The Latest from Iran (31 December): Where are the Reformists for the Elections?

Mohammad Ali Kouzegar1330 GMT: Ahmadinejad Watch (Elections Edition). Tabnak reports that President Ahmadinejad has begun campaign meetings with his team including senior advisors Ali Akbar Javanfekr, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi,and Abbas Amirifar; son-in-law Mehdi Khorshidi, and son Alireza Ahmadinejad. A new oraganisation, Supporters of Government Front, has been created.

Speaking to supporters yesterday, Ahmadinejad reportedly said, "Even if the pressures on the Government increase, the Government will not resign and back down. I have many things about the next election that I will say in the next few weeks.”

Meanwhile, others have started mobilising against Ahmadinejad. The Supreme Leader's advisor Ali Akbar Velayati, in his speech to supporters (see 0735 GMT), advised principlists, “Based on the importance of election and the international pressures on Iran, unity among the people in charge and the principlists is necessary." He said those who were silent toward the deviant and seditious currents --- read Ahmadinejad's camp and unrepentant reformists --- "are not part of our list".

Alireza Zakani, another senior figure in the Unity Front, claimed that Ahmadinejad's team was already putting out lots of money: "The deviant current for the victory of each of its candidates has spend 1-3 billion Tomans (about $650,000 to $2 million).”

Seyed Solat Mortazavi, the head of Iran's Election Organisation, asked Zakani to present his evidence to the Ministry of Interior.

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The Latest from Iran (13 December): Shoes Are Thrown at the President

2140 GMT: Parliament Watch. Speaking at Tehran University today, MP Ali Motahari, a vocal critic of the Ahmadinejad administration, has criticised the crackdown on students after the 2009 Presidential election. Considering why the repression occurred and why it continues, he said that there is an atmosphere of "fear and terror" in the Iranian Parliament because of the actions of some legislators.

2135 GMT: Sanctions Watch. The executive board of Nokia Siemens Networks has said that it will not take on any new business in Iran and will gradually reduce its existing commitments from 1 January 2012.

The Finnish company said in a letter to its staff in Iran that the decision was taken because US-led sanctions "make it almost impossible for Nokia Siemens Networks to do business with Iranian customers".

Nokia Siemens has been criticised for providing telecommunications equipment allowing the Iranian regime to maintain surveillance of protesters after the 2009 Presidential election.

2100 GMT: Economy Watch. Former Minister of Labor Hossein Kamali has claimed that more than 50% of Iran's workers now live below the poverty line.

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The Latest from Iran (23 November): Noticing Human Rights

See also Iran Special Analysis: The Security Forces Cross Ahmadinejad's "Red Line"
The Latest from Iran (22 November): The Security Forces v. Ahmadinejad's Senior Advisor

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Political Prisoners in Iran2020 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Student activist Rojin Mohammadi, studying medicine at the University of Manila, has been arrested at the airport on her return to Iran.

1955 GMT: Tough Talk of the Day. The Supreme Leader's military advisor, General Yahya Rahim Safavi, assures, "The IRGC [Revolutionary Guards] control the identity and destination of every US warship which intends to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. "And Americans fully respond to the IRGC's telecommunications center with complete answers."

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An estimated 40% of the world's oil supply passes through the Straits of Hormuz, at the entrance to the Persian Gulf.

Rahim Safavi also said that air defences protecting Israel were "inefficient" against Iran's arsenal: "“These missile shields which they have deployed in Turkey, occupied Palestine, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates cannot hit all our missiles. They may hit some of our missiles, but the number of our missiles is so large that they will not be able to target our missiles."

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The Latest from Iran (17 November): The Regime Mobilises...for Occupy Wall Street

2118 GMT: Rumour of the Day. The hard-line Raja News claims that the President cancelled his attendance of the meeting of gas-exporting countries in Doha at the last minute because of Qatar's support for the suspension of Syria from the Arab League.

2115 GMT: Bank Fraud Watch. According to the "hard-line" Arya News, MP Mahmoud Ahmadi-Bighash has asked the judiciary to publish the names of 10 legislators involved in the $2.6 billion bank fraud.

