Iran: Leader Endorses Ahmadinejad, Opponents Snub Ceremony, & more

1. Iran leader endorses Ahmadinejad: “Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has officially endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner of the country’s June presidential election. Monday’s endorsement of Ahmadinejad’s victory comes ahead of his swearing-in before parliament for his second term on Wednesday, despite the president suffering a string of setbacks amid an apparent rift with his own conservative camp. ‘The official ceremony was held and supreme leader approved Mr Ahmadinejad’s presidency,’ the Arabic language al-Alam state television said.”

2. Shall he kiss his hand or shoulder… that is the question: See the awkward Ahmadinejad-Khamenei moment here.

3. Ahmadinejad’s Opponents Snub Election Ceremony: “News reports said that several leading opponents of Mr. Ahmadinejad stayed away from the ceremony Monday, including the main opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Mousavi, his ally Mehdi Karroubi and Hasan Khomeini, a reformist and the grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Opposition leaders have hinted that they will stay away from the inauguration later in the week. Two former presidents who have criticized the election, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, also boycotted Monday’s event, news reports said.”

4. Fighting for Influence in Iran’s Bazaars: “But, while Ahmadinejad had his tax run-in with the bazaar, Mousavi does not have a positive record with many bazaaris either. Older bazaaris can still remember Mousavi the firebrand leftist, who, as Prime Minister during most of the 1980s, was associated with price controls and food cooperatives during the Iran-Iraq War. But younger managers and workers generally express support for Mousavi, even though, as one pointed out, ‘Mousavi never visited the bazaar before the election.; Bazaaris felt slighted by the snub, and since its merchants are still a main conduit to Iran’s smaller towns and rural areas, this was undoubtedly communicated outside of the bazaar as well.”
5. Three American tourists held in Iran: “‘Reporting from Baghdad — Three Americans who apparently strayed across the Iranian border while on a hiking trip in the northern Iraqi region of Kurdistan are in Iranian custody, that country’s state-run television reported Saturday. The Arabic-language Al Alam station quoted an Interior Ministry official as saying the Americans, two men and a woman, were detained after they ignored warnings from border guards and crossed into Iran in a remote mountainous area about 55 miles northeast of the Kurdish town of Sulaymaniya.”