The Latest from Iran (17 August): The Fundamentalist Attack on Ahmadinejad
Wednesday, August 17, 2011 at 7:39
1948 GMT: Oil Watch. An admission of challenges for Iran's energy industries? Minister of Oil Rostam Qassemi has reportedly said that he needs "special authorisations" to circumvent sanctions and that delays in oil and gas projects are a fundamental problem.
1915 GMT: Unity Watch. Digarban makes some provocative claims that the conservative/principlist quest for unity is not going quite as planned.
According to the site, Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani, the head of the Expediency Council, has rejected the conditions of the Islamic Constancy Front --- propelled by Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi --- for cooperation with the "7+8" unity front in the next Parliamentary elections.
In particular, Mahdavi Kani has resisted the elimination of representatives of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer-Qalibaf representatives from the 7+8 Committee, named because of its expansion to 15 members to include different conservative and principlist factions.
MP Asadollah Badamchian has backed up Mahdavi Kani, saying that the Constancy Front has taken a strict position and will fail if it does not cooperate with the 7+8. Mohsen Yahyavi of the Islamic Engineers party said the Constancy Front "should estimate its abilities cautiously and make no mistakes" to move with the hardliners' project more easily.
And Habibollah Bourbour of the Community of Islamic Revolution Loyalists went even farther: he declared that the Constancy Front wants to eliminate popular figures from the 7+8 and is fed by a "deviant current".