2110 GMT: May Day Watch. The political crisis and security measures ensured that May Day and worker's issues make little headline impact.
However, seven Iranian labor organizations did publish a statement objecting to the violations of basic rights: “While all over the world, the workers’ show their joy and passion and will to fight on 1 May, and their free million-strong protests against their living conditions shake the world, Iranian workers are not only deprived of the social rights to establish organizations and street protests, they are exposed to the most severe attacks on their lives and livelihood.”
The seven labor organizations are the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, Iran Free Trade Union, the Committee To Restart The Paint and Decoration Construction Workers Syndicate, The Committee To Restart the Mechanical Metal Workers Syndicate, Center For The Defense of Workers, The Committee To Pursue Building Labor Coalitions, and The Coordinating Committee To Help Establish Labor Organizations.
The groups continued:
Any objection or demand of rights by the workers is answered with arrests and prison; the so-called ‘Targeted Subsidies’ plan which have been started by the ruling capitalists with the help of international capitalist organizations, is further destroying the lives and livelihoods of millions of workers’ families, and no one has the right to freely express their opinion about this; with the dizzying rise in the prices of energy and factory closures, everyday hundreds and thousand of workers join the other unemployed millions.
The signatories then put forth a 14-point set of demands, including "the unconditional freedom to set up independent labor organizations, to strike, to protest, to demonstrate, and to have freedom of belonging to political parties, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, and a free press".
2040 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Back after a break to find the President's back....
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, after boycotting the previous two Cabinet sessions, chaired the meeting today. In his first appearance since the dispute over Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi, the President reportedly declared that everyone should obey Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and that "to defend the Supreme Leader I am ready to die".
The spin on the meeting is different depending on the outlet. Fars, which has challenged Ahmadinejad over the Moslehi affair, emphasized his apparent concession to the authority of Ayatollah Khamenei: "The 10th Administration is completely obedient to the Supreme Leader." The pro-Ahmadinejad IRNA has the President saying his Administration has always benefited from the "always enlightened, intelligent, and careful" Khamenei, but he also adds that "a strong President and strong leadership leads the nation to glory".
In a further twist, the Minister of Intelligence --- the immediate cause of the political crisis --- was not at the Cabinet: he was reportedly in Qom to meet a group of prominent clerics.
1010 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. More signs that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is going to seek reconciliation with Ayatollah Khamenei:
Peyke Iran reports from Iranian media, including Fars, that the President has met the head of State broadcaster IRIB, Ezzatollah Zarghami.
Ahmadinejad maintained some bluster, saying he will reveal the treachery and plots of enemies of the Revolution, but his main message was that he and the Supreme Leader are "like father and son".
0845 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Is the President about to come out of hiding?
State news agency IRNA says Ahmadinejad will chair a Cabinet meeting this afternoon. The President has boycotted the last two sessions after the Supreme Leader's rescinded the forced resignation of Minister of Intelligence.
A group of MPs met with Ahmadinejad for three hours last night. The President reportedly said, "I am more steadfast than ever in my dedication to velayat-e faqih (clerical supremacy)." As for the Ministry of Intelligence dispute, he asserted, "This is an issue between me and Supreme Leader and hopefully it will be resolved through a discussion."
0840 GMT: Economy Watch (Revolutionary Guards Edition). Khatam-ol Anbia, the business consortium connected to the Revolutionary Guards, has been awarded --- without tender --- two large natural gas development projects.
Mahdi Fakoor, a senior Oil Ministry official, said development of the two fields, located in Fars Province, will yield 19 million cubic meters of natural gas each day.
Khatam-ol-Anbia is the largest contractor of government projects in Iran, supervising 1500 over the past four years. The conglomerate is already developing Iran's giant South Pars Gas Field in the Persian Gulf, and it has stakes in mining and telecommunications.
0640 GMT: Foreign Affairs. Rooz Online claims that the Supreme National Security Council has ordered Iranian media to highlight the conflict in Bahrain and to avoid references to the situation in Syria.
The latest highlight in Iranian state media is a statement by the head of the armed forces, General Hassan Firouzabadi, criticising the Saudi military intervention in Bahrain: "Saudi Arabia's unfair and un-Islamic moves will provoke Muslims in this country and will threaten the security of Saudi Arabia....Having a military base in Bahrain, the United States felt worried, and since it cannot wage another war due to its internal situation and public opposition and the global conditions, Washington ordered Saudi Arabia as its mercenary to thwart the Bahrainis' popular revolution so that the US can maintain its base."
0540 GMT: Pressure built upon President Ahmadinejad, still in seclusion, on Saturday. Allies of the Supreme Leader put out the message that Ayatollah Khamenei is in charge. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani made a pointed intervention declaring loyalty to Khamenei, while the Majlis pushed back against Ahmadinejad, cutting his plan for subsidy cuts by more than half. In the most charged assault, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani released a 2010 interview in which he said Ahmadinejad's 2009 Presidential campaign was based on "lies" and regretted that the Supreme Leader had not intervened.
But the President can still count on support, at least from the head of State news agency IRNA, Ali Akbar Javanfekr.
On his website, Javanfekr --- a former senior advisor to Ahmadinejad --- posts a long elegy to the President: "He did not attach himself to the Presidency....He is fascinated by service to the people.....He was reassuring to the people....People like him and trust him....With the same energy that he was able to complete the nuclear fuel cycle, he brought reconstruction and development of this land."
And as for the current crisis? "He will conquer the dejection."