2105 GMT: Press Watch. Rah-e Sabz reports that Parliament has banned critical journalists from covering its proceedings.

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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

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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.

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The Latest from Iran (1 November): Ministers, MPs, and the Bank Fraud

President Ahmadinejad arrives at Parliament today during the interrogation of Minister of Economy Shamseddin Hosseini

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2015 GMT: Oops. Thomas Erdbrink picks up on a possible mis-step by President Ahmadinejad --- defending his Minister of Economy against possible impeachment, he admitted the effect of US-lead sanctions.

Ahmadinejad, amidst allegations in the $2.6 billion bank fraud, said, “Our banks cannot make international transactions anymore."

Iranian officials have consistently claimed that the sanctions are only hurting the US and its allies and that Iran's economy is strengthening despite the measures.

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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.

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The Latest from Iran (20 September): Ahmadinejad's Warm-Up Act

See also Iran Feature: So What Would You Ask Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Iran Interview: Azerbaijani Activist Fakhteh Zamani Explains the Lake Urmia Protests

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Basij commander Mohammad-Reza Naqdi1720 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. So why did Iranian authorities arrest six filmmakers on the allegation that they worked for BBC Persian (see Monday's LiveBlog)? Here's a clue....

One of the six, Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, was already being targeted: he was barred less than two weeks ago from travelling to the Toronto International Film Festival to screen the documentary This Is Not a Film, about a day in fellow Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s life. Mirtahmasb's offence was to work with Panahi, who has been sentenced to six years and a 20-year ban on filmmaking for supposed activities against the State, on the project.

BBC Persian has said that it has done no more than purchase the rights to documentaries and other projects of the six filmmakers and that it has never employed any of them.

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The Latest from Iran (26 August): The Show on Quds Day

Past Quds Day rally, undated

2032 GMT: During his Quds day speech, Sadroddin Shariati, head of Allameh Tabatabaei University, said that, "today we have to [follow] the [Supreme Leader] because the scale of our lives and our beliefs has to be matched with the scale which is determined by the leader."

As several readers have pointed out, we're still waiting for some pictures from Tehran that would really show the "scale" of this leadership.

1900 GMT: Khatoon Special - According to Mohammad-Reza Bahonar, current deputy speaker of the Majilis, Iran's Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini stated that Bahonar has no power to confront the Khatoon contraversy. Hosseini fired back, denying those claims and cautioning that Bahonar should not talk in Hoseini's place.

1849 GMT: Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, the head of the Audit Office, has confirmed that the Tehran government is guilty of $11 million dollars in fraud, according to the now-blocked-in-Iran Ayande News. Pour-Mohammadi said that much of the misappropriation of funds was committed under previous governments, but insinuated that the fraud is ongoing.

1656 GMT: Ayande News is being filtered in Iran. They are also denying that this news is related to a story about Hossein Ansarian and Mousa Sadr. Preacher Hossein Ansarian had recently apologized to the people for the failed promises of the revolution.

1650 GMT: The Iranian state-run news agency, Press TV, provides this coverage of today's rallies, complete with chants of "death of Israel, death to America," and the claims (disputed by the Associated Press) that millions marched today:

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The Latest from Iran (23 August): Worried About Libya?

1950 GMT: Economy Watch. More on the attack on the Government's economic management by leading MP Ahmad Tavakoli (see 1410 GMT)....

Tavakoli, singling out Minister of Economy minister Shamseddin Hosseini for not appearing in Parliament, said huge embezzlements have been committed by government financial groups at the expense of the deprived. He asked, "Why have some received huge credits to establish banks during [Iran's] economic stagnation?"

1800 GMT: Unity Watch. Conservative website Khabar Online claims that conservative faction Islamic Constancy Front is falling apart only a month after its launch, deserted by former Minister of Interior and tycoon Sadegh Mahsouli.

In recent days, the Constancy Front has been embroiled in verbal battles with other conservative/principlist groups set up to promote "unity" before the 2012 Parliamentary elections.

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