The Latest from Iran (29 August): Catching Up

Maya Neyestani's old man shows Libya's former leader Muammar Qaddafi to a young boy, "Our zoo is soon complete"

See also Wikileaks & Iran Flashback: How A Kickboxing Champion Became "Israeli Spy" & Was Sentenced To Death

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2035 GMT: Supreme Leader v. President (cont.). More on Ayatollah Khamenei's apparent chiding of the Government (see 1555 GMT) in a meeting with the President and Cabinet....

Ayatollah Khamenei, demanding amicable relations amongst Government bodies, called on the Ahmadinejad Administration to refrain from "conflict and retaliation" in the face of criticism".

The Supreme Leader also insisted on a focus on post-Islamic Iran rather than the pre-Islamic era of the country. The President's Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, has been heavily criticised for suggesting that other countries can follow an "Iranian" rather than an "Islamic" model.

Khamenei said, "In the issue of culture including books, art, art organizations, we must relentlessly maintain the Revolutionary and Islamic direction."

ni's old man shows Libya's former leader Muammar Qaddafi to a young boy, "Our zoo is soon complete"

See also Wikileaks & Iran Flashback: How A Kickboxing Champion Became "Israeli Spy" & Was Sentenced To Death

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2025 GMT: Protest Watch. Kalemeh reports that at least 16 Bazaaris were arrested this weekend for inciting and leading the protest at the Bazaar against the Government's value-added tax policy.

2010 GMT: The Battle Within. The strange tale of the regime "eulogist" who offered to pay anyone who would kill the President's right-hand man, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, continues.

Majid Reza Fouladi has rejected the report in Fars that he had announced a "big fitna (sedition) in mid September", to be launched by the Ahmadinejad camp. The Government is reportedly filing a complaint against the newspaper.

yestani's old man shows Libya's former leader Muammar Qaddafi to a young boy, "Our zoo is soon complete"

See also Wikileaks & Iran Flashback: How A Kickboxing Champion Became "Israeli Spy" & Was Sentenced To Death

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1555 GMT: Supreme Leader v. President. Khabar Online, the website of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani, reports an apparent jab by Ayatollah Khamenei at President Ahmadinejad. The Supreme Leader said the Government had problems in its contact with elites. He added that Ahmadinejad's administration should discuss economic matters with experts and said that "defying criticism leads to nowhere".

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The Latest from Iran: Back to Political Sniping?

1448 GMT: James Miller is back, and he provides a Cross-post from the Syria liveblog:

Iran's Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Saleh warned the "outsiders" and called on Damascus to recognise the "legitimate demands" of its people. He said:

The government should answer to the demands of its people, be it Syria, Yemen or other countries.

The people of these nations have legitimate demands and the governments should reply to these demands as soon as possible.

Syria is an important link in the resistance chain [against Israel] and some want to cut off this link in the chain. A vacuum in the Syrian regime would have an unpredictable impact for the region and its neighbours.

1240 GMT: Limited Time Offer. Mansur Arzi, the regime "eulogist" who said last week that he would pay anyone who killed President Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, has said the offer is only open until the end of Ramadan.

1125 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Perhaps the most significant show on Friday was the visit of the Cabinet to the mausoleum of Imam Khomeini --- President Ahmadinejad declared that his Government would withstand political pressures.

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The Latest from Iran (26 August): The Show on Quds Day

Past Quds Day rally, undated

2032 GMT: During his Quds day speech, Sadroddin Shariati, head of Allameh Tabatabaei University, said that, "today we have to [follow] the [Supreme Leader] because the scale of our lives and our beliefs has to be matched with the scale which is determined by the leader."

As several readers have pointed out, we're still waiting for some pictures from Tehran that would really show the "scale" of this leadership.

1900 GMT: Khatoon Special - According to Mohammad-Reza Bahonar, current deputy speaker of the Majilis, Iran's Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini stated that Bahonar has no power to confront the Khatoon contraversy. Hosseini fired back, denying those claims and cautioning that Bahonar should not talk in Hoseini's place.

1849 GMT: Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, the head of the Audit Office, has confirmed that the Tehran government is guilty of $11 million dollars in fraud, according to the now-blocked-in-Iran Ayande News. Pour-Mohammadi said that much of the misappropriation of funds was committed under previous governments, but insinuated that the fraud is ongoing.

1656 GMT: Ayande News is being filtered in Iran. They are also denying that this news is related to a story about Hossein Ansarian and Mousa Sadr. Preacher Hossein Ansarian had recently apologized to the people for the failed promises of the revolution.

