The Latest from Iran (24 December): Watching Some Boats, Watching The Currency

1735 GMT: Bank Fraud Watch. Iran Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei has said that four MPs have been summoned and interrogated over the $2.6 billion bank fraud, involving 200 properties of the Aria Group.

Mohseni Ejei did not name the MPs, but one legislator has said that Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of Parliament's National Security Commission, and his sons have been arrested and released on bail.

Mohseni also said five managers of Aria Group companies, including the Chief Executive Officer of Ahwaz Steel, have been arrested.

1715 GMT: The Battle Within. Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, one of the leading forces in the Islamic Constancy Front, sets up the group's approach for the Parliamentary elections in March --- total obedience to the Supreme Leader, with a fight against the seditious current and "intrusive elements", but also a tip of support to the President: "After the rule of the reformists, Ahmadinejad was the best choice (in 2005)."

The Constancy Front has been fighting other conservatives and principlists who have been seeking "unity" before the elections.

1335 GMT: CyberWatch. Bultan News has criticised the Revolutionary Guards' centre against cybercrimes as "inefficient" over the past four years.

1319 GMT: What's Going On With the UAE? Yet more confusion over the state of Iran's trade with the United Arab Emirates....

The Central Bank of Iran has rejected the news, put out by Mehr on Friday, that the regime has banned lines of credits for imports from the UAE, and has that "business continues as usual".

Earlier this week, some Iranian officials said that all trade had been suspended with the UAE, only for the Government to issue a denial hours later.

1310 GMT: Elections Watch. The reformist party Mojahedin of Islamic Revolution has said that it will not put forward candidates in March's Parliamentary elections.

The Mojahedin announcement follows a similar declaration by another leading reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front.

Meanwhile, it appears that someone has put out a false claim in the name of leading reformist Ayatollah Mousavi Khoeiniha that the reformists would be participating. Mousavi Khoeiniha has said that the Assembly of Combatant Clerics website, filtered for two years, was hacked so the fake announcement could be posted.

1300 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Faezeh Hashemi, prominent women's rights activist and the daughter of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, has gone on trial on charges of spreading anti-regime propaganda.

1255 GMT: Currency Watch. The Iranian rial initially strengthened to 14000:1 vs. the US dollar this morning but it has now fallen back to 14350:1.

1135 GMT: Warning of the Day. A bit of a jittery statement from General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the head of the Revolutionary Guards. Jafari said Tehran is "not in a good situation" with respect to Islamic culture and the Revolution. The security situation is critical, he added, as "enemies have made plans for the capital".

1125 GMT: More Kidnappings in Syria? Tabnak reports that two more Iranians have been abducted in Syria.

The two men had been despatched to find five Iranian engineers, who were among eight foreigners kidnapped in Homs this week.

1115 GMT: The Battle Within. Leading MP Ahmad Tavakoli has renewed his attack on the Government, saying that he "does not believe" in statistics put out by the Minister of Economy.

Tavakoli also made a far-from-subtle contribution to the strategy of anti-Ahmadinejad conservatives to bring reformists into the Parliamentary elections. The MP said that as "a huge entity", reformists should participate. At the same time, he appeared to dismiss former President Mohammad Khatami as beyond redemption --- "not all reformists follow" Khatami, he maintained, and those faithful to the Iranian system should be involved.

0755 GMT: Oil Watch. Yesterday we noted Iranian State media's framing of the upbeat portions of a statement from Deputy Minister of Oil Ahmad Qalebani, such as his declaration that 17 new contracts for development will be signed by March.

Interestingly, the Tehran Times puts out a gloomier headline, "Iran’s Daily Oil Output Falls by 20,000 Barrels" from the statement of Qalebani, who is also managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company.

Then again, the coverage could have been even gloomier. Iran's oil production reportedly has fallen not by 20,000 barrels per day, but 600,000 --- from 4.1 million bpd in 2010 to 3.5 million this year.

0700 GMT: Attacking the Cleric. In what appears to be a continuing campaign against Grand Ayatollah Sane'i, a prominent critic of the Government's crackdown on dissent, his new offices in Kashan, Aran, and Bidgol have been attacked, with phone lines cut.

Earlier this month, Sane'i's office in Gorgan in northern Iran was shut.

0655 GMT: Subsidy Cuts. An Iranian official, speaking to Etedaal, has indicated that gasoline may be exempted from the second phase of subsidy cuts. If so, that would be a significant pullback by the Government from its programme.

0650 GMT: Economy Watch. The fallout over the currency crisis and other economic issues continues. After Wednesday's closed-door Parlimentary session --- in which some MPs walked out over the presentation of Central Bank head Mahmoud Bahmani --- the head of the Budget Committee, Reza Abdollahi, has said Bahmani has done all he could to settle the foreign exchange crisis. MP Emad Hosseini is not persuaded, however, declaring that Bahmani must go.

0640 GMT: Let the Elections Begin. Iranian regime media is headlining the opening of the registration period for candidates for March's Parliamentary elections.

That period should give us some clues to the tensions that will play out over the next 10 weeks. Will reformists, if only as "independents", stand for Parliament or will they carry out a boycott of the process? Which factions amongst the conservatives and principlists, especially in the high-profile contest between President Ahmadinejad's men and their rivals, will emerge?

0620 GMT: Watch out for huffing and puffing today about the start of the Iranian military's 10-day war game in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's major thoroughfares for oil.

Part of Tehran's tough-talk posturing to cover internal tension and weakness, the display of ships and firepower carries an even more powerful display of rhetoric. Navy Commander Habibulah Sayari proclaimed, "The manoeuvres will be carried out with the intention of displaying the determination, defensive and deterrent power of the Iranian armed forces as well as relaying a message of peace and friendship in the Strait of Hormuz, the Sea of Oman and the free waters of the Indian Ocean." MP Parviz Sorouri, a go-to for the required quote, declared, "We will hold a military maneuver on how to close the Strait of Hormuz. If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure," as the English-language Tehran Times, in the guise of analysis and legal justification, explains:

Even making such statements is a disaster for the fragile economy of the West, especially the U.S. It looks that the dynamites [sic] have been piling in the region; just it needs a matches [sic] which is being prepared by hawks in the U.S., the Britain and even Iran.

Forgive us, but we will prefer watching a more mundane --- and more important --- exercise this morning. Iran's foreign markets open after the two-day weekend. During the break, the regime brought down the free-market rate of the rial from 15390:1 to 14230:1 vs. the US dollar, through a series of manoeuvres including the Central Bank's statement to a Parliamentary session that foreign currency would be injected into the market.

Will that rate --- which is still well above the previous "red line" of 13000:1 set by the Bank --- hold? Does Iran, as President Ahmadinejad assured this week, have enough foreign exchange reserves to defend its currency? Or will we see the resumption of the slide?

State news agency IRNA is silent on the matter, but Fars features an interview with an economist pointing to the injection of foreign currency and coins vs. the "gambling" that has undermined the rial.