The Latest from Iran (14 October): Paying Attention

2025 GMT: Economy Watch. Khabar Online claims that President Ahmadinejad will announce the start of subsidy cuts on television at the end of next week, as support payments to 15 million families begin.

2020 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. An activist reports that Islamic Iran Participation Front member Davood Soleimani has been released after 16 months in detention.

2015 GMT: Video of the Ahmadinejad speech in Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon:

2010 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. A reader points us to the Facebook page for detained attorney Nasrine Sotoudeh, who has been held since early September and is reportedly on the 19th day of a hunger strike.

2005 GMT: A Twist to the Trip? Amidst the relatively muted end to Day 2 of Mahmoud's visit to Lebanon, there is one eyebrow-raising story. Khabar Online reports that there may be a Day 3, with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan joining the festivities in Beirut.

1955 GMT: Mahmoud's Trip. Surprisingly limited reporting on the Ahmadinejad visit to Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon. Reuters' take-away quote parallels our coverage (see 1540 GMT), "The world should know the Zionists are mortal....Today the Lebanese nation is alive and is a role model for the regional nations." Associated Press plays up the President's taunt, ""The world should know that Zionists will perish. Occupied Palestine will be liberated from the filth of occupation by the strength of resistance and through the faith of the resistance."

Press TV English carries only a short report,"Bint Jbeil, Capital of Resistance". Even IRNA relegates the story to the side of its homepage, preferring to lead with Ahmadinejad's farewell to Lebanese President Michel Suleiman.

1630 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Hossein Farzin, an Iran-Iraq war veteran, has been arrested in Mashhad.

1600 GMT: Currency Watch. Yahya Al-Eshagh, former trade minister, has claimed that Iran's foreign exchange reserves have fallen to $80 billion.

The reserves had been estimated at $100 billion before the recent intervention by the Central Bank to stabilise Iranian toman against the dollar and other foreign currencies.

1555 GMT: Clerical Intervention. Grand Ayatollah Sane'i has told students at Tehran University, “Criticizing oppression and oppressors is not considered as gossip and is not a sin.”

Sane'i continued:

Today one of the problems with oppressive governments is that they prevent individual free speech and this builds up problems within individuals. The concern is when these issues build up so much that they explode and then nothing can stop them....In an Islamic state everything should be based on honesty and truth, but unfortunately today lying has become such a norm that we should find out who is telling the truth and who is giving honest promises....

Today some instead of solving economic problems with everyday lives of the people as well as political problems, social misbehaviors, poverty and drug addiction, are everyday looking for a topic and excuse to divert public mind from main and fundamental problems of the society.

1550 GMT: Arresting the Mothers. The Mothers of Mourning have issued a statement reporting increased regime state pressure on them.

The group says two of their members, Akram Neqabi and Jila Taramsi, have been arrested along with their daughters.

Akram Neqabi is the mother of Saeed Zinali, a young man who was taken from his home more than ten years ago by Iranian security forces and is still missing.

Jila Taramsi is the mother of Hessam Taramsi, a 19-year-old post-election detainee who was recently released from prison.

1540 GMT: Mahmoud's Trip. President Ahmadinejad has completed today's big set-piece, a speech at Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon, miles from the border with Israel.

Ahmadinejad declared, "Bint Jbeil is alive. It will remain and Zionism will wither....You are an unyielding mountain, we are proud of you and shall remain with you."

Perhaps most striking is the report that Ahmadinejad's "I came to give my thanks to my brother Prime Minister Saad Hariri" was met by resounding boos.

1530 GMT: Supreme Leader Goes to Qom. Intriguing news in Khabar Online, given the significance of Ayatollah Khamenei's planned trip to get support from senior clerics.

The date of the visit is said to be next Tuesday, which also the birthday of Reza, Shi'a's 8th Imam.

1230 GMT: Labour Front. Workers at three factories in Arak in central Iran have held a sit-in over unpaid wages.

1050 GMT: Mahmoud's Trip. In a speech at Lebanese University today, President Ahmadinejad assailed Western countries for their hold on nuclear energy --- “They have deprived other nations of this technology and have monopolized it" --- and criticised US foreign policy and its intervention in Afghanistan.

Ahmadinejad had a different focus this morning with Lebanese scholars and clerics, calling for interfaith dialogue: “Scholars of divine religions can put major challenges facing human societies on the agenda to find...solutions to them.” 

1040 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports, from Saham News, that prominent blogger Mehdi Khazali, the son of hard-line cleric Ayatollah Abolghassem Khazali, was arrested yesterday while traveling.

The reason for the arrest and Khazali's whereabouts are unknown.

Khazali, who was arrested after the June 2009 and released on bail, is well-known for his criticism and satire of President Ahmadinejad and leading clerics. Last year, he claimed that Ahmadinejad is of Jewish descent.

