The Latest from Iran (11 August): We Are Special

1450 GMT: Claim of Day. According to Rah-e Sabz, the Supreme Leader may have offered words of wisdom to many university students yesterday (see 0555 GMT), but they were not from Tehran University's Islamic Students Organisation --- Ayatollah Khamenei would not let them participate.

1445 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Asr-e Iran has a pop at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: during the past six years, 30 million people have sent letters of request to the Presidential office -- "these data are a shame, not an honour".

1145 GMT: Cartoon of Day. Eghbal Mahvari offers the Supreme Leader's latest comment on the unrest in Britain.

QUESTION: Seyed Ali, what about violence in London?
KHAMENEI: "Well, I can't see it exactly from this height, but it seems as if the brutal London regime is beating its citizens":

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The Latest from Iran (9 June): Devaluing

2055 GMT: Diversion Watch. Back from a conference break to find that Iranian authorities, the press, and State broadcasting have teamed up --- well, sort of --- to offer a spy story as an alternative to real-life political tension.

Both State broadcaster IRNA and Fars have claimed that the Ministry of Intelligence has foiled a US plan to form a "government in exile" for Iran.

The scheme, which included scholars Gene Sharp and Joseph Nye and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, was headed by former Repvolutionary Guard commander Mohammad Reza Madhi. The American organisers arranged for Madhi to travel to Washington, where he met with Vice President Joe Biden, who promised full support.

Meanwhile, Dennis Ross of the National Security Council tried to establish the government in exile. Candidates included Amir Hossein Jahanshahi, a businessman with dual French-Israeli citizenship who is close to Ashraf Pahlavi, the twin sister of the late Shah; Abdollah Mohtadi, leader of Kurdish dissident organisation Komala; Hassan Sharafi; Alireza Nourizadeh, a London-based political analyst; Reza Hosseinbor, the leader of a secessionist group; and filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, all of whom participated in a conference at the Atlantic Hotel in Paris.

The US provided $7 billion for the effort, but it fell apart when the identity of Ahmad Maleki, a diplomat in the Iranian embassy in Italy and a nephew of Mehdi Karroubi, was revealed.

A grand story, although there have been glitches. For Fars claimed that Madhi, working for the Ministry of Intelligence, had penetrated the "counterrevolutionaries", while IRNA and Kayhan referred to him as a "CIA spy".

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