The Latest from Iran (18 October): The Mysterious Sliding Currency
Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 7:09
1405 GMT: Tough Talk of the Day. The Associated Press has picked up the latest chest-thumping, courtesy of Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Salami:
An attack by the Zionist regime would be an opportunity to destroy that regime. Their defense mechanism is not planned for big and long wars. Their threats are only psychological and if they cross the limit or act upon those threats, (Israel) will definitely be destroyed.
1335 GMT: Only 10 of 40 brick factories in Varamin Province are open after subsidy cuts. About 2500 employees have been dismissed, with only 500 still working.
1300 GMT: Press Watch. Ayatollah Alemi has praised Fars News for its "good spreading of learning and reporting of the truth". Ayatollah Alamolhoda, the Friday Prayer leader of Mashhad, echoes, "Fars News is the bastion of the nezam (system) against the soft war of the enemy."
1240 GMT: Tough Posture of the Day. The Basij militia has begun three days of manoeuvres in Tehran, named "To Jerusalem", to "present the Islamic Republic's military power against the threats of the West".
Mehr has posted a series of photographs:
1040 GMT: Economy Watch. The head of the Housing and Building Association has asserted that prices, from dairy products to construction materials, have risen 10-15% in the last 20 days as the Rial has fallen in value.
1030 GMT: Food Watch. Mohammad Bagher Noubakht of the Center of Strategic Studies has asserted that self-sufficiency in food supply has fallen from 75% to 55%.
0828 GMT: Currency Watch. Etedaal claims that staffs at official exchanges are sitting in their offices, refusing to trade because rates are not clear.
0824 GMT: Foreign Affairs Watch (Syrian Front). At a press conference in Kuwait, President Ahmadinejad has supported United Nations envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's call for a cease-fire over an upcoming Muslim holiday.
0816 GMT: Protest Watch. For the second time in a week, families of Death Row prisoners have gathered in front of the Supreme Leader's home, demanding that sentences be commuted.
0808 GMT: Media Watch. The Iranian counter-attack --- at least in rhetoric --- against Eutelsat's suspension of 19 Iranian State TV channels continues: Mohammad Hassan Asfari of Parliament's National Security Committe has asked the Ministry of Culture to cancel the permits for European news agencies, especially those based in France.
Earlier in the week some MPs had called for the revocation of the licence of the Tehran bureau of Agence France Presse.
Meanwhile, MP Bijan Noubaveh of the Culture Committee has said that 60 MPs have signed an urgent plan to give the Ministry of Culture $10 billion to confront media sanctions.
Noubaveh said the Ministry of Culture must launch news agencies, especially in the "West", for institutions demanding justice and freedom.
0619 GMT: Conspiracy Watch. Iranian-American Mansour Arbabsiar unexpectedly pled guilty in a Manhattan court on Wednesday to charges of plotting to kill the Saudi Ambassador to the US.
Arbabsiar was arrested last autumn. US authorities claiming that, acting on behalf of the Revolutionary Guards, he approached a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the assassination. American agencies supposedly tracked the plan through a Drug Enforcement Administration informer posing as an associate of the cartel.
The defendant will be sentenced on 23 January 2013.
0610 GMT: It is now more than two weeks since authorities tried to suspending reporting of the open-market rate for the Iranian Rial, after the currency lost almost 70% in value in September. Leading currency websites such as Mesghal and Mazanex are still void of numbers, not only for the Rial but also for the price of gold.
Gradually, however, Iranian sites have defied the ban to post reports, not only of the scarcity of transactions at the Central Bank's imposed rate of 28500 Rials to the US dollar but of the "real" situation on the street. Fars, Rah-e Sabz, and Baztab have indicated in recent days that the Iranian currency continues to slip when US dollars are sold. Today Aftab posts a rate, in light with that of the other two sites, of 40000 Rials to the dollar.
Reader Comments