The Latest from Iran (17 December): Did We Miss the Regime's Show of Support?

1645 GMT: Division over the Foreign Minister. Deputy Speaker Mohammad Hassan Abutorabi-Fard has supported President Ahmadinejad's dismissal of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, but MP Mohsen Kouhkan, who said he heard of Mottaki's firing by SMS text, said the move was not wise at this moment.

Koukhan also claimed that MP Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a key member of the National Security Commission, is favoured as the new Foreign Minister by the Parliament.

1640 GMT: Ashura Moment. Aftab News publishes a photograph of President Ahmadinejad greeting supporters at a mourning ceremony.

1635 GMT: Press Alert. Supporters of Ahmadinejad Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai and journalists of the banned publication Hemmat are launching a new journal, Farhang (Culture).

Hemmat was banned January for "slander and spreading lies", reportedly including insults against former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

1538 GMT: Subsidy Cuts Watch. Minister of Trade Ghazanfari has again threatened "oversellers" with lawsuits on the eve of possible subsidy cuts, saying the Government will not accept high prices.

1535 GMT: Did We Miss the Show? BBC Persian summarises the news of Ashura: tight security measures and no sign of big crowds in Tehran.

1525 GMT: The Complications of Religion. On the one hand, Iranian state media is playing up the scene of a Sunni Muslim Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, addressing a largely Sunni crowd in Istanbul for the ceremony remembering the martyrdom of the Shi'a Imam Hussein.

On the other hand, Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi has criticised the Sunni religious schools in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia for producing terrorists.

1520 GMT: Diplomacy Watch. It looks like everyone except Iran's Foreign Ministry is pursuing diplomatic missions. As well as giving an Ashura speech in Istanbul, the Supreme Leader's representative for foreign policy, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, had a one-hour meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. No details of the talks have emerged.

1330 GMT: Khamenei Writes. IRNA has summarised the Supreme Leader's message, read out at the funeral for victims of Wednesday's suicide bombing. He declared that Iran's enemies do not want unity and authority of the Muslim world and that they fear the demonstration of that unity in ceremonies such as Ashura.

1145 GMT: Your Friday Prayer Summary. Forget Ashura: for today's Friday Prayer Leader, Hojatoleslam Kazem Seddiqi, the sermon was all about foreign intelligence services as the perpetrators of Wednesday's suicide bombing.

Well, maybe not all the sermon. Seddiqi went after Britain after its diplomats criticised Iran on International Human Rights Day. The cleric claimed that the real human rights abuses were the beating of students by police in the UK (see 1010 GMT).

Seddiqi's message is echoed in other media specials this morning. Fars features political analyst Sadollah Zarei explaining how the US was behind the sedition around the June 2009 election, running training camps and exploiting the "aggressive" and "arrogant" personality of Mir Hossein Mousavi.

1140 GMT: Khamenei Writes. The Supreme Leader has sent a message for the funeral of victims of Wednesday's suicide bombing in southeastern Iran. Fars says the text will be released.

1135 GMT: Did We Miss the Show? Mehr has finally posted a series of photographs from Ashura ceremonies in Tehran:

1025 GMT: Terrorism and Ashura. In a message read by Minister of Interior Mostafa Mohammad Najjar at a funeral for one of the victims of Wednesday's suicide bombing, President Ahmadinejad has declared, "Terrorism acts will not undermine a people's will.

1010 GMT: Britain Maintains the Pressure. Earlier this week we noted the intervention of UK Ambassador Simon Gass, through an entry on the Foreign Office website, challenging Iran over human rights and raising the case of detained attorney Nasrine Sotoudeh. We wrote about the regime's reaction, with demonstrations and burning of the Union Jack in front of the UK Embassy. Gass was also summoned by the Iranian Foreign Ministry for a dressing-down about his article and also "police brutality" against student demonstrations in Britain.

The story continues: a reader notifies us of a series of videos by the Foreign Office on Iran. In this clip, Barry Marsten, speaking in Farsi, talks about democracy and Iranian state media:

0945 GMT: The Foreign Minister's Dismissal. Michael Theodoulou of The National reviews this week's dismissal of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki by President Ahmadinejad. Theodoulou suggests, drawing from analysts, that Ali Akbar Salehi will be only a temporary replacement, with key Ahmadinejad advisor Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi taking over the post.

0930 GMT: The President's Authority? It looks like the next event will be Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nationally-televised address on Saturday night. Mehr are reporting that the President will be focusing on his still-to-be-implemented plan for subsidy cuts.

But Ahmadinejad may want to take note of an incident on Thursday. Haj Saeed Hadadian, a "praiser" (maddah) and poet, was not exactly full of praise at an Ashura ceremony in Tehran: he suggested that the President write a note to dismiss his Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai.

Ahmadinejad did not attend the ceremony "for obvious reasons" but instead sent an Ashura flag.

0830 GMT: We begin this morning with a snap analysis trying to figure out what happened yesterday on Ashura, the important religious commemoration of the martyrdom of Imam Hussein, given that the declaration of "millions" turning out in Iran and other countries was not matched by images --- at least in cities like Tehran --- of those millions on the streets. 

So does that analysis need to be modified this morning, overwhelmed by displays of loyalty to the regime?

Well, Press TV does pad out its rather spartan coverage on Thursday of Iranian events. In addition to previously shown footages of thousands in Bam and Yazd, there is now video of a large turnout in the key religious centre of Qom as well as a small demonstration in Markazi. But there is still not a single shot of what happened in Tehran, and the Press TV website has been taken over by coverage (i.e., denunciations of the West) of Wednesday's suicide bombing in Chabahar in southeastern Iran.

Tucked away on IRNA's website is a four-paragraph story, but it is a tribute more to the declaration of opposition activists that it was a show of force rather than of celebration that marked the day: "Ashura Mourning Was Held in Complete Security". And Fars' only prominent story is not about  Ashura 2010 but the "sedition" of protests during Ashura 2009.