The Latest from Iran (25 May): Oil and Politics

The funeral of legendary footballer and manager Nasser Hejazi in Azadi Stadium, Tehran (see 0750 and 1625 GMT)

2035 GMT: The Fire at the Refinery. Ebrahim Nabavi, reviewing yesterday's blaze at the Abadan oil refinery, notes that President Ahmadinejad ordered widespread purges in the National Iranian Oil Company and Oil Ministry during the past two years.

Meanwhile, the NIOC has denied that the refinery was opened too early, leading to errors in construction.

2025 GMT: Football and Politics. Mardomak reports clashes at the funeral of revered footballer Nasser Hejazi (see 0750 and 1625 GMT), with at least 15 people arrested.

The site also posts claimed video of women at the funeral.

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The Latest from Iran (24 May): Ahmadinejad's Son-in-Law v. Ahmadinejad's Advisors

2015 GMT: Human Rights Watch. Seyed Mohammad Marandi of Tehran University explains why Iranian officials are declaring that they will imposed sanctions on named US individuals, including former military commanders and Administration officials: "The United States and its allies, including certain EU members, are violating human rights more than any other country in the world."

2005 GMT: Election Watch. Minister of Interior Mostafa Mohammad Najjar has given an assurance that the Government will not interfere in the 2012 Parliamentary elections.

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Iran Latest: An Oil Refinery Burns During Ahmadinejad's Visit (Erdbrink)

A deadly blast during the inauguration of a major oil refinery by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad killed 2 and injured 20, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported Tuesday.

Authorities ruled out any form of sabotage and instead spoke of an industrial incident caused by a gas leak at the Abadan oil refinery, one of the largest and oldest industrial complexes in Iran.

According to Mehr, a ‘testing machine’ exploded almost directly after it was placed in the area where Ahmadinejad was preparing to give a speech.

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The Latest from Iran (23 May): The Net Closes on Ahmadinejad's Inner Circle

1530 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Mousavi campaign activist Reza Safavi has been arrested in a raid of his home by six agents, with his computer and other items confiscated.

1515 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch (cont.). More on the unusual interview in which the President's son-in-law tears apart the President's advisors....

Mehdi Khorshidi says that the leader of "deviant group" --- presumably Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai --- never studied theology but dares to comment on religious matters. Indeed, Rahim-Mashai is so arrogant that he challenges Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, who is esteemed by the Supreme Leader and has 30 years of experience.

Khorshidi continues that Rahim-Mashai has endeavoured to sabotage and eliminate useful people around Ahmadinejad, replacing them with his cronies.

And Khorshidi's reference to the "deviant group" splashing out money on "problematic" people such as actors? Well, in January, Hojatoleslam Mohammad-Taqi Rahbar, the head of the clerical faction in Parliament, noted Rahim-Mashai’s meeting with an Iranian actress, Hedyeh Tehrani, at the Presidential office:

Anyone with a bit of Principlist zeal will not approve of the lowly acts of the Head of the Presidential office. All Principlists especially the President’s true supporters are ashamed that such a character is running the office of the president.....I don’t know what an actress’s [photograph] exhibition has to do with the head of the presidential office that he has to fund it with $80,000 from the Treasury. These loans are handed out by him [Mashai] at a time when many farmers are struggling with repeated droughts and are starving. Yet the government refuses to give them a $1,000 loan.

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Iran Shocker Update: Brave Scientist Challenges Ahmadinejad on "The West is Plotting Droughts"

On Friday, we featured President Ahmadinejad's declaration, in a speech opening a dam, that "Western countries are plotting to generate drought in some areas of the world, including Iran".

Well, it appears that Ahmadinejad is getting some unexpected resistance to his revelation. It is coming not from the evil scientists of the West, but from one of his experts.

"There is no scientific confirmation for the claim that a country makes enormous efforts and spends resources on specific technologies to destroy clouds to prevent rain in other countries,"according to University of Tehran professor Esmail Kahrom.

Ahmadinejad claimed European countries were using special equipment to prevent the rain clouds from reaching Iran, but Kahrom noted distance of 5,000 to 6,000 kilometers (3100 to 3700 miles): "In this case, from a scientific point of view, such activity is impossible."

