Iran Live Coverage: Supreme Leader Strikes a Defiant Pose

See also Iran Live Coverage: Supreme Leader Announces a "Political and Economic Epic"

---

1255 GMT:Your Friday Prayers Update. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami had the podium today and he used it for a jab at President Ahmadinejad.

Commenting on the upcoming Presidential elections, Khatami said officials must observe "Islamic ethics" and avoid misuse of authority during the process.

,

When selecting candidates, national and public interests were preferable to factional ones, Khatami added. "Whoever wants to be president of his country should be at the forefront of ethics,"

Khatami said that candidates must not use public funds.

"None of the three branches of the Islamic government should encourage or support a particular candidate," he added.

In contrast, Fars News English focuses its attention on rhetoric about “Arrogant Powers” and Syria.

Click to read more ...

Iran Live Coverage: Supreme Leader Announces a "Political and Economic Epic"

The Supreme Leader's Nowruz address on Wednesday

See also Iran Non-Story of The Day: Tehran Has a Plutonium Reactor!

---

1525 GMT: Campus Watch. The political argument over President Ahmadinejad's attempt to remove four heads of prominent universities continues....

Asr-e Iran claims that Minister of Science Kamran Daneshjoo has resisted the order, raising questions about Ahmadinejad's next step.

The Student Basij Organization has condemned Ahmadinejad's attempt to replace the head of Tehran University.

Click to read more ...

Iran Live Coverage: What Happened in the Nuclear Talks in Istanbul?

See also Iran Feature: So What is The Regime's "Must Read" US Book?
Monday's Iran Live Coverage: "Sedition is On the Way"

---

1955 GMT: Education Watch. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the dismissal of the heads of Tehran University and Tarbiat Muddares University, Khabar Online reports.

Khabar published what it said was a letter from the President to Kamran Daneshjoo, the Minister of Science, Research, and Technology, calling for the firings.

Reports also claim Ahmadinejad is insisting on the dismissal of the head of Jahad Daneshqai University and Amir Kabir University.

An EA correspondent suggests that the reason for these requests is because the four University Presidents oppose Ahmadinjad's close confidante and advisor Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai studying for a Master's degree.

Some observers believe the Guardian Council could use Rahim-Mashai's lack of a postgraduate degree to prevent him from standing for President.

1915 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Faezeh Hashemmi, the daughter of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, has been released from prison after serving a six-month term.

Hashemi was detained in September on charges, imposed in 2011, of spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic. The court also banned her from political activities for five years.

Click to read more ...

Iran Live Coverage: "Sedition is On the Way"

See also Sunday's Iran Live Coverage: Nuclear Talks in Istanbul

---

1620 GMT: Election Watch. A pointed statement from Presidential candidate Mostafa Pourhommadi --- even more significant because Iranian media is disseminating it in Persian and English --- aiming at President Ahmadinejad....

Pourmohammadi, former Minister of Interior and current Inspector General, challenged the likelihood of Ahmadinejad promoting his controversial right-hand man, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, as his succeesor: "It has been said that Mr. Mashai intends to become candidate. We have counted for that and know what to do. We have to do our own job. We must not reveal our tactics now.”

Significantly, Pourmohammadi also pointed to the possibility that the recent spate of campaign declarations --- which include former Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Reza Bahonar, and Expediency Council official Hassan Rohani --- might be reconciled with the Supreme Leader's 2+1 Committee seeking a "unity" candidate: "Our collective tactic is to agree on one person if there is a powerful rival.2

Pourmohommadi continued, "If the ruling side candidate has a high capacity we will enact our own plans, if he doesn’t and goes into coalition with others again we will have our own plans.”

Click to read more ...

Iran Live Coverage: The Clerics Vs. Ahmadinejad

See also Wednesday's Iran Live Coverage: Tehran Continues to Push "Positive" Nuclear Talks

---

2032 GMT: Drone Watch. Pentagon officials have altered their story about the encounter between a Predator drone and an Iranian fighter jet (see 1848 GMT), over or near the Islamic Republic's airspace over the Persian Gulf.

