The Latest from Iran (6 August): Getting Past Ahmadinejad

Video: The Inauguration Protests (5 August)
The Latest from Iran (5-6 August): The Inauguration

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2200 GMT: Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to give Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai greater influence by giving him responsibilities traditionally reserved for the vice president.

2145 GMT: Opposition Resumed. The Facebook pages of Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Zahra Rahnavard can once again be accessed.

2110 GMT: Closing the Evening with an Urgent Question. Last night we reported the breaking news that Hashemi Rafsanjani would be leading Friday prayers in Tehran on 14 August. Tonight there is doubt. Seyed Reza Taghavi, the head of the committee responsible for Friday prayers, has stated, "The presence of Ayatollah Hashemi is not yet clear and depends upon his health and the queue before him."

2045 GMT: Ayatollah Dorri-Najafabadi, the chief prosecutor of Iran, has stated that the recent televised confessions, "although collected legally, will have little effect upon the outcome of the court and sentencing". Dorri-Najafabadi also claimed, "[Detained politician Mostafa] Tajzadeh is in good health"

The chief prosecutor made clear that he would have preferred to have court proceedings behind closed doors. "If we were consulted about having these open trials, we may have had a different opinion."

2025 GMT: Ahmadinejad's Payoff for Moscow? The Russian mobile phone operating company Megafone, which is alleged to belong to the wife of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, has reportedly obtained a license to open a branch in Tehran. Initially the UAE company Etisalat won the auction to be the third mobile operator in Tehran but then suddenly the Kuwaiti company Zain was put in its place. Now it is alleged that Megafone is going to be the operator.

This news is entirely unconnected, of course, to the fact that Russia was the first country to give significant recognition of Ahmadinejad's "re-election", receiving him at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit a few days after the 12 June vote.

1950 GMT: We're just adding footage of a "Death to the Dictator" protest in Vanak Square, Tehran, this evening.

1940 GMT: The Facebook pages of Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Mousavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, still cannot be accessed. A source close to Enduring America believes attacks on Facebook pages "almost confirmed" as coming from Iran and attacks on Twitter "probably" as well.

1930 GMT: Twitter filled with reports of protests and clashes across Tehran.

1715 GMT: Roozonline reports that yesterday the Iranian Association of Journalists' headquarters was sealed.

1700 GMT: The BBC carries an apparent eyewitness account which describes a massive security presence at an opposition demonstration yesterday:

Anti-riot police were out in force, and there was a severe security crackdown. At the top of every street there were Basijis and plain clothed guards - in extraordinary numbers. I think out of every ten people, three of them were security personnel.

0535 GMT: The Helicopter Controversy. President Ahmadinejad's travel to his inauguration has provided a bit of entertainment. The reformist press claim that he dropped in by helicopter. His conservative supporters respond, "Reports of travelling by helicopter is a part of psychological warfare....The President travels with no ceremony and his travels cause no limitation to the flow of traffic".

0530 GMT: The medical examiner's office has said that it is investigating the deaths of some of the recent detainees.

0500 GMT: And More Pressure from Mehdi Karroubi. Speaking to a group of politicians, Karroubi denounced the "widespread fraud" in the Presidential vote and expressed his concern about the strain that it had placed on the Islamic Republic and Constitution. He criticised the Guardian Council and pro-Ahmadinejad figures such as Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi for statements that had contributed to the post-elections problems.

0445 GMT: More on Ayatollah Sanei's denunciation of the treatment of detainees, shich we mentioned yesterday alongside the criticisms of Ayatollahs Bayat-Zanjani and the statement of Ayatollah Montazeri. Sanei has said that those involved in extracting confessions are involved in "criminal acts".

Comments

[Amy]

Propping up the rial... According to the Wall Street Journal, Ahmadinejad’s fiscal irresponsibility is likely to cause a world of hurt to the people of Iran later this year. Sad and scary
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124951839472809583.html" rel="nofollow">Tehran Struggles to Defend Currency

Iranian economists are predicting double-digit currency depreciation by year-end, amid expectations that already high levels of capital flight will increase over fears about Iran's economic direction.

The government has managed to keep depreciation mostly under 5% a year since 2001, despite the U.S.-led sanctions that limit trade with and imports to the Islamic Republic. But economic problems snowballed after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office in 2005. His lavish spending plans and subsidized loan programs to government insiders have exacerbated inflation and decreased currency reserves.
~~~~
Tehran has limited access to international credit markets because of the sanctions. Monetary policy is facilitated by currency deals conducted through a network of 50 Iranian-run money-exchange dealers inside the Islamic Republic, the wider Middle East and Europe. Members of this exchange network say the government is selling $180 million to $250 million daily to keep the exchange rate steady within the 9,700 to 9,900 rial-to-dollar corridor set by the central bank. That spending exceeds the amount of revenue the country is taking in from the 2.4 million barrels of oil exported daily -- the country's only major source of foreign currency. Oil prices this year are averaging $60 a barrel. Unless that price strengthens to at least a consistent $70 a barrel, the rial could fall as much as 15% by December, according to a former Iranian central-bank official.

It was unnecessary. Other countries with oil-based economies are having difficulties too, but handled things differently by creating cushions

Unlike other Gulf oil producers, Iran has failed to parlay its oil wealth into a well-endowed rainy-day fund, leaving it vulnerable to new economic challenges such as depreciation.

[AM]

The main Mohsen Sazegara's facebook page has disapeared altogether.Last time I checked it had a support count of ~8450.

[Scott Lucas]

AM,

I was able now to access Sazegara page.

S.

[The Green Brief 49-50 (August]

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[Russian Phone Company Signs Co]

[...] 2025 GMT: Ahmadinejad’s Payoff for Moscow? The Russian mobile phone operating company Megafone, which is alleged to belong to the wife of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, has reportedly obtained a license to open a branch in Tehran. Initially the UAE company Etisalat won the auction to be the third mobile operator in Tehran but then suddenly the Kuwaiti company Zain was put in its place. Now it is alleged that Megafone is going to be the operator. The Latest from Iran (6 August): Getting Past Ahmadinejad | Enduring America [...]