The Latest from Iran (9 October): The Battle Within

Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai and his spiritual mentor, Ayatollah Hadi Ghazanfari Khansari, reportedly sentenced to 10 years in prison

See also Iran Opinion: Is Tehran Immune from the Arab Spring?

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2205 GMT: Reformist Watch. Former President Mohammad Khatami has demanded a strong Parliament to oppose dictatorship and to ensure elections for all people.

2145 GMT: Promise of the Day. Iran Police Chief Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam, "If information about 80% of youth having sexual relations and 20% drinking alcohol are true, I will resign."

2135 GMT: Bank Fraud Watch. Ayande News claims that the next embezzlements will be linked to Tat Bank and Tourism Bank, displaying a letter giving 1000 Tourism Bank shares to a journalist.

1743 GMT: Revolutionary Guards are Everywhere. Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari, the head of the Revolutionary Guards, has said --- invoking the late Ayatollah Khomeini, that there are no limits to the Guards' missions and they can be active in all fields.

1737 GMT: Parliament v. President. Fazel Mousavi, the head of Parliament's Article 90 Commission, has criticised Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani for not pursuing complaints against the President. Larijani replied that they would not be ignored.

1735 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch (Book Fair Edition). Dozens of publishers of children's books have been arrested at a fair, allegedly for not paying fees. The book fair's doors were shut, effectively trapping the public.

1555 GMT: Oil Watch. Senior officials in the Ministry of Oil have announced the dismissal of the Russian gas company, Gazprom, from the Azar oil field in western Iran.

"We eventually came to the conclusion to cut our cooperation with this company in Azar oil field and strike a deal with a domestic contractor," said Ahmad Qalehbani, the Managing Director of the National Iranian Oil Company. "Unfortunately, the Russian Gazprom company delayed fulfilling its undertakings and the NIOC had given it repeated warnings, which were never heeded."

Qalehbani claimed that a "consortium of Iranian contractors will pick up work in the field".

Gazprom Neft, the oil arm of Gazprom, and the NIOC signed a memorandum of understanding in November 2009 to collaborate in the development of oil fields and to study the development of two other Iranian oilfields, Azar and Changule.

1525 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Actress Marzieh Vafamehr has been sentenced to one year in prison and 90 lashes.

Vafamehr and her husband, director Nasser Taghvai, were arrested soon after Vafamehr appeared in Granaz Moussavi's film My Tehran for Sale this summer. Taghvai was released on bail but Vafamehr remained in detention.

1455 GMT: Elections Watch. Kazem Alamdari, writing in Rooz Online, advises the reformists and opposition on the approach to next March's Parliamentary elections:

Non-participation is a passive act that confuses people and leaving them prey to the propaganda and threats of the regime, driving some concerned citizens to the polls. What should be announced today is not non-participation of the elections or boycotting it, but actively confronting it. Leaving this decision to the 11th hour is giving opportunists the field to do their work. Confronting the elections should be announced today with the call that people would participate only in free elections. The conditions that constitute free elections then should be repeatedly reiterated. This issue should not be left to the last moments of the election day. Today, a number of Islamic countries have a discourse on freedom so why not Iran whose people launched a huge revolution to achieve. We must move ahead with a very clear policy and single goal. The weakness of the Iranian civil and pro-democracy movement, i.e., absence of leadership and organization, will be addressed through this policy. This way, the Green Movement too will show its continued existence. People should take this message across the country through slogans, web messages, social networks, etc before the regime tries to buy off some.

Just like some prominent reformists who are imprisoned are calling on the public to participate only in free elections others should be clarifying this message and spreading it around. Waiting to be given permission to reformists to participate in the elections is nothing but an insult. The regime has decided to keep the elections closed and create a “yes-man” parliament. A dictatorial regime only responds to pressure from people. And just like the “Where is My Vote” call that people raised in the streets immediately after the announcement of the fake victory in the 2009 presidential race, today too they must act in that spirit and light.