0755 GMT: Sideshow in Beirut, Centre Stage in Tehran. Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor writes:

While Ahmadinejad sought to bolster Lebanon’s role as in the axis of resistance against Israel and its US and Western supporters –-- expressing Iran’s “unlimited” support for fellow Lebanese “students of justice” –-- Iranians are making different priorities.

That's because, during his two-day taste of regional triumphalism in Lebanon, largely rebuilt with billions in Iranian cash after a destructive war with Israel in 2006, Ahmadinejad left behind a host of problems.

“I don’t think the public at large is really that fascinated with Lebanon or the Lebanese resistance, [though] support for Hezbollah is wide within the Iranian population,” says an analyst in Tehran who asked not to be named. “But I’m not sure that anything is going to deflect [Iranians] from where we are right now, which seems to be a crisis. I don’t think it’s going to be that simple to cover it up with a two-day trip to Lebanon, no matter what kind of reception [there is].”

Iranians aren't sharing in the raptureIndeed, back in Iran there are rising concerns about plans to severely curtail energy and gasoline subsidies (even a partial cut in 2007 sparked violence and the burning of gas stations); dramatic fluctuations in the value of the rial against the dollar in the past week; an economy squeezed by UN, US, and European sanctions; and a host of political battles – especially among conservative factions – that have been magnified by the president’s divisive style.

So Iranians have not shared in the rapture experienced by their president, who was showered with flower petals in Beirut.

“Internal issues have taken over everything else,” says the Tehran analyst. “The public is much more intrigued by what the final price of gasoline will be than where this [Ahmadinejad trip] will lead to.”

0730 GMT: Gasoline Squeeze. A very interesting report from the International Energy Agency, part of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, on Iran's energy situation.

The report said that Tehran faced a squeeze between the delay in subsidy cuts, leaving demand high with sales of gasoline at "a huge loss", and the reduction of imports to the country.

Gasoline consumption was down 15.1% in July compared to a year earlier because of "toughened international sanctions", but imports had fallen even more, dropping by a third from June to July with suggestions of further decreases in August and September.

The report was sceptical that Iran could cover the shortfall through increases in refinery capacity and claimed Iranian oil output fell by 20,000 barrels per day to 3.68 million bpd in September.

On the export side, the IED noted falls such as a 25% reduction in Chinese demand, and assessed, "Iran's problems selling its crude and its high volumes held in floating storage stem in large part to its over-the-market pricing for poorer quality grades, with new sanctions having had a smaller effect."

0725 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Turkmen political activist Arash Saghar, detained in November 2009, has been sentenced to eight years in prison.

0715 GMT: That Lebanon Trip. Beirut's Daily Star, assessing the local effects of the Ahmadinejad visit, parallels our analysis of its significance:

The presence of Ahmadinejad could well raise tensions for a few days, and Hizbullah might take advantage of the gatherings to rally its base, but the visit will probably not result in any other tangible consequences,...said Raghid al-Solh, political analyst and adviser to the Issam Fares Center, a non-partisan think tank.

“I don’t think it will have a kind of lasting effect; it won’t disturb the balance of power between existing parties,” he added.

“It’s not something extraordinary. Its impact will remain for a couple days and that’s it. Why exaggerate the significance of the visit? What gave it a kind of sensational nature is the conflict Lebanon is in.”

0615 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. The Tehran Times reports that former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has issued a call to Government officials, “Creating a desirable climate for freedom of speech and thought can benefit the Islamic system.”

On a wider front, Rafsanjani --- despite the recent rebuff from the Supreme Leader in the Islamic Azad University case --- pressed his demand, issued under the umbrella of "unity", for a change in the approach or even the membership of the Government: “Without national unity, we can not create unity out of the country.”

Just as intriguing is the handling of Rafsanjani by The Tehran Times. Not only does the newspaper give Rafsanjani his full title, including his religious rank of Ayatollah, but it identifies him as "the savvy statesman".

0540 GMT: In a separate entry, we review President Ahmadinejad's trip to Lebanon, but our main attention is still on events inside Iran.

It looks like Tehran is ready to square off with Berlin over its detention of two German journalists who were interviewing the son and lawyer of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman sentenced to death for adultery. 

Both Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle issued strident denunciations of Sunday's raid and arrests. The Iranian response comes out in Press TV's headline, "Berlin says Fake Reporters are Germans". The website continues, "The two [suspects], who contacted the Ashtiani family disguised as journalists, were detained after a person close to the family alerted authorities of their suspicious behavior."

There is still no word on the fate of Ashtiani's son Sajad Ghaderzadeh and lawyer Houton Kian, who were seized when Iranian forces burst in on the interview.