The Latest from Iran (23 March): New Year's Break

1700 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has thrown another jab at the Government in his website message for the New Year: "We unfortunately witness the pursuing of indecent methods by those in charge, such as making lies and giving empty slogans to the people....The Iranian people are educated and well-informed and neither deserve lies nor promises which are impossible to be implemented....Those in charge should listen to criticism, and either convince the critics through logic or correct their policies.

Rafsanjani, who lost his post as head of the Assembly of Experts this month, even had a poke at the post-election repression: "What we should, however, definitely not do as Muslims is acting beyond ethics and eventually expose an Islamic society as disgrace."

1640 GMT: The Battle Within. Promient MP Hojatoleslam Hossein Sobhani-Nia has declared that the further the Government goes, the more dissent there is within the camp of the hardliners.

1635 GMT: Revolutionary Guards v. Ahmadinejad (Money Edition). Commander Mohammad-Reza Yazdi of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has said that the Government owes money to the Revolutionary Guards for the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War and should pay the debt in the 5th Budget Plan, still not approved by Parliament, for 2010-2015.

1445 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Student activist Ali Jamali, free for three days on furlough on $400,000 bail, has returned to Evin Prison after a request for extension was denied.

1130 GMT: The House Arrests. Yasser Khomeini, the grandson of the late Ayatollah Khomeini,has reportedly met Ali Karroubi, the son of opposition figures Mehdi and Fatemeh Karroubi --- held in strict house arrest or detention since mid-February --- and condemned the arrest and imprisonment of leaders of the Green Movement.

The report of the meeting came from the website of another Karroubi son, Mohammad Taghi. He reported that Khomeini had expressed hope that the new Iranian year would see the rule of law in dealing with people and political activists.

0930 GMT: Fighting over the Hidden Imam. Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi has denounced a CD about the imminent appearance of the 12th "Hidden" Imam of Shi'a as a lie.

Millions of copies of the CD have been distributed by "Mobasheran-e Zohour", which claims to have 18 cultural departments in Iranian cities.

The theological and political claims over the occultation and return of the 12th Imam have long provoked tensions within the Iranian establishment, and some critics of the Ahmadinejad Government have accused the President of supporting the declarations of emergence of the Hidden Imam in the near-future.

0700 GMT: Escaping The Ban. Despite the European Union's visa ban on Iranian Minister of Interior Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, he showed up on Monday in Vienna, invited by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Najjar told the audience that Iran had spent more than $700 million to close off its borders to stop the drug flow to Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. He called on the UN and the European countries to support the Iranian effort. At the same time, Najjar accused NATO and the US-led forces in Afghanistan of involvement in drug smuggling.

0645 GMT: Cultural Alternatives. In case you are looking for an event after the cancellation by Tehran of Nowruz festivities in the United Nations....

Roda Sten at Goteborg in Sweden is featuring Disturbing the Public Opinion, an exhibition of drawing, painting, performance, theatre, film, video, found and altered objects, action, photography, and poetry. 

Participants include Maryam Amini, Mojtaba Amini, Anonymous, Mehraneh Atashi, Fereydoun Ave, Negar Behbahani, Forough Farrokhzad, The Feminist School of Iran, Parastou Forouhar, Farhad Fozouni, Hengameh Golestan, Kaveh Golestan, Arash Hanaei, Elika Hedayat, Bahman Kiarostami, Amir Mobed, Mandana Moghaddam, Ardeshir Mohasses, Mana Neyestani, Nazanin Pouyandeh, Neda Razavipour, Jinoos Taghizadeh, Mohammad Yaghoubee and the In Roozha theatre ensemble.

And if you're close to Shanghai, China, you might just want to see "The Third Eye" exhibition of Iranian contemporary art. 

0610 GMT: Still very quiet from Iran as the Persian year 1390 begins. Very little has come from the opposition since Nowruz, and the most notable story on Tuesday --- at least for Iranian state media --- was that Iran had cancelled planned Nowruz festivities at the United Nations "to sympathize with the Muslims in some countries in the Middle East, who have been subject to deadly crackdown".

(A footnote on those festivities, which were supposed to be on Saturday --- this may have been one of the venues to present President Ahmadinejad's right-hand man and likely 2013 President candidate Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, whose trip to the US was suddenly cancelled last week.)

State media continue to lead with events in Bahrain, as IRNA headlines, "Bahraini Security Forces Continue to Cause Panic Among the People". However, Michael Theodoulou and Maryam Sinaiee, writing for The National, put the Iranian media campaign in perspective:

Iran has called the dispatch of Saudi and Emirati troops to Bahrain "heinous and unjustifiable" but there is little danger that Tehran will take overt reciprocal action, most analysts say. To do so would risk war with Saudi Arabia and possibly the United States.

Even so, the Saudi deployment and Iran's heated rhetorical response threaten to transform an issue of local unrest into a potentially destabilising regional dispute.

EA makes a cameo appearance in the article: "Domestically, the Iranian regime will use Saudi Arabia's involvement in Bahrain to advance its narrative that meddling foreigners are the real cause behind the region's troubles."