper Siyasat-e-Rooz designed its front page with a background of pollution and dust storms, stating: "The JCPOA could not remove the dust storms." This newspaper, close to conservatives, wrote: "While Masoumeh Ebtekar had previously announced that the JCPOA could pave the way for improving environmental conditions, reviving Lake Urmia, reducing air pollution, and other environmental issues, it seems that all these openings are meaningless without stability in Iraq and global peace," as the head of the Environmental Protection Organization now identifies "instability in Iraq as the main cause of dust storms" and emphasizes that "despite the efforts made, instability in Iraq and existing inconsistencies have prevented us from controlling the sources in Iraq that are responsible for many of these dust storms." Mojgan Jamshidi also wrote in the newspaper Iran that "the World Day to Combat Desertification ceremony was held on Saturday morning with the presence of the Minister of Agricultural Jihad and the emphasis of the head of the Forests and Rangelands Organization to combat desertification, while the occurrence of severe dust storms caused by desertification in Iraq and Syria in recent days has affected almost half of the country, but what has raised a wave of concern among experts and officials responsible for nature protection in recent years is the expansion of desertification due to widespread destruction of natural resources and lack of necessary funding to combat this phenomenon in the country." According to the newspaper Iran, Khodakaram Jalali, the head of the Forests and Rangelands Organization, said in a press conference on Saturday morning: "Each year, about 40 trillion tomans of various natural resource areas are destroyed, of which 320 billion tomans are direct environmental damages caused by fires." The head of the Forests and Rangelands Organization also reported that in 2015, "about 40,000 hectares of desertification was carried out, most of which relates to Lake Urmia, Khuzestan, Kerman, and eastern regions of the country, and this year, desertification will be carried out in 90,000 hectares of land." The newspaper Vaghaye Etefaghieh has a report about "the unveiling of 12 new fields in humanities," stating: "Six years after the discussions about revising humanities in Iranian universities intensified, an examination of the national entrance exam booklet for master's degree shows that more than 12 new or revised fields have been added to the humanities selection booklet. According to this newspaper, these fields include "Islamic Banking, Islamic Economics, History of Shi'ism, Social Science of Muslims, Religious Tourism, Political Thought in Islam, Women's Studies with a focus on Women's Rights in Islam, Women's Studies with a focus on Women and Family, Philosophy of Religion, Logic of Religion, Psychology; with a focus on Islamic Psychology, Islamic-oriented Psychology, and Human Resource Management, with a focus on Islamic Human Resource Management," and in the academic year 2016-2017, students will be admitted for these fields "at the master's level." Vaghaye Etefaghieh reminded that "previously, it was planned that the revised fields would replace some university courses, but an examination of the master's entrance exam booklet shows that these fields have been placed alongside previous fields, and universities have allocated part of their capacity to these fields."