The Latest from Iran (20 December): Gasoline, Bread, and Diplomacy

1754 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Detained attorney Nasrin Sotoudeh has ended her hunger strike.

Sotoudeh's refusal of food and water was her third since she was detained in early September.

1750 GMT: Subsidy Cuts Watch. Fars reports that the "real" price of bread will be posted tomorrow.

1745 GMT: Policing Cyber-Knowledge. Peyke reports that Iranian authorities have blocked the websites of Google Books, 4Shared, and Dehkhoda Encyclopedia.

1615 GMT: Corruption Watch. Iran Prosecutor General Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei has said that 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi will have to stand trial on corruption charges.

Some principlist MPs, notably Elyas Naderan, have been pressing for months for Rahimi to answer charges over his alleged involved in the "Fatemi Street" insurance fraud. Yesterday key MP Ahmad Tavakoli said on live television that President Ahmadinejad must answer for his violations of the law and Government amidst reports that the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, was preparing the file on Rahimi.

1600 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Fakhrosaadat Mohtashamipour, the wife of detained prominent reformist Mostafa Tajzadeh, has explained on video how she and the family of detained journalist Mohammad Nourizad (see separate feature for their letter to the Supreme Leader), protesting in front of Evin Prison, were accosted and imprisoned by security forces last week.

1555 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch (Film Edition). The prominent director Jafar Panahi has been sentenced to six years in prison and banned for 20 years from making films.

Panahi, internationally acclaimed for films like White Balloon, The Mirror, and The Circle, was arrested in March, alleged because he was making a movie critical of the Government and sympathetic to the Green Movement. He was released from detention in June.

1545 GMT: Subsidy Cuts Watch. The Ministry of Oil has announced that purchases of gasoline dropped 16.6% on Sunday

Tehran Bureau posts a selection of reactions from Iranians to the Ahmadinejad subsidy cuts.

1535 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Footage has been posted of today's sit-in for detained attorney Nasrine Sotoudeh, held in front of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. Participants include Nobel Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.

1440 GMT: Government Musical Chairs. Yet another change today: Deputy Minister of Culture Mohammad Ali Ramin, criticised over his hand with the Iranian press, has been replaced by Mohammad Jafar Mohammadzadeh.

1345 GMT: All Ahmadinejad's Men and Women (cont.). Ms Torkestani has made a speedy recovery and has now agreed to become head of the National Youth Organization (see 1115 GMT).

1200 GMT: Britain-Bashing. I know that Iranian officials are just a bit upset with the United Kingdom at the moment, but this may be a bit excessive....

Every one of the latest 12 stories on Press TV's website concerns Britain. Included are tales of "domestic violence on the rise", "violent inmates freed by mistake", "cold weather havoc", and "stop protesters with water cannons".

1140 GMT: Un-Free Press. Arshama3's Blog has updated its list of detained journalists: the latest name is Hadi Heydari, the cartoonist and arts editor of Etemad-e Melli, who was arrested this weekend with other activists.

1115 GMT: All Ahmadinejad's Men (and Women). Meanwhile, strange moves in the President's office....

Yesterday it was reported that Mehrdad Bazrpash has been dismissed as head of the National Youth Organization because he had criticised the President's Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai. Not only are officials denying the story today, but Bazrpash has been named a Presidential advisor on social affairs.

And then the proposed replacement as head of the National Youth Organization, Ms Torkestani, has refused because she has too much work as the students' deputy in the Ministry of Health.

1050 GMT: Ahmadinejad's Right-Hand-Man Diplomat. Another step up in the conflict over who runs Iran's foreign policy....

Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai has hit back at critics who say he is acting, to the detriment of the Foreign Ministry, as an ad hoc top diplomat. He claimed that the dispute over last week's dismissal of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was unjustified.

Rahim-Mashai added that objections to his recent mission to Jordan, inviting King Abdullah to a summit with President Ahmadinejad, were a "big lie".

1035 GMT: Subsidy Cuts Clarification. An Iranian observer writes that the "support payment" of $81 per person over the next two months is only going to those households who enrol in the programme. The Government is asking those who can afford higher prices not to sign up.

1025 GMT: Selling the Subsidy Cuts. Peyke Iran claims that the Islamic Propaganda Organization has sent 37,000 clerics to provinces to promote the subsidy cuts.

1020 GMT: Terrorism Watch. Eleven members of the Baluch insurgent group Jundullah have been executed in Sistan and Baluchestan Province in southeastern Iran.

Last Wednesday, Jundullah claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in Chabahar which killed at least 38 people and wounded more than 90.

1010 GMT: Presidential Election Update. The office of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has denied that, on the night of the June 2009 vote, he congratulated Mir Hossein Mousavi on his victory.

Just wondering: why would Larijani issue a denial now, 19 months after an election which was supposedly long ago?

1005 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Labour activist Reza Shahabi has ended his hunger strike.

Shahabi has been detained since June. No formal charges have been announced.

0915 GMT: Subsidy Cut Watch. The Los Angeles Times, reviewing the introduction of the subsidy cuts, offers useful details on prices.

The cost of natural compressed gas has risen almost 500% to about 300 tomans ($0.30) per cubic metre.

The cost of rationed subsidised gasoline has risen 300%, unsubsidised 75%. The price of rationed subsidised diesel fuel is up almost 900% and that of unsubsidised increases about 2000%.

Iranian state media says electricity prices will triple. The cost of water will quadruple and heating gas will rise more than 400%.

The price of flour has risen more than 1200%.

0910 GMT: Cartoon of the Day. Nikahang Kowsar, drawing for Rooz Online, considers the President and the subsidy cuts on gasoline:

0715 GMT: Subsidy Cut Watch. An hour-long programme from BBC Persian offers a thorough examination of the introduction of the subsidy cuts.

0645 GMT: The first day of the subsidy cuts on gasoline and bread passed without violent protest, amidst sketchy reports of riot police on guard through Tehran and Iranians lining up to withdraw their two months of support payments.

Meanwhile, Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times has an overview of Iran's new diplomatic order with the replacement of Manouchehr Mottaki by Ali Akbar Salehi, the former head of the nuclear programme. Daragahi writes of Salehi:

He appears to have been granted a broader mandate than his predecessor to set policy, and went about defining objectives Saturday that included focusing attention on neighboring countries and Muslim nations; maintaining a "special place" for relations with China and Russia; and remaining receptive to European Union nations hungry for Middle East oil and gas.

Daragahi highlights Salehi's description of Saudi Arabia and Turkey "as the two countries that hold the most significant position" in Tehran's worldview.

An EA correspondent adds, "Good article, but it does not note why Salehi is so keen on ties with Saudi Arabia --- he was stationed there for years as a deputy director of the Organization for the Islamic Conference. He will have genuinely close ties with the saudi leadership."

And my own addition: how does Salehi fit alongside the increasingly prominent but ad hoc diplomatic interventions of Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai?