The Latest from Iran (21 November): Let's Talk Nukes...And Nothing But Nukes

<

The initial aftermath of the raid by security forces on the offices of Iran newspaper, as they tried to detain Presidential advisor Ali Akbar Javanfekr --- full video now in our special analysis

See also Iran Feature: So What Happened When Security Forces Tried to Arrest the President's Senior Advisor?

---

1900 GMT: Things That Make You Go Ummm.... The President's office says Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has cancelled his tour to Kohgilouyeh and Boyer Ahmad Province in western Iran this weekend because of expected bad weather.

The official forecast for Kohgilouyeh and Boyer Ahmad Province on Friday is sunshine with a high temperature of 18 degrees Celsius (64 degrees Fahrenheit).

1850 GMT: More Tough Talk of the Day. Mojtaba Zolnour, the Supreme Leader's former liaison to the Revolutionary Guards, has said that if Syria is attacked, the Islamic Republic will support it as it does Lebanon's Hezbollah.

Zolnour added the assurance that the explosion at the Revolutionary Guards base on 12 November, which killed between 17 and 37 people, was not due to sabotage.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (16 November): Non-Appearances

A Green Movement poster opposing any military attack on Iran

See also Iran Analysis: Ahmadinejad --- A Phoenix Rising from the Ashes?
The Latest from Iran (15 November): After the Explosion

---

2100 GMT: The Explosion. Digarban goes back into the question of the death toll of Saturday's blast at the Revolutionary Guards base and --- contrary to the latest claim of the Guards of 17 deaths --- comes up with the names of 36 people who were killed.

The list is taken from accounts in IRNA, Fars, and Mehr.

2050 GMT: CrimeStoppers. MP Hosein Harati has declared that the Supreme Leader is the leader of the movement preventing crime in Iran.

If so, Ayatollah Khamenei has gone a big task --- Harati said that, in a country of 75 million people, there are 10 million criminal files.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (28 October): "Our Prisons Are Full"

1854 GMT: James Miller takes the liveblog.

Reuters is reporting that three separate explosions have rocked Iran's oil and gas industry, though the government is stating that they are unrelated:

The fatal incident at the oil field at Bibi Hakimeh near the Gulf occurred during drilling, when workers unexpectedly encountered an "enormous volume of unknown accumulated gas" in the layers of a reservoir, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported. Three people were injured.

Mehr also reported a separate blast at the Shazand oil refinery in central Iran, but the plant's managing director later told state radio the incident had been exaggerated.

"Nothing special has happened there. There was no fire at all," Majid Rajabi said. "The refinery is functioning normally."

The third blast happened on a 26-inch pipeline carrying gas to an oilfield in Gachsaran in south-western Iran later on Friday, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Even if the blasts turn out to be unrelated, in the direct sense, this will raise serious concerns about the safety of Iran's infrastructure, especially in light of the explosion at the Abadan refinery in May while Ahmadinejad was at the plant.

1810 GMT: Deviant Current Watch. Ali Rezaei, Friday Prayer leader in Birjand and a representative of the Supreme Leader, has said he did not participate in a provincial government meeting because members of the "deviant current" were present.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran: Tehran Embraces Occupy Wall Street

Iran Feature: "Persistent Punishment" --- Assessing the UN Report on Human Rights
Iran for Beginners: So What is This $2.8 Billion Bank Fraud?
The Latest from Iran (18 October): The Same Old Mahmoud

---

1432 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch. Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Reza Bahonar has said the motion to summon the President for questioning in Parliament will be examined next week.

1429 GMT: Economy Watch. Kalemeh reports on the continuing strike by cloth sellers in Tehran Bazaar, now in its third month.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (10 October): A Moment's Relief from House Arrest

0850 GMT: Eggs and the Economy. Nikahang Kowsar illustrates the current economic situation with the sharp increase in the price of eggs --- the chicken tells the pleading Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "You cannot have them":

Aftab, noting that the price of a single egg is now 300 tomans (about 25 cents), declares, "Soon you will show your children pictures and tell them: 'These are eggs!'"

0840 GMT: Iranian authorities have imposed a travel ban on director Nader Davoodi, preventing him from participating in the Beirut International Film Festival on Monday.

Davoodi was going to present Red, White and Green, his 2010 documentary about violence after the disputed 2009 Presidential election.

“The Lebanese censorship authorities told us Friday afternoon we would have to remove Iranian director Nader Davoodi’s film from our program, and then we were informed that he would not be able to travel,” said Colette Naufal, director of the Film Festival.

