The Latest from Iran (23 December): All is Well. Really.

2150 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Doctoral student Ali Arshadi, arrested last December during the Ashura demonstrations, has been freed from Evin Prison.

1440 GMT: An All-is-Well Break. EA staff will be at a party with friends and family today, so updates will be limited. As always, we invite readers to keep us on top of the situation with latest news and analysis.

1335 GMT: All-is-Well Alert (Scientific Edition). The Chancellor of Tehran University, Farhad Rahbar, says that "the growth rate in Iran's scientific research has been 11 times more than the world's average growth rate".

1330 GMT: It's All About Us. Press TV has a distinctive take on the US Congress' passage of the New START treaty with Russia. Ostensibly, the agreement is to reduce stockpiles of nuclear weapons, but the Iranian state outlet sees a different objective: "to put pressure on Iran over Tehran's nuclear program".

Press TV's source? It cites Wayne Slater, a writer with the Dallas Morning News. But if you watch the accompanying video --- helpfully provided by Press TV --- you'll learn that Slater's focus is not primarily on Iran but on a treaty which "builds a relationship" to encourage non-proliferation, including Tehran's nuclear programme.

1030 GMT: All-is-Well Alert (Sedition Edition). Kayhan claims that 300 websites are spreading propaganda against subsidy cuts to spread fear and economic crisis.

1025 GMT: Debts. Aftab News publishes the claim that Government companies owe $2.3 billion in interest on "justice shares" to people from 2007 and calls on the President to act.

1020 GMT: "Ahmadinejad and Rahimi are Law-Breakers". Not my words but those of leading MP and Larijani ally Ahmad Tavakoli, in this interview on Iranian television, as he challenges the President and 1st Vice President.

0735 GMT: All-is-Well Alert (International Edition). President Ahmadinejad has met his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul. No details are given of the one-hour meeting beyond "[they] discussed bilateral ties as well as regional and international developments...[and] stressed the necessity for expansion of relations and coordination in all fields".

Also, new Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi has met Turkish Foreign Ahmet Davutoglu. Again, there is no substance beyond the rhetoric of "common positions".

0725 GMT: Subsidy Cuts Watch. Amidst reports of a strike by truckers, Saham News claims that the Government has offered them 80 billion tomans (about $80 million) if they will co-operate.

0720 GMT: Parliament v. Government. More than 70 members of Parliament have renewed their campaign against Minister of Science and Higher Education Kamran Daneshjoo, accusing him of misma nagement of Allameh Tabatabei University.

0715 GMT: International Front. Yesterday we noted a report that Iran had halted almost 2000 fuel tankers going into Afghanistan, presumably because it believed the supplies would go to US-led forces. Afghan officials claim the fuel is for homes, businesses, and civilian aircraft.

The New York Times follows up today, citing 1400 tankers that have been halted and highlighting the concern of the Afghan authorities.

0705 GMT: All-is-Well Alert (Corruption Edition). First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, facing charges of corruption, may have cancelled his press conference yesterday (see Wednesday updates), but he still put out a defiant statement: "As long as Ahmadinejad is there [in office], I am there."

I wonder if the President is so confident tying his fate to that of Mr Rahimi. This week Iran's judiciary said it would send the file of the Vice President, accused of involvement in a massive insurance fraud, to the courts.

0635 GMT: In the Land of Optimism, this statement --- reported by Mehr --- might be King:

The Iranian minister of economy and finance stated that the implementation of the subsidy reform plan has resulted in a clarity of prices and due to deposits in registered accounts Iranian citizen’s monthly income has increased by 445,000 rials ($43).

Shamseddin Hosseni said that the absolute poverty line in the world is one dollar (1,050 rials) a day which adds to about 315,000 rials ($30) a month.

He explained that the subsidy cash payment 445,000 rials is more than the absolute poverty line of 315,000 rials and based on this one can say that people’s monthly income has gone up.

The minister pointed out that the subsidy reform plan has increased the income of the majority of the population in the country and thus enhanced their purchase power.

Now call me dim, but --- somewhere in my now-distant economics degree --- I recall that "real income" and "purchase power" might also be related to prices.

The Los Angeles Times also fails to see the good news:

Taxi fares that officially were to rise by 10% shot much higher as drivers imposed their own price increases. Some truckers across the country refused to work, complaining of government threats to revoke their permits if they raised their prices to offset higher fuel costs.

Crews on ferry boats operating between Bandar Abbas port and Qeshm island in the Persian Gulf temporarily stopped working, complaining that the ticket prices set by the government had not gone up despite a four-fold increase in the price of fuel, the Mehr news agency reported....

Already, the prices of produce, diesel, gasoline, cooking oil, water and bread have risen dramatically. In downtown Tehran, the price of a loaf of brick-oven bread doubled overnight to 40 cents....

Transportation workers have been particularly affected by the steep rise in the price of fuel....Another source close to...truckers complained that the price of diesel had risen to almost 10 times more than the previous subsidized price and confirmed that the government had threatened to fire drivers who increase fares without authorization.