NCRI – On Iran, the Financial Times carried two reports on October 26, one about discontent in the country and the other on the clerical regime’s main opposition, People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.
Reporting from Iran, the daily in part wrote: "Complaints about rising chicken prices during the holy month of Ramadan mark the first widespread disquiet about president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, just two months after he became Iran’s president.
"High oil prices are a double-edged sword for Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, swelling government coffers, but increasing public expectations. ‘Oil is over $50 a barrel … so where’s the money going?’ asks a 40-year-old manual worker in Tehran.
"Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, last week acknowledged public concerns in Friday prayers, saying it was ‘unfair to drag the government to the table of expectations after only two or three months.’ Private business was wary of Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s rhetoric even as he won June’s landslide election victory, but is now approaching a crisis of confidence. ‘Name me one sector that is working,’ says a government official.
"The Tehran Stock Exchange (TSE) has dropped 20 per cent since the election, with the Tehran price index (Tepix) closing on Monday at 10,014, perilously close to the psychological 10,000 mark level.
"A sense of malaise in the economy has resulted both from Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s statist rhetoric and from tension with Europe and the US over Iran’s atomic programme. Hossein Abdeh-Tabrizi, secretary-general of the TSE, has linked falling share prices to the nuclear issue.
"Iran’s private businesses are also worried about possible UN Security Council sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme. Questioned last Thursday by reporters, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad refused to deny that Tehran is blocking letters of credit for companies from South Korea, the UK, Argentina and the Czech Republic, countries that last month voted for a resolution at the International Atomic Energy Agency finding Tehran in ‘non-compliance’ with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. ‘Economic relations have to be balanced with political relations,’ says Mr Ahmadi-Nejad."
In its second report, FT’s correspondent in Washington covered the briefing in the Capitol initiated by a group of U.S. Congress members from both Democratic and Republican parties on October 20.
Referring to Mrs. Maryam Rajavi’s address to the meeting FT wrote: "Even by the standards of Washington politics it was an unusual spectacle – the veiled leader of a Middle East group banned in the US as a terrorist organisation delivering a speech by live video-link to applauding members of Congress inside the Capitol itself. But since the organisation is dedicated to the overthrow of Iran’s theocracy, the People’s Mujahideen Organisation and its political co-leader, Maryam Rajavi, are given leeway in the US as they campaign to have the ‘terrorist’ tag removed."
The daily continued: "In suit and matching headscarf, Mrs Rajavi spoke from France. She thanked six congressmen by name for their support, praised President George W. Bush and called for an end to western ‘appeasement’ of the ‘engine of Islamic fundamentalism.’"
Describing the mode in the meeting the correspondent said: "The audience – a mix of Iranian-Americans, politicians and staffers filling a conference room in the Capitol last Thursday – gave her a standing ovation. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat congresswoman from Texas, spoke warmly of ‘sister Maryam.’"
Referring to terrorist charges against the Iranian Resistance, the report noted that the group "denies the charges of terrorism, saying it was banned by then-president Bill Clinton in an attempt to engage the Iranian government."
The report concluded with a comment on the determination of Iranian-American sympathisers of the Iranian Resistance and their hope for de-listing of the group in the U.S.
