The Latest from Iran (18 September): The Supreme Leader's Grand Claim on the Region

See also Iran Feature: Is Civil Disobedience Taking Off?

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1905 GMT: Peyke Iran reports that Thai airports have stopped the refuelling of some Iranian aircraft.

1900 GMT: CyberWatch. Iran has achieved the distinction of being ranked 170th out of 170 countries for Internet speed by Net Index.

1610 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Abolfazl Tabarzadi, nephew of the Secretary General of Iran's Democratic Front, has been sentenced to 15 months for "insulting the Supreme Leader".

Tabarzadi's uncle Heshmatollah is serving an eight-year sentence after his arrest in December 2009.

Leading student activist Majid Tavakoli, already serving an 8 1/2-year sentence, has been banned from higher education by a Revolutionary Court. Tavakoli was arrested soon after giving a speech on National Students Day in December 2009.

1450 GMT: Corruption Watch. Iran Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei has said 19 people have been arrested over the $2.6 billion bank fraud case, and some suspects are still to be detained.

It remains to be seen if this will be enough to satisfy Government. A report in Markdomak indicates that MPs were not satisfied with reports given by the Minister of Economy and Iran's Inspector General in a closed-door session this week. The Inspector General, Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi warned against a "hasty and biased" response.

1420 GMT: The US Hikers. Back from a break to find that US citizens Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer will not be freed on bail before President Ahmadinejad sets off for New York.

Fattal and Bauer's lawyer, Masoud Shafiee, went to a judge's office on Sunday to get a second signature on a bail order, but he was told the judge is on vacation until Tuesday.

A delegation of American Muslim and Christian leaders, included Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, asked Ahmadinejad to release the hikers. Ahmadinejad's office did not give the President's response.

0900 GMT: The US Hikers. With President Ahmadinejad looking for a public-relations boost for his trip to the United Nations, it looks like we are down to the wire on whether US nationals Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal will be released on bail of $500,000 each. Bauer and Fattal's lawyer Masoud Shafiee says he will be back in court today, waiting for a second judge to sign the bail order.

One judge has already signed the order, but the second one failed to appear in court yesterday to complete the process.

0845 GMT: All the President's Men. And some of the Iranian press is highlighting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit to the United Nations, with the President departing for the US tomorrow. Amongst the coverage is the question: will the President's embattled Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, accompany him?

(If Rahim-Mashai does go, consider it not only a public victory for Ahmadinejad in his battle with critics, but a possible sign of the President's move for renewed talks with the US on the nuclear issue --- Ahmadinejad tried to send Rahim-Mashai to America in February for back-channel discussions, but the Chief of Staff had to abort the trip amidst domestic criticism over his high-profile role in the Government and accusations of working with the Americans.)

0840 GMT: Corruption & Currency Watch. The regime's Islamic Awakening initiative still has to compete for space in much of the Iranian press with two stories: 1) the alleged £2.6 billion bank fraud that is threatening to engulf the Government; and 2) concerns over rising gold prices and the weakness of the Iranian currency.

Notable amongst the stories is an analysis by Tehran political scientist Sadegh Zibaklam, who comparing the Iranian corruption issue to a large-scale scandal which has led to the resignation of several ministers in the Brazilian Government. Zikabalam, while demonstrating that corruption is not an Iran-only issue, notes the difference in the two cases: public pressure leading to officials taking responsibility and resigning in Brazil, while in Iran they just declare that an enquiry will be held.

0740 GMT: Awakening Watch. Much of Press TV's Iran page is handed over to the "Islamic Awakening" initiative. The section is now led by Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi's speech to the second day of the conference in Tehran: "Regional Uprisings Herald Islamic ME". Other statements come from Minister of Defense Ahmad Vahidi and former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari.

President Ahmadinejad does sneak onto the page in a different context, telling US Christian and Muslim leaders of "the significance of advancing peace towards the establishment of a world free of war and conflict".

0720 GMT: We start this morning with the Supreme Leader's political move on Saturday, as he used his speech at the two-day "1st International Conference on the Islamic Awakening" to lay Iran's claim to leadership of the movements across the Middle East and North Africa.

Ayatollah Khamenei said that Egypt had been the first country to follow the example set by the 1979 Islamic Revolution (interesting that he omitted Tunisia, which not be following the "Islamic" path that Iran may not desire or which may not be considered that important). While expressed hope and pride in such a Revolution, much of his address was given over to warnings for peoples to stand up against the interventions and plotting of the "West" and NATO.

The Supreme Leader and the regime launched a similar rhetorical offensive soon after the fall of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Mubarak, trying to establish the Islamic Revolution as a model for the "Arab Spring", but it stuttered when groups that Tehran favours did not come to the fore in Cairo and in other countries. However, with the continuing difficulties in Egypt to form a post-Mubarak system and with the new situation in Libya after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi, Tehran may be seeing more opportunities and more threats.

There are still challenges and complications for Khamenei's initiative. Even a casual observer will have noticed that Syria was left off his list of countries yesterday. And his call for "awakening" outside Iran should be considered in relation to claims of "awakening" within: in addition to the continuing political conflict within the Iranian establishment and to growing economic problems, there has been the revival of protest over issues such as the environmental damage to Lake Urmia.