The Latest from Iran (1 November): Closing A Medical University?

2205 GMT: Labour Front. Around 1,300 workers at the Alborz Tire Factory outside Tehran have now been on strike for a week demanding payment of six months of back wages and a New Year's bonus.

2200 GMT: Mousavi, Karroubi, and Subsidy Cuts. In Sunday's meeting with Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Mousavi said that the Ahmadinejad Government will not be able to implement subsidy cuts successfully: "Generally speaking, no one is against the subsidy cut plan, but our view is that there is no figure to manage this plan. Most prominent and competent experts have been sidelined."

Mousavi also criticized the government for stationing police and security forces around Tehran before the implementation of the cuts.

Karroubi expressed dismay over “institutionalisation” of lies and slander in the country and spoke about the “engineering” of votes during the 2009 elections and the post-election crackdowns that followed: “They treated the people in the worst way, using a great deal of violence. They cannot tolerate the slightest bit of response from opponents and critics, neither in the national media nor in the press...They cannot stand any form of freedom of speech and have effectively killed the freedom to speak the truth and to be truthful...even though they could have saved the country from all dangers by holding true elections.”

2150 GMT: Economy Watch. This week's agreement by the Parliament --- albeit it with almost 100 MPs absent --- with the general guidelines of the 5th Budget Plan has not been followed up so far with detailed advances.

Indeed, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has sharply criticised the Government, blaming it for failing to present data and for a plan lacking specific figures about intended growth. Larijani also defended his ally and Government critic Ahmad Tavakoli asking for clarification on these issues.

2145 GMT: The Medical University. Eighteen members of Parliament have written to Minister of Health Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, asking for reconsideration of the dissolution of Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

2140 GMT: Pre-Talks Reassurance? Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said that building nuclear bombs would be a strategic mistake for Iran, as it could never compete with the numbers of warheads possessed by the nuclear-armed major powers: "That is the reason we will never make this strategic mistake. We are as strong as those countries without nuclear weapons."

Soltanieh's remarks come as Tehran appears to be edging closer to renewed talks with the US and other countries on uranium enrichment.

2125 GMT: Subsidy Cuts Confidence. Minister of Interior Mohammad Reza Najjar has warned, "We will confront strictly those who act against subsidy cuts."

2115 GMT: Unity Watch. Reformist member of Parliament Mohammad Reza Tabesh has claimed that there is an unwritten unity between reformists and parts of the principlist movement and a union between the groups is possible.

Tabesh is not alone: key conservative MP Ali Motahari has said, "Sensible reformists and principlists have achieved an unwritten unity."

2110 GMT: So Whose Legal Rights Are Being Respected? Iran Prosecutor Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei said that the authorities are still in the process of investigating the alleged involvement of Saeed Mortazavi, the former Tehran Prosecutor General and current Presidential aide, in the Kahrizak detention centre abuses.

1950 GMT: Breaking the Lawyers (cont.). Back from an excellent academic seminar to find out that Iran Prosecutor-General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, in his press conference today, announced the arrest of a fifth person in the case of the German journalists who were interviewing the son and lawyer of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian woman condemned to death for adultery.

The lawyer for the two German reporters, who were themselves arrested in the raid last month, has been detained for "the possession of three birth certificates and identification documents, forgery, and collaboration with anti-regime groups".

Ashtiani's son Sajad Ghaderzadeh and lawyer Houton Kian are also still in prison.

1345 GMT: Pointless Speculation of Day. The business magazine Forbes, via Abigail Esman, strays into the areas of politics/terrorism/fantasy by linking mysterious evil of bombs in packages on airplanes with mysterious evil of Tehran: "Did Iran Know About the Yemen Terror Plot?"

1310 GMT: Summarising Repression. Mohammad Javad Haghshenas, the manager of the now-banned Etemade Melli newspaper, has declared, "Working in media and political activities are too dangerous."

Haghshenas' statement comes only a day after the lifting of the ban on the headquarters of the Etemade Melli Party of Mehdi Karroubi.

1220 GMT: Breaking the Lawyers. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty follows up on the case of human rights attorney Mohammad Seifzadeh, sentenced to nine years in prison and a 10-year ban from practicing law.

