Iran Live: Proper Line on the Election "We Will Foil Enemy Plots"

2005 GMT: Cyber-Watch. The website of State news agency IRNA is down, apparently because of an attack by hacktivists.

1555 GMT: Earthquake. A tremor measuring 6.1 on the Richter scale has struck the town of Kaki, 90 kilometres (56 miles) southeast of the southern Iranian city of Bushehr, killing at least 30 people and injuring more than 600.

The quake was followed by at least four aftershocks which jolted Kaki and the nearby city of Khour-Mowj.

The Russian company that has constructed the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, 18 kilometres (11 miles) south of Bushehr, said the earthquake has not affected the operations in the facility.

1545 GMT: Cyber-Watch. A claim is circulating that Minister of Information Hassan Nami has announced an Islamic version of Google Earth called "Basir".

0622 GMT: Chest-Thumping of the Day. The US Navy is telling journalists that it is preparing to deploy an experimental laser weapon in the Persian Gulf.

Admiral Jonathan Greenert, the Chief of Naval Operations, said the $40 million aboard the USS Ponce, an amphibious assault ship, can be used to deter small Iranian boats from attacking American warships.

While still in development, the laser system has succeeded in destroying all 12 of its drone and small boat targets in testing, officials said. The Navy released a video of the laser weapon setting an aerial drone aflame and forcing it to crash into the water.

The Laser Weapon System uses directed energy to disable sensors or burn holes through a plane or ship. Because of its limited range, the weapon cannot target incoming missiles or jets.

0610 GMT: Nuclear Watch. IRNA, close to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reports that the President was present this morning at the opening of two uranium mines as part of National Nuclear Technology Day.

The mines are in Saghand in Yazd Province in central Iran (see map). According to IRNA, uranium is extracted from a depth of 350 metres, after which it is transferred to a processing facility to make yellowcake, a uranium powder consisting of 70-90% uranium oxide.

The ceremony comes three days after the deadlocked nuclear talks with the 5+1 Powers in Kazakhstan. The 5+1 has asked Iran to suspend enrichment of uranium, but the Islamic Republic has stressed that its nuclear programme in general and enrichment in particular are its "inalienable national right".

Iran said it has been developing the Saghand mines back in 2003, when then-President Mohammad Khatami announced the project, following a 1994 survey by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. In November 2004, Iran provided information on the mine to the International Atomic Energy Agency, who later verified that the mines' infrastructure was complete.

It is impossible to determine whether the Saghand mines really went on-line on Tuesday or whether the announcement was merely a media event.

0410 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Joanna Paraszczuk writes....

In his first press conference after the New Year holiday, Attorney General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i said that a date for the trial of Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former president Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, will be announced soon.

Hashemi is accused of financial and electoral manipulation around the disputed Presidential ballot and the protests that followed.

Judge Nasser Seraj has been selected to preside over the case, Eje'i explained.

Seraj also presided over the trial of more than 30 defendants in Iran's biggest embezzlement case, the $2.6 billion bank fraud exposed in autumn 2011.

Eje'i also responded to reporters' questions about the death sentences imposed on four men in that case. Iran's Supreme Court upheld the punishments in February, but Eje'i said a date has not yet been set for the executions.

0355 GMT: Election Watch. Yesterday we focused in Live Coverage and an analysis on the growing complications over June's Presidential election, with the Supreme Leader's 2+1 Committee apparently failing to get agreement on a "unity" candidate. We noted in particular the formation of an alternative coaltion by five leading politicians, including four Presidential hopefuls.

This story of tension, however, is not one that the Islamic Republic wants to project to the outside world. So Fars English turns the creation of the "Followers of Imam's Line and Leadership Front" into a very different story, profiling an appearance by one of the five founding members:

Iranian people will foil enemies' plots against the country through their massive participation in the June presidential voting, presidential hopeful Manouchehr Mottaki said.

"The Iranian people will certainly respond to the West's prating at the ballot boxes," Mottaki, a former foreign minister, said in Karaj city, near Tehran, on Monday.

"Certainly, this year the Iranian nation will give a bigger and more meaningful lesson to foreign enemies and internal ill-wishers through their massive and wise participation in the election," he added....

His remarks came after Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei laid emphasis on the crucial importance of political and economic developments in the Persian New Year, and said the Iranian people will display an epic presence in both fields this year.

But what about the possible challenge to Ayatollah Khamenei and his 2+1 Committee? Fars makes no reference, saying only that Mottaki is "now affiliated with the conservative camp".