The Latest from Iran (1 January): And Today's Threat Is....

1900 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Labour activist Mansour Osanloo has suddenly been transferred to solitary confinement. Osanloo has reportedly been punished for participating in a commemoration of Ali Saremi, the Kurdish detainee executed on Tuesday.

Osanloo has been in prison since 2007 and is serving a five-year sentence in Evin Prison.

1730 GMT: Execution Watch. The son of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman condemned to death for adultery and complicity in murder, has been released on $40,000 bail and has given a press conference in Tabriz.

Sajad Ghaderzadeh told reporters, "In my opinion my mother is also guilty but since we have lost our father we do not want to lose our mother too. Consequently, we ask for a commutation of the penalty. The stoning sentence is on the file but it may not be carried out. At least this is what we are hoping."

Ghaderzadeh was detained in early October, along with Ashtiani's lawyer, as they gave an interview to two German reporters. The German journalists and attorney Houton Kian are still in prison.

1520 GMT: Press Watch. The editor of Iran newspaper, Kaveh Eshteshardi, has been sentenced to six months in prison and 10 lashes.

Eshteshardi was convicted of defamation for his report on a court case involving Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani.

1500 GMT: Sanctions Watch. We reported last week on a potentially serious development for Iran's sales of oil: the Indian Central Cank suspended payments through a regional clearing-house system.

On Friday, India and Iran failed to resolve the issue in talks in Mumbai. Fars claimed that an agreement had been reached by changing the currency of payment, but Indian sources said more discussions were required.

1455 GMT: All the News (Not Quite) Fit to Print. Yes, we've seen the story --- based on a WikiLeaks cable --- that the head of the Revolutionary Guard, Mohammad Ali Jafari, slapped President Ahmadinejad in a National Security Council meeting in January 2010. (In fact, we noted it a couple of weeks ago.) It may raise a smile, but it's not the most reliable of claims --- we'll have more, including the original cable, on Sunday.

More on Sunday because we have the REALLY BIG story today: "Will You Make the Million-Dollar Bid for Mahmoud's Car?"

1430 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Fatemeh Arabsorkhi, one of four activists arrested on 19 December, has been released on bail.

Arabsorkhi is the daughter of detained reformist leader Feizollah Arabsorkhi.

1125 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. HRANA claims that 80-year-old Ebrahim Yazdi, the head of the Freedom Movement of Iran, has been put in a Ministry of Intelligence safe house in a military district in Tehran.

1120 GMT: Parliament v. President. It appears that the Guardian Council is stepping in over the dispute between the Majlis and President Ahmadinejad on control of the Central Bank.

Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei has said that Parliament's bill to change the composition of the Central Bank's General Assembly, effectively taking supervision away from the President, is against Article 44 of the Constitution.

1000 GMT: No question who was Friday's media "star". Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi seized the headlines outside Iran with his introduction to Friday Prayers. There wasn't much compassion offered; instead, Doulatabadi set out his threat that cases against opposition figures had been prepared and they could be put on trial at any moment. (See our separate entry on the threat against Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.)

Actually, this was not much of a new news story. Doulatabadi and other Iranian officials have said this for months, and the prosecutor had trotted out the "We Can Arrest You" line at the start of the week at a press conference.

The significance instead is the regime's strategy not only with the opposition but with its own people. It has to keep two very different statements in permanent tension: 1) the Islamic Republic has defeated the Great Sedition; 2) the Great Sedition threatens the Islamic Republic. The balance is accomplished by maintained the ever-present but never-fulfilled promise to throw troublemakers like Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi behind bars.

As long as Mousavi and Karroubi are "boxed in", with their movements hindered, their networks disrupted, and their followers detainees, that balance can be sustained. Of course, if either of those men chose to go a step further with their denunciations of the regime....