The Latest from Iran (29 September): The Forthcoming Test?

NEW Iran’s Nuclear Programme: Obama Backs Himself into a Corner
UPDATED Iran: So What’s This “National Unity Plan”?
NEW Latest Iran Video: More University Demonstrations (29 September)
UPDATED Iran’s Nuclear Programme: Scott Lucas in La Stampa (English Text)
NEW Text: Mousavi Statement to His Followers (28 September)
NEW What is Iran’s Military Capacity?
The Latest from Iran (28 September): Signals of Power
Latest Iran Video: The Universities Protest (28 September)

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2100 GMT: We have posted an emergency update of our story on the National Unity Plan. To be blunt, this has turned into a giant mystery which we can lay out but not solve this evening, and there are likely to be further developments (even though it is early morning in Tehran) for our first update on Wednesday.

1700 GMT: We've split off our snap analysis updates on the National Unity Plan into a separate entry.

1545 GMT: A steady stream of reports indicate there are smaller but still significant gatherings of demonstrators in Tehran today. This is in addition to the sizable protest at Sharif University.

1455 GMT: Fars News have just published a copy of the National Unity Plan. We'll be back within the hour with an analysis.

1430 GMT: Back from a teaching break to find tension growing over the privatisation of Iran's state telecommunications company, with 51 percent going to a consortium linked to the Revolutionary Guard. It is reported that the Telecommunications Trade Council will review the deal, with the possibility of cancelling it because of concerns over a "monopoly".

1100 GMT: I sense a debate emerging, given our readers' comments, over the latest move of Mehdi Karroubi with his letter to Hashemi Rafsanjani. Tehran Bureau takes the line that this is a Karroubi criticism, rather than a plan worked out with the former President:

1) Karroubi criticises Rafsanjani for his failure to launch an investigation into the election during his chairmanship of the Assembly of Experts session;

2) Karroubi criticises Rafsanjani for being absent during the final meeting, with its declaration praising the Supreme Leader and framing the events after the election as riots and a conspiracy;

3) Karroubi criticizes Rafsanjani for not asking the Assembly to investigate how the military is taking control of the economy, as in the recent purchase of a 51% share in Iran's state telecommunications firm;

4) Karroubi criticizes Rafsanjani for not calling on the Assembly to review Iran's foreign policy.

0930 GMT: We've just posted video from today's demonstration at Sharif University. It is reported that Minister of Science Kamran Daneshjoo was prevented from reaching the Central Library.

0905 GMT: Tabnak reports that Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has distanced himself from his brother Mohammad Javad Larijani, a high-level official in the Judiciary, after the latter's criticism of Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson Hassan, Mir Hossein Mousavi, and Mohammad Khatami.

0900 GMT: It Wasn't Just Tehran. An account has been posted of University demonstrations on Monday in Shiraz.

0835 GMT: President candidate Mohsen Rezaei has made a significant intervention with a call for a "national election commission independent of the three branches of Government".

Rezaei's proposal, building upon earlier criticism of the Guardian Council for its handling of the Presidential vote, presents a political challenge to President Ahmadinejad moving beyond a simple "reform" of the system. His interview with Ayande News is the closest he has come to alleging electoral fraud, and he is critical of a number of individuals.

0740 GMT: We've posted the English translation of Mir Hossein Mousavi's Monday statement to his followers: "Qods Day showed that [our] network is like a toddler who is growing incredibly quickly."

0725 GMT: Parleman News has now posted a summary report of yesterday's student demonstrations.

0715 GMT: Fars News tries to pour cold water on the Rafsanjani plan for a political settlement, featuring the comments of a "hard-line" member of Parliament, Ranjbarzadeh, that the plan is unacceptable because it gives concessions to the losers of the election.

0625 GMT: Iran's Nuclear Offer. The head of Iran's nuclear programme, Ali Akhbar Salehi, has laid out Tehran's line in an interview with Press TV. Iran "will soon inform the International Atomic Energy Agency of a timetable for inspection". The plant will produce enriched uranium of up to 5 percent, consistent with a civilian nuclear energy programme, and it is being constructed within the framework of the IAEA regulations. Salehi emphasised, "It is against our tenets, it is against our religion to produce, use, hold or have nuclear weapons or arsenal. How can we more clearly state our position? Since 1974 we have been saying this."

It is 48 hours until Iran's meeting with the "5+1" powers in Geneva.

0555 GMT: Karroubi's second letter to Rafsanjani (0535 GMT) takes on a added sense of urgency because of the Government's decimation of  websites connected with Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi. The Etemade Melli/Saham News site, the Kalemeh site (which had replaced Mousavi's hacked Ghalam News site), and Tagheer are all down. Mowj-e-Sabz, however, is still up, featuring Mousavi's latest statement cautioning the movement against violence.

0535 GMT: A couple of interesting shifts within the Establishment. The long-anticipated change at the head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting has been made, with Ezatullah Zarghami replaced by Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli. What is more interesting is the framing of the move, with Zarghami blamed for "the poor performance of the IRIB" during and after the election. Meanwhile, Fazli is portrayed as an ally of the Larijani brothers and a critic of President Ahmadinejad.

