The Latest from Iran (21 May): Two Presidents in Trouble

2030 GMT: At the Movies. Director Mohammad Rasoulof, facing a six-year prison sentence, has won the Cannes Film Festival prize for Best Director in the Un Certain Regard section Saturday for "Be Omid e Didar" (Goodbye).

Rasoulof, who is appealing his sentence, cannot travel abroad so his wife accepted the prize on his behalf.

The film tells the story of a young Tehran lawyer trying to get a visa to leave Iran.

Rasoulof was sentenced with fellow director Jafar Panahi in December and barred from making films for 20 years. Panahi's latest film, smuggled out of Iran, is also being shown at Cannes (see separate video).

2015 GMT: Campus Watch. The Minister of Science and Higher Education, Kamran Daneshjoo, has declared that universities should not allow male and female students to mix.

The news comes as claimed video emerges of students at Tehran's Elm-o-Sanat University of Science and Technology setting the university's Islamic code of conduct on fire.

1635 GMT: Wait for It. Supporters of President Ahmadinejad are putting word of a "great event" in June --- what could it be?

A "leading supporter" of the President has added that "something is going to happen to a senior government official soon".

1620 GMT: Warning of the Day. Revolutionary Guards Commander Hussain Hamadani, in an interview with Khabar Online, has given another signal of support for the Supreme Leader in the current political turmoil --- he said he fears that the "divergent current" may join the sedition after the 2009 Presidential election.

"Divergent current" is now the established euphemism for suspect officials in President Ahmadinejad's office.

1250 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Amidst escalating rhetorics and arrests, the President's camp has hit back through Ali Akbar Javanfekr, the head of State news agency IRNA and Ahmadinejad's former advisor for media relations.

Javanfekr, writing on his personal website, said conservative critics had attacked the President's office as "deviant" purely out of fear of losing the Parliamentary vote in 2012 and the Presidential campaign in 2013: "There is no such thing as deviant current --- it's only a fabricated story which has been created in connection to the two upcoming elections. It is better for our friends (conservative opponents) to say--that they are afraid of the elections, instead of creating a giant monster."

1235 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Kalemeh reports that Omid Kokabee, a University of Texas physics student, has been detained on charges of conspiracy.

Kokabee failed to return in February from a visit to his parents over Christmas break.

An on-line petition calling for Kokabee's release has been set up.

1220 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. We have a first clue to the mysterious details around the 4-year ban slapped on Vice President Hamid Baghaei by the Administrative Justice Court, and it comes from Baghaei.

In an interview with Iranian Students News Agency, Baghaei --- insisting that the verdict has not been confirmed by Iran's highest court --- declared that the "numerous violations" had nothing to do with Iran's cultural heritage works leaving the country. He said that one of the judges had addressed the documents Baghaei provided and accepted his explanation.

1100 GMT: Espionage Watch. The Ministry of Intelligence has put out a statement that it has broken up a CIA espionage operation, arresting 30 spies working for the US. They allegedly gathered information from "universities and scientific research centers, and in the field of nuclear energy, aerospace, defense and biotechnology industries", as well as on "oil and gas pipelines, telecommunication and electricity networks, airports and customs, and the security of the banking and communication systems."

The detainees were allegedly overseen by American embassies in Turkey, Malaysia, and the United Arab Emirates; the Ministry said 42 CIA operatives had been identified.

0925 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Another big political move this morning in Iran --- Vice President Hamid Baghaei, a close ally of Presidential aide Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, has been barred from civil service for 4 years by the Administrative Justice Court.

We assess the significance of the decision in a separate entry.

0915 GMT: Visa Watch (US Edition). Responding to a sustained campaign, the Obama Administration has changed its visa policy on Iranian students and exchange visitors. It has replaced one-time-only, three-month visas with a multiple-entry, two-year visa.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented the change within the context of the American public diplomacy campaign supporting "aspirations" and "rights" of the Iranian people.

0910 GMT: The Great Kebab Debate. An EA friend in Tehran intervenes on the reference in our initial item (0505 GMT) to a kebab dinner in a restaurant costing $50-60 per person:

Maybe your correspondent made a mistake in calculation or he was ripped off...i love kabab and order from the best places, paying $15 there. These places are regarded as being among the more expensive kababi's. An order from a normal restaurant for office lunches is about $4 a person.

0545 GMT: Your Belated Tehran Friday Prayer Update. Did we forget to summarise Ayatollah Emami-Kashani's sermon to the faithful on Friday?

He said, “All governments [must] know that the wave of Islamic Awakening in the world will not die out."

That was it, really.

0505 GMT: For weeks, we have covered the conflict surrounding President Ahmadinejad. Friday, despite being a slow weekend news day, was no different.

There were more battles over Ahmadinejad's Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, with Rahim-Mashai's own website warning of his possible arrest, and Thursday's LiveBlog closed with an extraordinary assault on the President by key MP (and ally and relative of Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani), Ahmad Tavakoli.

In brief, Tavakoli said he and others had not like Ahmadinejad at the time of the 2009 election, but voted for him to prevent a challenge by Mir Hossein Mousavi to the authority of the Supreme Leader. So in 2011, the principlists faced the dilemma: if Ahmadinejad had now become the threat to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, did he have to be removed?

But Ahmadinejad is not the only occupant of Presidential office facing trouble. This week, controversy has also swirled over former President Mohammad Khatami's call for reconcilaition between the Government and the people.

An EA correspondent assesses that Khatami has been prompted by Iran's deteriorating economic situation with rapidly escalating prices --- he claims from a Tehran source that a kebab dinner in a Tehran restaurant now cost $50-$60 per person --- and continuing unemployment. 

But Khatami's intervention has not been well-received by those in the opposition who see as a suspension of the campaign against the regime's injustice and repression. Inside and outside Iran, both from Greens and long-time reformists, Khatami has been denounced.

Nikohang Kowsar captures the mood with a modification of the recent slogan challenging the Supreme Leader. While marchers on 25 Bahman (14 February) had chanted, "Mubarak, Ben Ali, now it's your turn Seyed Ali (Khamenei)", Kowsar's Khatami pleads, "Mubarak, Ben Ali, please forgive me Seyed Ali".