"One of the US aircraft discharged a flare as a warning to the Iranian plane, which then broke off pursuit," spokesman George Little said.

Officials earlier suggested that two Iranian jets had "targeted" the Predator.

Click to read more ...

Venezuela Analysis: Hugo Chavez's Dubious Legacy for Iran and the Middle East (Postel)

In June 2009, as millions of Iranians took to the streets to ask Where Is My Vote? Chávez was among the first world leaders to congratulate his ally Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran on his reelection.

“In Egypt, the situation is complicated,” Chávez pronounced during the Tahrir Square protests that brought down Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. He remained conspicuously silent on the Battle of Cairo, one of the great democratic uprisings of recent times, remarking merely that “national sovereignty” should be respected.

But silent he was not as the Arab revolts spread to Libya and Syria; he spoke out emphatically in support of Muammar Qaddafi and Bashar Assad.

Click to read more ...

Iran Live Coverage: Ahmadinejad Anoints His Right-Hand Man for President

See also Venezuela Analysis: Hugo Chavez's Dubious Legacy for Iran and the Middle East
Monday's Iran Live Coverage: A Complicated Relationship with Pakistan

---

1514 GMT: It's Not About the Nukes. EA's Joanna Paraszczuk reports:

First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi repeated the regime line that the West has not sanctioned Tehran because of its nuclear program. "The cause of the sanctions is not our nuclear science and knowledge, particularly since Iran has officially announced and will also go on record with the UN that Iran is not seeking a nuclear bomb," he explained.

Rahimi added that the West has sanctioned Iran because of its achievements and innovations in science and technology.

The Vice President concluded with comments about the US: "The country of America was formed by a bunch of English malfeasants," adding that America was not superior to other countries in terms of science and technology.

Click to read more ...

Iran Live Coverage: A Complicated Relationship with Pakistan

A report on the importance for Pakistan of imports of Iranian gas

See also Sunday's Iran Live Coverage: Looking for Energy Deals

---

2031 GMT: Press Watch. Abbas Darvish Tavangar, deputy editor of the "hard-line" Tasnim News, has been released after a few hours in detention.

Tavangar was seized because of a Government complaint, the details of which have not been specified.

1815 GMT: Press Watch. The regime's mixed approach of crackdown and prison releases continues....

Journalist Ehsan Mazandarani, one of the 18 journalists seized in late January, has been released from detention.

However, Abbas Darvish Tavangar, deputy editor of the "hard-line" Tasnim News has been arrested after a Government complaint; blogger and student Badri Safiari has been detained at Shiraz University; and the permit for reformist daily Maghreb has been annulled by the Media Supervisory Commission.

Click to read more ...

Iran Live Coverage: Chest-Beating for the Next Nuclear Talks

See also Iran Analysis: Tehran's Signals on Nuclear Talks --- We Will Negotiate, But We Can Be Tough Just Like the US
Thursday's Iran Live Coverage: "Our Enemies Are Within Our Houses, Mosques, Seminaries, and Schools"

---

1530 GMT: Your Tehran Friday Prayer Update. Scott Lucas returns from an academic break....

Ayatollah Movahedi Kermani takes the podium today to give the crowd an economic message from the Supreme Leader: "Temporary hardships can be overcome with faith in Islam....The enemy scorns us because of our progress."

The cleric said sanctions had aimed at "opposing the people to the rulers, but they had failed, as seen by the turnout of the Iranian people at rallies in February for the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.

In other words, "unlike the West, we have solutions for economic problems".

Click to read more ...

Iran Live Coverage: Ahmadinejad's All-Is-Well Economic Message

See also Monday's Iran Live Coverage: Engineering June's Presidential Election

---

1905 GMT: Labour Front. Workers of the Tehran Steel Company have protested for the second day over 2 1/2 pages of unpaid wages.

1805 GMT: Censorship Watch. Looks like some pictures of Ayatollah Jannati, the head of the Guardian Council, have disappeared from the Fars website.

The site still has plenty of photographs of Jannati's visit to Iraq, but this is not one of them:

Could the problem be the royal implications of Jannati on a would-be throne?

Click to read more ...