In 1984, Rahim-Mashai joined the Intelligence Ministry in Kurdistan, where he met Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then governor of the northwestern city of Khoy. The two men developed a close friendship that has endured almost three decades.
1452 GMT: Three Kuwaiti soldiers, two Iranians and one Kuwaiti national, have been sentenced to death for spying for the Iranian regime. The three soldiers, and several other civilians, were arrested in May 2010 and accused of passing information about Kuwaiti and U.S. military operations to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Two civilians, a Syrian and another Arab, were given life sentences, and two Iranians were aquitted.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehman Parast, has denied any Iranian involvement with a spy network in Kuwait.
1444 GMT: Human Rights - Mohsen Dogmechi, political prisoner incarcerated at Rajai Shahr prison, has died from cancer and "lack of medical care. According to A Street Journalist, Dogmechi was refused medical help despite the urging of several doctors that Dogmechi be transferred to a hospital for chemotherapy.
1434 GMT: Bahrain's opposition leader, Sheikh Ali Salman, sends a clear message to the Iranian regime today. "We urge Iran not to meddle in Bahraini internal affairs."
1415 GMT: James Miller reports for duty, and finds many interesting developments in Iran.
GVF is reporting that Mir Esmail Mousavi, father of Presidential Candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, has died after a long illness. He was 97.
This is a death that will likely have political repercussions. Mir Hossein Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rashnavard have been held under house arrest since February 14, without formal charges, and was not at his fathers side during his death. It is also unknown whether or not the Iranian security forces will allow Mousavi or his wife to attend funeral services.
2030 GMT: Cartoon of the Day (Iran-Syria Special). Maya Nayestani depicts a special message from Tehran to Damascus, a woman explaining to her friend, "He is sending a smoke signal to Bashar al-Assad":
2015 GMT: The House Arrests. Kalemeh updates on the house arrest/detention of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard....
1800 GMT: Economy Watch. Prominent economist Saeed Leylaz has declared that the main problem of the Iranian economy is domestic mismanagement rather than foreign sanctions, adding that smuggling is $20 billion per year.
1755 GMT: Labour Front. Claimed video of a strike on 19 March at the Bandar Imam Petrochemical Complex in Mahshahr in southwestern Iran:
The son of the former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani is being investigated by Oxford University after claims that his successful doctoral thesis proposal was written with the help of others.
Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former head of Iran's state-owned gas company, began a five-year DPhil course in the Iranian constitution at the faculty of oriental studies in October.
1525 GMT: Back to the Regime Party. Iranian media have released pictures of regional Presidents being treated by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Nowruz festivities. Not sure it's a 100% success, however --- Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai appears to be sleeping through the entertainment.
Better news for Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammadov --- Ahmadinejad gave him a two-seater LSA airplane worth $130,000.
Last week, Berdimuhammadov sent a thousand tons of flour to Iran for Nowruz.
1700 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has thrown another jab at the Government in his website message for the New Year: "We unfortunately witness the pursuing of indecent methods by those in charge, such as making lies and giving empty slogans to the people....The Iranian people are educated and well-informed and neither deserve lies nor promises which are impossible to be implemented....Those in charge should listen to criticism, and either convince the critics through logic or correct their policies.
Rafsanjani, who lost his post as head of the Assembly of Experts this month, even had a poke at the post-election repression: "What we should, however, definitely not do as Muslims is acting beyond ethics and eventually expose an Islamic society as disgrace."
1640 GMT: The Battle Within. Promient MP Hojatoleslam Hossein Sobhani-Nia has declared that the further the Government goes, the more dissent there is within the camp of the hardliners.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 7:55 | Scott Lucas in EA Iran, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
Feb 2009: Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa and Manouchehr Mottaki In the context of the Bahraini regime's claims that Tehran is behind the wave of protests that started 14 February, Western media's depictions of a US concern with Iranian intervention, and Tehran's propaganda campaign highlighting Bahrain, this August 2008 cable for the US Embassy in Manama takes on significance.
Those who have noted the WikiLeaks document, from WikiLeaks, have seized on the Embassy's observation: "Bahraini government officials sometimes privately tell U.S. official visitors that some Shi'a oppositionists are backed by Iran. Each time this claim is raised, we ask the GOB to share its evidence. To date, we have seen no convincing evidence of Iranian weapons or government money here since at least the mid-1990s."
Yet the wider setting for Bahraini-Iranian relations deserves at least as much recognition: here are two regimes that are not necessarily enemies, but are willing to use each other as the "threat" for domestic consumption: "Bahrain's Sunni rulers view Iran with deep suspicion, and support USG efforts to pressure Iran to change its behavior. But the Al-Khalifas also seek to keep channels open, and make occasional gestures to placate their large, touchy neighbor."
2020 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The chair of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, former MP, and university professor Mohsen Mirdamadi has been released on bail.
1120 GMT: A Death at the Fire Festival. A close friend of university student Behnoud Ramezani describes the 19 year-old's death at the hands of security forces a week ago during the celebration of Chahrshanbeh Suri.
1905 GMT: Claimed video from Shiraz of people welcoming in Iranian New Year with political slogans such as "Death to Dictator":
