The Latest from Iran (15 January): The Regime's Fizzling Displays

1715 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Mehdi Yarmohammadi, who worked for Mir Hossein Mousavi, has been sentenced to three years in prison.

1610 GMT: Energy Watch. Iranian officials said natural gas consumption had hit a record high due to cold weather, despite recent subsidy cuts.

Earlier this month, the officials had said consumption had dropped about 5% since the introduction of the cuts.

1545 GMT: Execution Watch. Kurdish detainee Hossein Khezri was executed in Oroumiyeh in northwestern Iran this morning.

Khezri was accused of being a member of the Kurdish insurgent group PJAK. He was arrested in July 2008 and sentenced to death in July 2009 for mohareb (”war against God”) and “endangering state security."

Khezri's execution had been anticipated for months, and in recent days activists had put out an alert that it might be imminent. Iranian authorities, perhaps wary of the publicity that had forced the delay in the execution of Habibollah Latifi last month, moved quickly and quietly to put Khezri to death --- only yesterday it was expected that his execution would take place in Tehran.

1425 GMT: Journeys with the Supreme Leader. Ayatollah Khamenei has gone to Qom yet again --- it is his fourth trip since October --- visiting Ayatollah Haeri Shirazi, Ayatollah Momeni, and other seminary clergy.

1415 GMT: Student Watch (from Pre-School to University). The Ministry of Education has announced that 400,000 university topics are being revised, making up 70% of the Ministry's workload.

Amidst post-election protests, the Supreme Leader said the humanities education of Iran's 2 million university students was a problem. He claimed that the country did not have enough professors who were committed to Islamic principles.

Dozens of professors were subsequently dismissed and the curricula of 12 subjects --- law, human rights studies, women’s studies, economy, sociology, social communications, political science, philosophy, psychology, education, administration and arts administration --- were subjected to review.

At the other end of the system, authorities have declared that all pre-school courses will be examineed to ensure they conform to Qur'anic doctrine.

1340 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Imprisoned journalist Mehdi Mahmoudian has written a letter, published in Kalemeh, urging opposition figures Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mohammad Khatami, and Mehdi Karroubi not to back down "in any circumstances" in their demands for justice and change.

1220 GMT: Threat of Day. According to an Iranian official quoted in Fars, Tehran will soon display two pilotless spy planes, operated by the US, that it has downed.

Earlier this month, the Revolutionary Guard's air force said it shot down two highly advanced spy planes that violated Iranian airspace.

1130 GMT: Corruption Watch. Peyke Iran claims that President Ahmadinejad has seen the head of judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, over the case of 1st Vice President, Mohammad Reza Rahimi.

The judiciary is investigating corruption charges against Rahimi, including allegations of involvement in a massive insurance fraud, and has passed the file to the courts.

1015 GMT: Labour Front. Workers at the Alborz Tire Factory, which has 1400 employees, have been on strike for a week over four months of unpaid wages and a New Year's bonus from March 2010.

The workers had struck in October but ended the walkout after receiving some back wages and the promise of a loan from the Ministry of Industry to help with the remainder.

0645 GMT: While we concentrated on events in Tunisia, it was a gentle Friday in Iran.

Not even the setpiece of the Tehran Friday Prayers sermon, delivered by Ayatollah Kazem Seddiqi, caused more than a ripple, as the cleric banged away on the regime's drum of the foreign threat, Israel, and espionage, ending with a flourish of Iranian glory:

The apprehension of Mossad agents and the perpetrators behind the assassination of one of the country's prominent [scholars]…is a turning point in the scientific developments in the country.

God did not want these prominent [scholars] to remain obscure, so he extricated them from their cages through the most evil of regimes and their inner light exploded and with their blood they blessed [the country's] scientific bases and they encouraged their companions in the nuclear cause to carry on.

This, in turn, led to the issue of human rights being deployed against the "West":

It is a disgrace for humanity that …the United Nations and the Security Council which claim to be rights advocates to give their backing to a regime which they obviously see is illegitimate in its very existence

Meanwhile, another high-profile regime display was fizzling out. A week before the resumption of the nuclear talks in Istanbul, Tehran was hoping to get big PR points by taking representatives of China, Russia, European countries (but not Britain), and American nations (but not the US) on a tour of its main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and the reactor being constructed at Arak.

But the effort deflated on Friday, with the confirmation that not only China and Russia but also Turkey and Brazil, who had joined Iran in last year's proposal on enrichment, had turned down the offer.

And then there was a much different display in front of the Iranian Embassy in Kabul, where hundreds of protesters demonstrated against Iran's embargo of up to 2500 fuel tankers on the Afghan border. As this video records, they chanted“Death to Ahmadinejad" and "Hands off Afghanistan" while wearing Green bands.