The Latest from Iran (23 April): "We Were First"

1730 GMT: A Matter of Intelligence. Ali Akbar Javenfekr, the managing director of the State news agency IRNA, has effectively apologised for his newspaper's handling of the Supreme Leader's message to the people of Shiraz, saying that IRNA "devoted its efforts to the goals of revolutionary ideals and the Islamic system".

IRNA had altered the official release from the Supreme Leader's office, omitting Ayatollah Khamenei's support for the Ministry of Intelligence and implicit slap-down of President Ahmadinejad and his advisors for trying to force out the head of the Ministry, Heydar Moslehi. Khamenei's office then told media not to rely on reports from IRNA.

While apologising, Javanfekr made no reference to the Moslehi affair.

Meanwhile, the conservative stie Alef has removed its story about President Ahmadinejad's refusal to work with Moslehi.

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The Latest from Iran (20 April): Ahmadinejad's Powers of Intelligence?

2140 GMT: Ahwaz Watch. Most Iranian media may be avoiding any reference to clashes in Khuzestan Province in southwestern Iran, which activists claim have killed up to 15 people, but the conservative site Tabnak has made an indirect but blunt approach....

Tabnak, linked to Secretary of the Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei, has written that militant Wahhabi groups are being supported by Gulf states to foment separatist unrest in the region and that the British are encouraging this.

Tabnak claims that the "British Ahwazi Friendship Society", a group claiming to promote Ahwazi Arab culture, is co-ordinator of the Wahhabi separatists of the "Arab People's Front".

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