Seifzadeh was charged with “acting against national security” for co-founding the Center for Human Rights Defenderswith Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi and two other lawyers, Abdolfatah Soltani and Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, who are also being prosecuted.

1205 GMT: The Detained US Hikers. Another layer in the confusing tale of the detention of three US hikers, two of them still in Evin Prison....

Sarah Shourd, who was released in September, has told The New York Times that the trio stepped off an unmarked dirt road, inadvertently crossing from Iraq into Iran, because a border guard gestured for them to approach.

Shourd told the Times she was going public in response to a classified US military report, revealed by Wikileaks, that the hikers may have been detained inside Iraq and forced across the border in the July 2009 incident.

Subsequent to that report, journalist Maziar Bahari wrote --- based on former Iranian security officials --- that the three hikers had been abducted on the Iraqi side of the border by units working for a former Revolutionary Guard commander now involved in criminal activities.

Shourd's companions, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, are still in Evin Prison in Tehran.

1120 GMT: Currency Watch. Looks like President Ahmadinejad wants to make a serious push to influence the approach to the Iranian toman: not only has he made his public demand upon the Central Bank (see 0600 GMT), he has also formed a special committee to deal with the issue.

0850 GMT: The No Longer Iran Medical University. The story keeps getting curiouser....

Iranian Labor News Agency reports that "Iran" has been removed from the nameplate of the Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Students report that university officials were unwilling or unable to give them answers on Sunday about the dissolution of the institution.

0600 GMT: Currency Watch. Economists have criticised President Ahmadinejad's declaration in a Saturday night interview that Iran's Central Bank should intervene to strength the value of the Iranian toman against the US dollar and other foreign currencies.

0555 GMT: The Medical University. Alireza Marandi, the former Minister of Health (and father of the academic Seyed Mohammad Marandi), offers some revealing comments about the dissolution of the Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

Marandi said there was a meeting with Minister of Health Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi on Friday until 2 p.m. with not one word about shutting down TUMS. Marandi warned that this was "very impolite" and "this case could develop into a banana skin under [Dastjerdi's] feet". He said the official reasons for closure --- dispersal from the capital are not convincing --- as TUMS' 16 related hospitals are not being relocated.

0550 GMT: Raising Voices. A new campaign, One Million Voices for Iran, has been launched "to demand united global action against the human rights abuses perpetrated by the government of the Islamic Republic against its own people". The movement hopes to combine “digital activism” through social media platforms like FaceBook, Twitter, and blogs, with “pavement activism” at rallies, protests and events "to create a network of supportive individuals and organisations".

0545 GMT: Economy Watch. San'at newspaper claims that the 5th Budget Plan lacks $130 billion to meet its target of 8% growth.

0540 GMT: The Protesting Diplomat. Readers point us to a passionate appearance on Voice of America by Hossein Alizadeh, the former Deputy Head of Mission of the Iranian Embassy in Oslo who resigned from his post in protest at post-election developments.

0535 GMT: Judiciary v. President's Office. The head of Iran's judiciary,Sadegh Larijani took an un-subtle shot at President Ahmadinejad's advisors on Sunday, saying remarks about the "Iranian school of thought" rather than the Islamic school of thought are “divisive”.

Such remarks go against the Islamic beliefs and must not be repeated, Larijani told a meeting of judicial officials. He added that Iran must set a model for the Muslim world.

The promotion of an “Iranian school of thought" is associated with Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai.

0520 GMT: We begin this morning with the developing story of the dissolution of the Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

After more than 48 hours, the situation is still confused. Officially, the surprise decision was announced by Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi, the Minister of Health; opposition websites claim, however, that an advisor of President Ahmadinejad took the initiative. Irrespective of who made the move, it appears to have been communicated to few people: even Iranian civil servants seem to have been unaware, and officials, professors, and students at TUMS were left suspended in uncertainty. So, apparently, was the main Tehran University: reports indicated that it refused to accepted nursing students from TUMS.

BBC Persian is connecting the decision to the Government's initiative to move institutions and personnel out of the capital. If this is true, then it is curious that no academic location for staff and students has been declared.

As well as training medical students, TUMS hosts 19 research centres.