The Latest from Iran (6 February): "The Regime Will Demolish Ahmadinejad"

President Ahmadinejad challenges a Cardboard Supreme Leader

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2120 GMT: Sanctions Watch. President Obama has signed an order tightening the restrictions on Iran's banks:

All property and interests in property of any Iranian financial institution, including the Central Bank of Iran, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person, including any foreign branch, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in.

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The Latest from Iran (1 January): Let the Campaigning (and In-Fighting) Begin....

See also The Latest from Iran (31 December): Where are the Reformists for the Elections?

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1925 GMT: Currency Watch. The head of the Central Bank, Mahmoud Bahmani, amidst uncertainty over the sinking Iranian currency, told the annual meeting of the Bank that $17 billion of reserves had been distributed among non-Government banks from March 2010 to March 2011.

1915 GMT: Sedition Watch (House Arrests & Rafsanjani Edition). The Supreme Leader's representative to the Revolutionary Guards, Ali Saeedi, has launched a sweeping attack with a telling admission: "We cannot sentence Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi", held under strict house arrest since February, "because they have supporters, especially among clerics".

Saeedi, talking about the "silent supporters" of seditionists, also slapped at former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, referring to him as the "grey man" within the regime. (An EA correspondent notes that this is a reference to "The Red Eminence, The Grey Eminences" by Akbar Ganji, claiming Rafsanjani's involvement in the "Chain Murders" of the 1990s.

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