STF NA MÍDIA

Bovis, one of the biggest
developers, said this month it
had bought 1,571 "consented
plots", and was acquiring
another 2,500. Ministers say
England needs 230,000 extra
homes a year. They are looking
at fining companies that
hoard land with planning
permission.
The Tory Cabinet Office
minister Oliver Letwin told a
fringe event at the Lib Dem
conference: "We need to do
the deficit reduction but that
isn t the total answer to how
you do things.
"We have been working extremely
hard in other domains
and I think you ll find
that in the coming weeks and
months we will have a great
deal to say on the housing
market."
A housing strategy is due for
publication by the government
in November.
More broadly, Lib Dem strategists
are pleased they have
been seen to be taking the
lead in a more activist fiscal
and monetary stance.
Lib Dem ministers are nervous
of institutional restructuring,
and believe the £3bn
Green Investment Bank can
lever in a further £15bn of
private investment over the
parliament. They admit that
locating shovel-ready infrastructure
projects is painfully
slow inside Whitehall.
JUSTIÇA NO EXTERIOR •
THE GUARDIAN (LO) • COMMENT IS FREE • 20/9/2011
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: the deviant president
Last year, Ahmadinejad arrived at the UN as Iran s trusted messenger. Now, under fire
at home, things are very different
The annual trip to the United
Nations in New York will
this year be a rite of passage
for more than one leader. The
spotlight is on the Palestinian
president, Mahmoud Abbas,
but in its own way Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad s pilgrimage
will be just as instructive.
Last year, he flew into New
York brimming with lines to
lambast and provoke. He was
the Islamic republic s trusted
messenger. This year, if Ahmadinejad
represents any
faction in Iran it is one that
has been branded "a deviant
current". His political backers
have been arrested, his
chief of staff accused of involvement
in a £1.64bn bank
fraud, undermining clerical
power and even sorcery. Iran
s other power centres, such
as the Revolutionary Guards,
have distanced themselves
from their errant protege. Or,
to put it another way, Ahmadinejad
has fallen out with
his former patron, Iran s supreme
leader Ali Khamenei –
big time.
The rift became public in
April, but Ahmadinejad had
long been thought to be grooming
his chief of staff, Esfandiar
Rahim Mashaei, as
his successor. Ahmadinejad,
whose presidency is limited
to two terms, must step down
in 2013. Between now and
then there are the parliamentary
elections in March next
year. The power battle broke
out over three cabinet appointments
over which the supreme
leader holds sway –
the foreign, intelligence and
interior ministries. The president
sacked his foreign minister
Manouchehr Mottaki, a
Khamenei favourite, in December.
When he tried to do
the same to the intelligence
minister Heydar Moslehi,
Khamenei ordered his reinstatement.
Ahmadinejad went
on strike for 11 days but was
forced to reinstate Moslehi,
although the two have not
been seen in cabinet together
since.
Mashaei is a threat to the
clerics on more than one level.
His nationalism draws its
source from Iran s pre-
Islamic history, and he is
believed to have played a key
role in securing the loan from
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