The Latest from Iran (24 November): Corruption and Torture...From Tehran to Oxford

Nikahang Kowsar's Mehdi Hashemi2045 GMT: Currency Watch. The Iranian rial, already at a historic low against the US dollar (see 1250 GMT), has slipped another 0.9% to 13560:1.

2035 GMT: The Battle Within. Alef, the website linked to key MP Ahmad Tavakoli --- a leading critic of the Government --- complains that the President has extended his "red line" against prosecution from his Cabinet to his advisors.

Another Government critic, MP Ali Motahari, has criticised both the raid on Iran newspaper and the ban on the reformist Etemaad. At the same time, he said that if Ali Akbar Javanfekr, the Presidential advisor and managing editor of Iran sentenced to a year in prison, and his colleagues had protested over the brutality against post-election protesters, they would not have experienced such a disaster.

2025 GMT: Claim of the Day. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, head of the Basij militia, produces his finding: 87% of people want to become a member of his force.

1625 GMT: Arresting the President's Men. Another turn in the saga of Ali Akbar Javanfekr, the Presidential advisor sentenced to a year in prison and the target of a raid by security forces on Monday which led to 40 arrests and the ransacking of the offices of Iran newspaper....

State news agency IRNA --- of whom Javanfekr is the Chief Executive Officer --- says he has been taken to hospital with angina:

1555 GMT: An Interesting Admission. Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Hamedani says that projects of the Guards and Basij militia will prevent brain drain.

So is Hamedani that the phenomenon of "brain drain" has been a problem for Iran?

1545 GMT: Bank Fraud Watch. Hamidreza Moghaddamfar, the Cultural and Social Deputy to the Revolutionary Guards has said that two defendants in the $2.6 billion bank fraud have been sentenced to death.

1525 GMT: Cartoon of Day. Nikahang Kowsar's little boy asks the Supreme Leader, "Ben Ali...gone, Mubarak...gone, Qaddafi...gone, Saleh...gone. When will you go, grandpa?"

1515 GMT: Sanctions Watch. The French Foreign Ministry has announced that Paris will stop buying Iranian oil on a "national basis".

No detail were given. France imports the equivalent of 49,000 barrels of Iranian crude per day, a tiny fraction of Tehran's exports.

The French energy firm Total has reduced its presence in Iran to a joint venture with an Iranian lubricants firm, having halted its oil production and fuel sales.

The French move follows measures by the US, Britain, and Canada against Iran's financial, petrochemical, and energy sectors this week.

1500 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. The President is in confident mood, declaring "This year and next year we will create 2.5 million jobs in the country so that the ugly phenomenon of unemployment will be ended."

1410 GMT: Foreign Affairs (British Front). Alaeddin Boroudjerdi, the head of Parliament's National Security Commission, has followed up the Majlis resolution to downgrade relations with Britian --- his Commission is now seeking to expel the British ambassador.

1400 GMT: Oil Watch. Minister of Oil Rustam Qassemi has declared that Iran is ready to offer tenders for the development of 21 oil and gas fields.

Qassemi repeated his statement that Iran needs about $50 billion annually to develop its oil industry for the rest of the 5th Development Plan (2010-2015).

It is far from certain, given a widespread pullout of foreign companies from Iran's energy sector over the last two years, who will bid for those developments.

The National Oil Company announced that 500 billion Toman (about $460 million) in bonds will be offered on Saturday to finance projects in the South Pars gas field. The offering is part of $5 billion in bonds to be issued in the Iranian year ending in March.

1320 GMT: Claim of the Day. Parviz Sorouri, a member of Parliament's National Security Commission, has claimed that Tehran has arrested 12 CIA agents.

Sorouri asserted that the agents had been operating in coordination with Israel's Mossad and other regional agencies, targeting Iran's military and nuclear programme: "The U.S. and Zionist regime's espionage apparatuses were trying to damage Iran both from inside and outside with a heavy blow, using regional intelligence services. Fortunately, with swift reaction by the Iranian intelligence department, the actions failed to bear fruit."

1250 GMT: Currency Watch. Back from an academic break to find the Iranian rial hovering at its record low of 13440:1 vs. the US dollar, with gold prices continuing to rise.

Khabar Online reports that the Central Bank has offered gold at an exchange rate of 15000:1.

0750 GMT: Hanging Tough. Mohammad Ali Jafari, the head of the Revolutionary Guards, has used a speech at Sharif University to praise Commander Rashid Islam Hassan Moghaddam, killed in an explosion at a Guards base on 12 November, while claiming the Guards team planning missile development has not been affected by the blast.

Jafari also put out this view of the domestic situation: "During the black period of reforms, only the Supreme Leader was firm, putting on keffiyeh to resist the end of the Islamic Revolution."

0730 GMT: A twist this morning in our daily coverage of issues of corruption and abuse within the Iranian system....

For months, we have watched the allegations of how and why Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, was admitted to a Ph.D. programme at Oxford University even though he supposedly lacked academic qualifications. In recent days, we have noted the decision of a Canadian court that Hashemi must pay millions of dollars in compensation for torture of an Iranian businessman.

The Oxford Student has been breaking information on the case, and now The Guardian of London picks up the story, as lawyers representing the court went to Oxford yesterday to serve legal papers on Hashemi. 

In August the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ordered Hashemi to pay £3.7 million to the family of Houshang Bouzari, a Canadian citizen imprisoned for seven months in Iran in 1993 after he refused to pay $50 million to Hashemi, then a director of the National Iranian Oil Company. 

In 2004 Bouzari claimed, "I had a $1.8bn contract, 28 people on my staff, big oil companies behind me. All of a sudden I have nothing. Their first goal was to remove me from the contract so Mehdi could move in and have it." 

The Ontario court's lawyers could not find Hashemi on Wednesday, so the papers were put in his pigeonhole and a copy handed to a representative of Oxford's vice-chancellor, Professor Andrew Hamilton.

Hashemi said to The Guardian via e-mail: "I learned about a judgment in absentia, in a proceeding that I did not get the chance to defend myself, through [a] Sunday Times article. I wonder why I was not served or contacted prior to the judgment in August at my current address. I categorically deny all baseless allegations, including but not limited to torture allegations, brought forward by someone motivated by greed. Claims of 'conspiracy' are ridiculous, and I'd not even entertain them."

On allegations that he was not qualified to enter the Ph.D. programme, Hashemi has stated: "I do understand, speak and write English, however I was asked by Oxford to improve my English, not unprecedented at this university."

Oxford officials added, "Allegations that a student was paid to help him are utterly untrue. [An] investigation also found no evidence of impropriety on the part of the admitting tutor."