The Latest from Iran (1 October): Challenging the Supreme Leader, Trying the Hikers

1945 GMT: Breaking the Reformists (cont.). Press TV gives the regime line on the arrest of Freedom Movement of Iran leaders Ebrahim Yazdi and Hashem Sabbaghian (see 1710 GMT).

Yazdi and Sabbaghian were arrested after they appeared in a Friday Prayers mass "led by a well-known Wahhabi element" in Isfahan. Iranian authorities had ordered the cancellation of prayers by the "extremist elements" but Yazdi and Sabbaghian had encouraged the Wahhabi figures to persist. Despite a pledge to give up his illegal behaviour, Yazdi has" reportedly expanded the scope of his group's activities". 

1830 GMT: The Powers of the Guards Expand. Peyke Iran reports what we have just learned from sources: the internal security duties of the Ministry of Intelligence have been handed to the Revolutionary Guard.

1825 GMT: Economy Watch. Kalemeh reports that the implementation of the Government's subsidy cuts plan has been delayed from October to November.

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China Economy Weekly: Currrency and Trade Arguments, Rare Earths and Japan, Banks in Taiwan

Currency Issues:  Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has there was no basis for the drastic appreciation of the yuan, the Chinese currency. He added the issue was an economic one and must not be politicized.

Critics have claimed that China keeps the level of the yuan low to win competitive advantages in trade. However, Wen said, there was no connection.

The yuan appreciated 55.2% from January 1994 to July 2010. Meanwhile, major currencies of the world had depreciated, with the US dollar dropping 2.5%, the euro 3.8% and the Japanese yen 19.5%.

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A Modest Proposal from Israel: "Seize Ahmadinejad" (Benn)

Three weeks from now, Netanyahu will have a one-time opportunity to stop the new Hitler and thwart the incitement to genocide. Ahmadinejad will pay his first visit to Lebanon and devote an entire day to a tour of the southern part of that country. He will visit sites where Hezbollah waged battles against Israel and, according to one report, he will also pop over to Fatima Gate, just beyond the border fence at Metula. The route is known, the range is close and it is possible to send a detail across the border to seize the president of Iran and bring him to trial in Israel as an inciter to genocide and Holocaust denier.

The media effect will be dramatic: Ahmadinejad in a glass cage in Jerusalem, with the simultaneous translation earphones, facing grim Israeli judges. In the spirit of the times, it will also be possible to have foreign observers join them (David Trimble of the Turkel commission was a leader of the "try the Iranian president" initiative ).

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EA on the Road: We're Seeing the President

EA staff will be in Dublin today as former US President Bill Clinton visits our partner, the Clinton Institute for American Studies for the first time.

We'll be back on Friday afternoon with a report Until then, updates will be limited. Ali Yenidunya will hold the fort while our excellent readers will keep news and analysis ticking over.

Dissecting Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman: His Latest Speech on the Palestine Question

A classic and unsurprising statement from Lieberman, which displays without apology his flawed, wishful thinking.

Let me ask a simple question: how can this "emotional problem" be overcome, bringing mutual trust, if the land on which illegal settlements are onstructed is claimed as the birthright of every Israeli Jew, if the West Bank is called Judea and Samaria, if the solution is for your "vital interests" but not for theirs?

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The Latest from Iran (30 September): Rights First?

1600 GMT: Execution Watch. A diplomat tips off a change?

The Iranian Ambassador in Rome, Seyed Mohammad Ali Hossein, has told Italy's main news agency that Tehran is likely to abolish stoning very soon.

Hossein added that the majority of the members of Parliament favour abolition, saying, and "penal law is subject to continous updating required by a changing society".

Hossein emphasised that the possible abolition of has nothing to do "with political and media pressure from abroad".

0640 GMT: Currency Watch. Thomas Erdbrink of The Washington Post has just contacted us to say his article is now posted on the current situation over the Iranian toman.

Money exchangers are still waiting to see if Iran's Central Bank will sell any dollars. The move was reportedly going to be made to protect against a sudden drop in the value of the Iranian currency.

0630 GMT: Nuclear Delay. Iran is reportedly delaying the opening of its Bushehr nuclear plant, scheduled for October, for three months.

The reason is unknown, but Iranian authorities have denied it is connnected with the rumoured cyber-attack of the Stuxnet worm.

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The Resurgence of Al Qaeda in Iraq? (Williams)

This spring, United States military commanders said that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia was a group in disarray, all but finished as a formidable enemy after American and Iraqi troops had killed or captured more than three-quarters of its leaders.

But even as officials in the United States and Iraq made public pronouncements that reveled in Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s demise, the Sunni insurgent group vowed “dark days colored in blood.”

This summer, as if to make good on its pledge, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia embarked on a wave of terror that managed to shake even an Iraqi public inured to violence: during the past two months, Iraq has witnessed some of its highest casualty tolls in more than two years, according to the government.

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Iran Analysis: Breaking the Reformists? (Theodoulou)

Michael Theodoulou reports for The National: 

The banning of two leading reformist political parties is another attempt by the establishment to stifle voices of the beleaguered reformist movement and keep it fragmented, according to analysts.

The dissolution of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF) and the Islamic Revolution Mujaheddin Organisation (IRMO) both of which backed the country’s main opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, was announced on Monday.

It follows an attack this month by vigilantes, backed by plainclothes security men, on the home of the other main opposition leader, Mehdi Karrubi. Mr Mousavi’s office was also raided, while security forces kept visitors from his home on several occasions.

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Iran Feature: An Interview with Scott Peterson and Excerpt from "Let the Swords Encircle Me"

Scott Peterson is one of the most experienced US-based reporters covering Iran. The journalist, now with the Christian Science Monitor, has visited the country 30 times in the last 15 years. His last stay there was for the 2009 Presidential election.

Peterson has now published his observations in the book Let the Swords Encircle Me. The introduction follows an account of the journalist's recent appearance at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"Few [Iranians] would accept any outsiders waging war on their behalf.  They want to grasp freedom with their own hand."

One of the unique things about visiting Iran versus a country like the former Soviet Union, according to Peterson, is that Iranians are willing, even eager, to share their opinion about political topics with an outsider.  The interactions Peterson had with Iranians, from ordinary citizens to political elites, inform his opinions on the issues currently facing Iran and on relations between Iran and the United States.  "Iran is a population that is pro-American in many respects." 

Peterson said that he, "do[es] not believe the Green Movement is defeated at all, just removed from street protests."

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Iran Video: Hillary Clinton Announces Rights-First Sanctions