Instead of looking at devious Western plots, Kahrom suggested that the emphasis on the current drought --- last year the rainfall in Iran was 79% less than the average since 1968 --- should be elsewhere: "To survive these dry years, it is necessary to use water sparingly, stop wastage by using modern means," said Kahrom.

So far, we have no news that Kahrom has been detained for his subversive remarks.

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).

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The Latest from Iran (20 May): From the Ridiculous to the Sublime

Nasrin Sotoudeh2045 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Earlier today we noted an interview of leading principlist MP Ahmad Tavakoli in which he said, "[Opposition figure Mir Hossein] Mousavi could mobilise the social base against [Ayatollah] Khamenei, Ahmadinejad couldn't even if he wanted to."

That was only a fragment --- and, indeed, a misleading fragment --- of an important statement which points to the dilemma for Ahmadinejad's critics: do they push the President from power or do they accept that he will complete the last two years of his term? And what happens in 2013?

Tavakoli's interview because with the current conflict, as he notes Ahmadinejad's recent move on the Ministry of Intelligence and attempt to merge Ministers without informing legislators: "The Parliament's patience with the president is coming to an end."

Yet, when pressed what Parliament might do --- the interviewer suggests that Tavakoli's criticism can be qualified because "he is said to oppose everything" --- the MP offers a telling admission: he voted for Ahmadinejad's re-election in June 2009 not because he liked the President but "out of expediency" to shut off the reformist threat.

Tavakoli continues that Mousavi, if he won the Presidency, could challenge Supreme Leader with a well-established social base. So the vote for Ahmadinejad was loyalty to Ayatollah Khamenei as a necessary pillar of the Revolution.

An EA conservative jumps in with an interpretation, "So Tavakoli points to the long-term problem that no conservative can attract the millions of votes that Ahmadinejad has in 2005 and 2009. There is no clear alternative to the President."

My own addition --- that is certainly true if the Ahmadinejad of 2011 is seen in the same light as the Ahmadinejad of 2009. But what if the President, with his recent actions, has now become the threat to the Supreme Leader that Tavakoli feared at the last election?

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Iran Analysis: Guardian Council Smacks Down Ahmadinejad over Oil Ministry

I returned from an academic break just now to get a question from a journalist, "The Guardian Council have just said that President Ahmadinejad cannot be Minister of Oil. Is this significant?"

Yes, yes, and most definitely yes.

First, the news. The Guardian Council, which rules on disputed issues between the Iranian branches of government has declared that Ahmadinejad committed a "constitutional violation" when he named himself caretaker Minister of Oil last weekend.

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Iran Shocker: Ahmadinejad "The West is Plotting for Droughts"

The Press TV summary is straightforward: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says that Western countries are plotting to generate drought in some areas of the world, including Iran."

Of course, the President, speaking on Thursday in central Iran, had masses of scientific evidence to back up this claim, “According to reports about climate, whose authenticity has been verified, the European countries have used certain equipment to discharge clouds and prevent rain-bearing clouds from reaching regional countries such as Iran.” 

Ahmadinejad explained that Tehran would pursue the matter through its legal authorities, but he was very pessimistic about a resolution: "I believe that the war of the future will be the war over water.” 

This is not the first time that Iranian officials have discovered dastardly Western measures to unsettle Iran's climate, to the point of disaster. For years they have claimed that earthquakes have been caused by the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) of the US military and the University of Alaska. The Americans says HAARP is for reseach of the ionosphere, but Tehran knows that it is a super-weapon.

And of course, there is the super-super-weapon of Western women's chests. In April 2001, Tehran Friday Prayer Leader Kazem Seddiqi revealed to the audience, ""Many women who do not dress modestly lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes."

The Latest from Iran (19 May): An Ahmadinejad Albatross Named Rahim-Mashai

1540 GMT: The President's Right-Hand Man. Another shot at Presidential Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai....

The weekly Ya Lesarat Al-Hossein quotes a student of Ahmadinejad’s mentor, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi: “Mashai is a freemason and should be arrested.”

Qasem Ravanbakhsh added that the contents of the president’s public speeches prove he has been heavily influenced by Mashai’s ideas.

The head of the conservative Society of Islamic Republic Martyrs, Hossein Fadai, accused the “deviant current” in the government of trying to foster relations with the US and foreign intelligence services (see 0500 GMT).

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