The Latest from Iran (12 November): The Rise of the "Cotton Hero"

The Revolutionary Guard base, west of Tehran, struck by an explosion today (see 1515 GMT)

See also Bahrain 1st-Hand: Friday's "Festival of Loyalty" Opposition Rally
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The Latest from Iran (11 November): Chest-Thumping

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2135 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Influential MP Ahmad Tavakoli, a prominent critic of the President, has denied that he asked Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to stand for election in 2005. He says instead that he stepped aside in favour of a candidacy by Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, now Mayor of Tehran.

Ahmadinejad claimed in a speech last week that a number of important conservative and principlist figures implored him to run for President.

2015 GMT: Economy Watch. The Iranian rial is at 13360:1 vs. the US dollar today in the open market, almost a 25% gap from the official rate of 10820:1.

Khabar Online reports that the cost of a ton of imports has risen more than 30% in the last year.

2005 GMT: Today's Explosion. Mehr reports that Revoutionary Commander Rashid Islam Hassan Moghaddam was among those killed in the blast at the Malard military base.

1755 GMT: Today's Explosion. Lieutenant General Ramezan Sharif of the Revolutionary Guards has revised the casualty figures from the blast at the military base west of Tehran to 17 killed and 16 wounded, some critically.

Sharif claimed the cause was the “relocation of ammunition”.

In this video interview, Sharif explains that his original declaration of 27 dead was due to the misreading of a fax.

1730 GMT: Two videos from BBC Persian of the explosion today at the Revolutionary Guards base in Malard, west of Tehran, which killed from 27 to more than 40 people.

1725 GMT: The Battle Within. Bonyad Mostazafan, the religious charity controlled by the Supreme Leader's office, has dismissed the call of MP Meghdad Najafnejad for an investigation into its finance. The Bonyad says the matter is a private issue.

A new hard-line website, Day News, has found an interesting source for the allegations of an Iranian plot to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the US. The site attributes the attacks against the Qods Force and its head, Qassem Suleimani to the Ahmadinejad camp. It specifically claims that the President's right-hand man Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai made the allegations to US Vice President Joe Biden during Ahmadinejad's visit to New York in September.

1715 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Potkin Azarmehr profiles the case of singer Arya Aramnejad, seized by security forces after his appearance in an appeals court. His whereabouts are still unknown.

1705 GMT: Elections Watch. Abbasali Kadkhodaei, the spokesman of the Guardian Council, has said that people with dual nationality will be barred from standing in Parliamentary elections.

Kadkhodaei also repeated, “We have a strict ban in our eligibility criteria against those who were seriously involved in the sedition.”

1655 GMT: Flattery Watch. Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi has declared that the Supreme Leader is the symbol of Islam.

Readers of the opposition website Kalemeh have not exactly been receptive. One noted that Mesbah Yazdi, now critical of the Government, "once...said Ahmadinejad is the right hand of God". Another used a reference to Iran's current economic difficulties to request, "Please date his statements.They change like the exchange rate versus the US dollar."

1555 GMT: Clerical Intervention. Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari, a middle-ranking cleric imprisoned from 2000 to 2004 in Iran has told a conference of Iranian scholars and experts in Berlin that the Ahmadinejad Presidency is the most "destructive" in Iran's history, "cross[ing] almost all political and religious lines". He added that the regime is deeply at odds with Shia tradition, ultimately threatening to "destroy Islam, the government and the country".

Eshkevari left Iran in 2009, obtaining political asylum in Germany. He commented on the opposition after the disputed Presidential election, "I have no doubt that this movement will come back. In the future there will be a democratic development."

1515 GMT: Back from an academic conference to catch up with the news, reported by Iranian media, of a large explosion at an arms depot at the Malard military base, west of Tehran.

Initally, several people were reportedly been killed in the blast, felt 45 kilometres (28 miles away), but no further details have been given.

Now, however, the LiveBlog of opposition site Kalemeh, citing the Iranian Labor News Agency says 40 people died at the depot and Revolutionary Guards barracks. Other state media are reported a figure of 27 from a senior official of the Revolutionary Guards.

An Al Jazeera correspondent had reported soon after the explosion that more than 15 ambulances, as well as search and rescue crews, were despatched to the base. Kalemeh updates this to 23 ambulances, four buses, and a helicopter.

Esmail Kowsari of Parliament's National Security Council has been quick to dismiss sabotage as the cause.

0900 GMT: Nuke Watch. The Italian newspaper La Stampa has posted my chat with them about the IAEA report on Iran's nuclear programme. The discussion complements EA's analyses this week, assessing the primary source for the IAEA's information --- US intelligence services --- the findings ("This is old or generic information"), and Israeli motives for war talks (domestic politics and "To divert attention from their regional difficulties").

There is also the answer to "So is Iran a problem?" --- "It is. Because of abuse, the lack of respect for civil rights, and the ways in which the regime stifles the opposition."

0703 GMT: Oil Watch. According to Fars, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries has reported that Iran's crude oil output fell 23,000 barrels per day in October.

OPEC puts the current output at 3.578 million bpd. Iran's average production was 3.725 million bpd in 2009 and 3.597 bpd in 2010.

0659 GMT: All the President's Men. Khabar Online claims that Vice President Hamid Baghaei, under fire for mismanagement and financial irregularities, resigned from his post at Iran's State broadcaster IRIB three weeks ago.

0655 GMT:The BBC reports on Iran's airlines coping with sanctions, affecting their refuelling at many European and some Asian airports --- Iranian flights returning from London stop in Marston in southeast England to take on petrol.

0645 GMT: We begin this morning with another tale from the ongoing conflict between President Ahmadinejad and the Speaker of Parliament, Ali Larijani --- after Larijani called the President an "indecent rascal" this week, the pro-Ahmadinejad newspaper Iran has called the Speaker a "cotton hero".

Khabar Online feature a different type of attack by the Central Bank, which tries to absolve itself of responsibility in the $2.6 billion bank fraud by blaming Mohammad Jahromi, the former head of Bank Saderat.

Jahromi was dismissed after Saderat was named as one of the leading institutions in the embezzlement this autumn.