Naufal added that she was told that Iranian Kurdish filmmaker Ibrahim Al-Saaidi, director of Mandoo, will be unable attend the festival due to travel difficulties.

In June, Iranian director Hana Makhmalbaf's Green Days, which also dealt with post-election violence in Iran, was cancelled after Lebanese intelligence warned the organisers of the film festival against screening the film.

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (8 October): Declaring an Awakening

Mehdi Karroubi & His Granddaughter1920 GMT: Environment Watch. Minister of Energy Majid Namjoo has said basic studies for construction of a dam near Lake Urmia (Oroumiyeh) have been halted.

Activists have claimed that Iran's dams have contributed to the drying-up of Lake Urmia, which has lost more than half of its volume in recent years, but Namjoo said around 85% of problems in the lake's problems are from the "natural, inevitable phenomenon" of drought.

After widespread protests this summer over the situation, the Iranian Government finally agreed to allocate $900 million to measures to protect the lake, and Namjoo said recently that Iran had agreed with its northern neighbors to transfer water from its sector of the Araz River.

1910 GMT: Karroubi Watch. Radio Zamaneh sets out the story of the visit of opposition figure Mehdi Karroubi, held under strict house arrest since mid-February, with his son Hossein's family.

Hossein Karroubi wrote on his Facebook page that, while his family was celebrating his daughter’s entry into university, which coincided with Mehdi Karroubi’s birthday, six security officials brought his father to their home and allowed him to stay with the family for an hour.

Hossein Karroubi said his father’s morale was high but he appeared thinner. Mehdi Karrobui said he had lost weight from pacing up and down in the small apartment where he is being held.

Radio Zamaneh also posts an undated photograph of Mehdi Karroubi with his granddaughter (see inset picture).

Click to read more ...

Iran Letter: Fatemeh Karroubi Writes Head of Judiciary from Her House Arrest ---- "We Have Been Denied Basic Rights"

Mehdi and Fatemeh KarroubiDo you truly believe that you will find one rational human being on this planet who will confirm that [my husband Mehdi] Karroubi is at home rather than under imposed house arrest?  Will the silence by the judiciary not lead to a new trend in which security institutions will impose the costs associated with such house arrests on the shoulders of the families of those arrested? Is this type of behaviour worthy of the Islamic Republic? Although you are fully aware that this newly devised and ridiculous tactic will be recorded in history as such,  the family has nevertheless chosen to comply with your demands in order to protect the physical well-being of Mr. Karroubi.

Click to read more ...

WikiLeaks & Iran Special (June 2009): The Election Was "A Power Grab by Mojtaba Khamenei"

Ali and Mojtaba KhameneiLast week we featured a cable, released by WikiLeaks, in which Ayatollah Syed Salman Safavi --- four days after the disputed 2009 Presidential election --- told Western diplomats in London that a person "very close to the Supreme Leader...working in the Supreme Leader's office" had orchestrated the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Safavi's implication was that the Supreme Leader's son, Mojtaba Khamenei, even if he did not direct the manipulation, was fully supportive of it and that the operation was backed by the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mohammad Ali Jafari. Safavi further claimed that the IRGC had been split by the decision to rig the election in favour of Ahmadinejad, whom he said had the backing of only one senior cleric, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.

And now, in another cable from WikiLeaks, the other half of this intriguing tale....

Click to read more ...

Iran Feature: So What Would You Ask Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? (Sadjadpour and Milani)

There is evidence that your chief adviser, [Esfandiar] Rahim Mashai, helped secure loans for the leading suspect in a $2.6 billion bank fraud case, the largest embezzlement scandal in Iranian history. You came to office vowing to “cut off the hands” of the corrupt; how will you deal with Mashai?

Your opponents in 2009, Mir Hossein Mousavi, 69, and Mehdi Karroubi, 73, have been held incommunicado for nearly a year. On what basis are they confined? If they have no influence, as you have said, why are they under house arrest?

Click to read more ...

The Latest from Iran (17 September): Re-Visiting the 2009 Election

See also Iran Feature: Is Civil Disobedience Taking Off?
WikiLeaks & Iran Special (June 2009): Brother of Supreme Leader's Military Advisor "The Election Was a Political Coup"

---

2045 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Iranian authorities have freed Vahik Abramian, a Dutch-Iranian national detained for a year for "spreading the Christian faith". He is now back in the Netherlands.

1700 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Kurdish student activists Mehdi Dohago, Milad Karimi and Soran Daneshvar --- have been arrested in Sanandaj in northwestern Iran.

Click to read more ...