1437 GMT: Foreign Affairs (Turkish Front). The Supreme Leader's military advisor, Yahya Rahim-Safavi, said on Saturday that Turkey must radically rethink its policies on Syria, the NATO missile shield, and promoting Muslim secularism in the Arab world, or it will face trouble from its own people and neighbours.

Rahim-Safavi described Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's invitation to Arab countries to adopt Turkish-style democracy as "unexpected and unimaginable": "The behavior of Turkish statesmen towards Syria and Iran is wrong and, I believe, they are acting in line with the goals of America."

Rahim-Safavi continued, "If Turkey does not distance itself from this unconventional political behaviour it will have both the Turkish people turning away from it domestically and the neighbouring countries of Syria, Iraq and Iran (reassessing) their political ties."

0837 GMT: Picture of the Day. Former President Mohammad Khatami with released political prisoners:

0757 GMT: Economy Watch. Khabar Online calculates that, in a country where the monthly minimum wage is 330,000 tomans (about $270), a family of four spends 378,000 tomans (about $295) on bread and eggs each month.

0755 GMT: Deviant Current Watch. Alef claims that the "deviant currents" --- its label for advisors around President Ahmadinejad --- are planning to remove Minister of Interior Mostafa Mohammad Najjar.

0745 GMT: Bank Fraud Watch. A report by a Parliamentary special committee on the $2.6 billion bank fraud has been turned down after a four-hour debate in the Article 90 Commission overseeing Government activity, because it "failed to attract public trust".

Meanwhile, another $80 million bank fraud has been uncovered in Isfahan, with the arrest of the bank manager. There are also claims of fraud in the accounts of the Isfah Zob Ahan football team.

0740 GMT: Chest-Thumping Watch. General Farzad Esmaeili, commander of the Khatam-ol-Anbia Air Defense Headquarters of the Revolutionary Guards, has declared that s Iran’s air defense units are equipped with advanced radars capable of detecting unmanned drones.

0730 GMT: Unity Watch. Former Speaker of Parliament Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel, has warned that if conservatives and principlists do not unify for next March's Parliamentary elections, they will be defeated.

Haddad Adel alled for further negotiations between the "7+8" Committee and the Islamic Constancy Front, who have refused to join the committee after objecting to representatives of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani and Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf.

0510 GMT: Currency Watch. Iran's currency is sliding again after last weekend's intervention by the Central Bank to prevent its fall. The Iranian rial sank to 12470:1 v. the US dollar on the open market, despite the promise of the Bank's head, Mahmoud Bahmani, to lower prices.

The rial had broken the 13000:1 barrier at the end of September, prompting the Bank to inject foreign currency into the economy. The official rate is just under 10800 rials to the dollar.

0505 GMT: Shutting Down the Press. Eight more journalists have been arrested. They include Mohammad Saeedzadeh in Rasht and four reporters for Iranian Students News Agency in Shiraz.

0500 GMT:Serat News says a headquarters for supervision of satellite television has been launched to prevent "cultural invasion", Those involved include former Minister of Culture Mohammad-Hossein Saffar-Harandi and the head of Iran's state broadcaster Ezzatollah Zarghami.

0450 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. An appeals court has set the sentence of Hamid Reza Khatem at four years.

Khatem, a member of the Freedom Movement of Iran, was given a five-year prison term last November for "gathering and colluding with the intent to harm national security" and for "anti-regime propaganda" by interviewing foreign media and publishing articles and statements.

0440 GMT: Art of the Day. An unnamed artist has brought attention to de-forestation by creating this outdoor art installation on a street in Kerman in central Iran.

0430 GMT: Press Watch. We have been unable to access Khabar Online, the outlet of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, since Saturday afternoon. We are monitoring to see if this is just a technical issue or something bigger.

[0730 GMT: The site is now on-line.]

0420 GMT: The in-fighting within the Iranian establishment has taken another casualty. Digarban claims that Ayatollah Hadi Ghazanfari Khansari, considered the spiritual father of President Ahmadinejad's right-hand man Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, has been sentenced to 10 years in jail.