1650 GMT: The Iranian state-run news agency, Press TV, provides this coverage of today's rallies, complete with chants of "death of Israel, death to America," and the claims (disputed by the Associated Press) that millions marched today:

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The Latest from Iran (10 August): Lawyers in Prison, Lawyers in Exile

Abdolfattah Soltani (see 0545 GMT)1930 GMT: Currency Watch. Aftab reports that the price of gold coins continues to rise --- now from 474,000 to 482,000 tomans (about $450 to $460) as Iranians put their faith in them amidst economic tensions. Meanwhile, the differential between the "free" and official rates for the US dollar continues to widen --- the Central Bank has set the rate at 1055 tomans to the dollar but the exchange rate on the street is 1200:1.

1735 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. More on the arrest of Parvin Mokhtare, the mother of journalist Kouhyar Goudarzi, as her son was being put in prison again --- while she was having a bath, the house was raided by security agents who climbed over walls to get into the property.

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The Latest from Iran (8 August): Reformists Step Back from Elections

1950 GMT: Economy Watch. In his speech in front of senior officials yesterday (see 1420 GMT), the Supreme Leader said problems such as employment, inflation, and "labour culture" have not been solved yet.

1835 GMT: (Potential) Political Prisoner Watch. Yesterday we summarised the significant remarks of Mohsen Armin, former Deputy Speaker of Parliament and a reformist senior member of the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution, that "all essential prerogatives" for involvement in the 2012 Parlimentary elections "are missing" --- "Coalition with hardliners never; debate yes."

Today, Armin was summoned to appear in court on Wednesday.

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The Latest from Iran (7 August): Commemorating "Journalists Day"

1940 GMT: Journalists Day. And here is how President Ahmadinejad marked the eve of Journalists Day, in remarks at the end of the Cabinet meeting, “We hope that Iran’s news community will be vibrant, motivated and committed to human and divine values as before. I hope that our journalists could provide the international community with a suitable model."

Ahmadinejad made no apparent reference to the more than 100 Iranian journalists in prison or under threat of heavy bail.

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Iran Feature: Four Tehran Diaries "We Drink to the Freedom that Will Come One Day" (Spiegel)

Samaneh AhmadianI'm not happy with my classes here at all. Most of the professors have no clue, and yet they make it clear to us students that they consider us to be fools. The only professor I truly admire and respect is leaving the country....

There isn't much going on in the streets. Most people don't look very happy. It's been very hot, and both women and men are wearing lighter clothing. The morality police are harassing them even more than usual....

I would like to publish my thoughts so I could see what others think about them. But we hardly have any publications anymore that print critical ideas....

We are so happy about the hunger strike coming to an end. We drink to the political prisoners, and to the martyrs of our movement, like Neda and Hoda. We drink to the freedom that will most certainly come one day.

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The Latest from Iran (1 August): Brain Drain and a "Brain Tumour"

1650 GMT: Back to the Brain Drain. An EA reader has kindly asked us about the context for our morning report (see 0630 GMT) of an Iranian official revealing that 97% of Iranian Ph.D. students are pursuing their degrees abroad.

The story came from an interview, with the Director General of Home Affairs at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, in Daneshjoo News (Student News).

Subsequently, another official at the Ministry told Fars that the "97%" claim was "not true" because it was taken out of context.

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The Latest from Iran (29 July): And Now We Bring You This Diversion....

Atiyah Abd al-Rahman (0615 GMT)1905 GMT: Oil and Politics. Even though he has not been approved as Minister of Oil by Parliament, Rustam Qassemi --- Revolutionary Guards commander and head of its engineering branch, Khatam al-Anbia --- has called a Saturday meeting of the Ministry's staff and experts in the industry.

Why such a hurry? An EA correspondent observes that a Tehran conference has noted that Qatar is taking 450,000 barrels of oil per day from the South Pars field --- and Iran is taking 0.

Our correspondent mischievously follows up, "[Qassemi is] trying to save his assets after yesterday's conference."

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Iran Analysis: Is a Political Compromise with Reformists Possible? (Afshari)

President Ahmadinejad & former President KhatamiAccording to this scheme devised by the ruling regime, reformed reformers would be allowed to play a peripheral political role in the body politic. Through negotiations, media operations and repeated dispatch of messages, a fake and yet optimistic picture would be presented to reformers so that they would move to a position where the regime wants it to be: away from openly challenging the regime while remaining harmless.

In fact, the Iranian regime has a successful track record of pulling reformers and the left into the political electioneering field and then checkmating them.  This is what has repeatedly taken place from the election days for the second Assembly of Experts till today. The regime has lost this game only in two instances: elections that resulted in Khatami’s presidency (1997-2005) and those for the sixth Majlis (2000-2004).

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