Back to Brief on Iran
TEHRAN - Iran's parliament wants to raise the national voting age from 16 to 18 in the latest struggle between the conservative parliament and President Mohammed Khatami.
The conservative-dominated parliament "is now looking at revising electoral law with the intent of raising the voting age to 18," an official said.
Sixteen-year-olds "don't have enough political culture" said another.
The Islamic republic's constitution fixes the voting age at 16, and the move to raise it comes just before two important upcoming Iranian elections…
The second election, scheduled for October, is for the Assembly of Experts, the political and religious body which has the authority to designate and remove the spiritual guide of the Islamic Republic.
Enemy Intends to Undermine Experts Assembly, State-Run IRNA, August 15
Chairman of the Assembly of Experts Ayatollah Ali Meshkini Friday said the enemy is intent on undermining the assembly and has intensified its attempts to this end.
Addressing Friday congregational prayers here, ayatollah Meshkini said that issues have recently been raised by enemies outside Iran and their agents inside the country in a bid to cast doubt among people, the youths in particular, over the experts assembly and the issue of leadership.
He pointed to debates over the direct election of the leader by the people, limiting responsibilities of the leader to a certain period of time and non-interference of the council of guardians in approving eligibility of candidates for the assembly of experts as being among those issues.
He stressed that in the Islamic system, leadership is a divine position, delegated to the most eligible person by the assembly of experts.
Let's Not Lose The Time, Editorial by State-Controlled Iran News Daily, August 15
Minister of Commerce, Mohammad Shariatmadari, recently announced in Tabriz that to reform the country's industrial and economic infrastructure, Iran needs $60 billion. He added in that case our GNP would be equal to that of 1971.
"During the past 20 years, families' average income has dropped by two-thirds and therefore the main concern of the government is to resolve economic problems upsetting the people," he stressed….
In another development, former President and Head of the Expediency Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said yesterday in Friday Prayers' sermon that the economic recession in the country is very dangerous….
These remarks indicate that economic crisis in Iran is alarming and it is warning Iranian officials. This is while 500,000 of the total two million unemployed in the country have university education... we should set aside factional interests or individual partisanship… We must remember that if we lose the time we must be responsive before history.
More Reports of Meddling in Other State's Internal affairs, More Denials, Dow Jones News, August 18
BANDAR SERI BAGAWAN, Brunei- Iran's ambassador on Tuesday dismissed allegations that "shadowy" Iranian diplomats were trying to wrest control of the tiny oil-rich kingdom of Brunei.
The envoy was reacting to recent claims by a brother of the nation's ruler, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, that conservative forces backed by Iranian foreign advisers were tightening their grip on Brunei.
Prince Jefri Bolkiah, who now lives in self-exile, made these charges earlier this month.
Mullahs' Leader Warns "Contemptible" Taliban, US, Agence France Presse, August 18
TEHRAN - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a stern warning on Tuesday to the Taliban in Afghanistan and to the United States, saying Iran would not tolerate tension on its border.
The Iranian leader referred to the fundamentalist Sunni Taliban as an "immature and deceived group" invented by Iran's arch enemy, the United States, which he accused of seeking to create tension along Iran's eastern border.
"But our people and the armed forces will not tolerate this American plot, least of all through this contemptible group," he warned.
Iran's deputy parliamentary speaker Hassan Ruhani on Sunday accused the United States of backing the Taliban, which has made a series of major advances into areas in Afghanistan previously held by the Iranian-backed anti-Taliban alliance.
"America wants to create a hotbed of tension along our eastern border in a bid to ensure its hegemony over the region's oil resources," he said.