Contrary to our update yesterday, university classes have not been suspended for seven days because of "swine flu" (or Monday's demonstrations). The headline in Mehr exaggerated the story, which was simply that provisions were in place to order a suspension if fears of flu arose. Still, the

But the most important development by far came from the opposition. While Mir Hossein Mousavi, considering his next move, tried to reassure his followers that Qods Days was a success, Mehdi Karroubi may have taken the bull by the horns (or, in this case, the shark by the gills). His second letter to Hashemi Rafsanjani was not quite, "Are you with us or against us?", but it has asked the former President to come forth on the plan circulated at the Assembly of Experts. Put bluntly, Karroubi wants to know if the rumoured "political resolution" will take heed of opposition demands or sell out the protestors.

The Latest from Iran (28 September): Signals of Power

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Latest Iran Video: The Universities Protest (28 September)
NEW Translating Iran: The New Site for Latest Documents

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The Latest from Iran (27 September): Is There a Compromise Brewing?

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1940 GMT: Pedestrian offers some additional information on the events at the University of Tehran today. Contrary to our earlier report (0940 GMT), Minister of Science and Technology Kamran Daneshjoo was present. However, as Pedestrian notes from photos of the gathering, the crowd was sparse with almost no students in the audience.

1640 GMT: Getting Serious with Law-Breakers. Two stories showing the Government's firm and not-in-any-way-nervous response to protest. Drivers who honk their car horns during protests have been warned that they may be summoned to court. Fans attending the biggest match in Iranian league football, the Tehran derby between Esteglhal and Persepolis, should expect special security measures (which, of course, are in no way connected with recent Green Wave protests at football matches).

1635 GMT: Credit to the BBC. Earlier today we were less than charitable about "mainstream" media who did not seem to notice that demonstrations were occurring at Tehran University. The BBC's main site has posted a story with video.

1630 GMT: HomyLafayette has published an excellent overview of the sell-off of the Iranian state telecommunications company, in which a consortium linked to the Revolutionary Guard took a 51 percent stake.

1620 GMT: The Facebook site connected with Mir Hossein Mousavi has posted an extract from his statement today: "Ironically those who feel defeated in this year’s Qods day events were those who benefited the most from it. They found out in the most obvious way that three months of unprecedented violence not only did not have slightest effect on people’s presence, but rather made it more extensive."

Mousavi also made an indirect response to those who questioned his appearance at the rally amidst "pro-Government" demonstrators: "In the last Friday of this year’s Ramadan, I was present among those who some of them were welcoming me with their fists and were wishing my death. I was reviewing their faces as we were participating in the rally and I saw that l love them and that our victory is not something that anyone would be defeated in it."

1610 GMT: The BBC Persian report on the Assembly of Experts plan (1545 GMT) may not mention details but another account does allege that three conditions have been attached to the proposal: 1) no mention of "velvet revolution"; 2) no condemnation of street protests; and 3) no statement of support for the Ahmadinejad Government.

1555 GMT: Excuse of the Day. As long-time readers might recall, Enduring America has a special Swine Flu crisis team. So we were impressed to see the Iranian Government suddenly invoke the virus to close down universities for a week. We are certain that this is an imminent threat, even more imminent than Iran's nuclear programme, so that the closure has nothing to do with today's demonstrations. After all, Government ministers said in July that swine flu might delay the start of the academic year, a statement which was entirely unconnected with the political protests that were occurring at the time.

1545 GMT: The Rafsanjani Plan? BBC Persian reports the statement of Hashemi Rafsanjani that he brought ideas from the Expediency Council to last week's Assembly of Experts meeting for a resolution of the political crisis. Details of the plan were not given.

1525 GMT: It appears that all websites connected with Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi are now down.

1405 GMT: Mehdi Karroubi has written another letter to Hashemi Rafsanjani, pressing the former President on how far he and the Assembly of Experts will seek to change the system and its handling of issues including the abuse of detainees (the subject of Karroubi's first letter to Rafsanjani in late July) but also privatisations benefitting the Revolutionary Guards, social questions, and the propaganda of State media.

1350 GMT: Mir Hossein Mousavi has issued a new statement on the "turning point" of the Qods Day demonstrations. He has also argued against further sanctions on Iran, for example, over its nuclear programmes, as the Iranian people have suffered enough under their "coup government".

1225 GMT: Latest news is dominated by what is coming out of Iran on the university protests. Not that anyone in the "mainstream" media is taking a bit of notice.

Indeed, there is a de facto alliance between Iranian state media and its "Western" counterparts to ignore the demonstrations in favour of narrow attention to Missiles, Missiles, Missiles. Fars News' triumphalism or Press TV's headline, "IRGC: We test fired upgraded missile models", can be swapped with CNN's lead story, "Iran fires off long-range missiles in latest test" or the BBC's "Iran tests longest range missiles" or Al Jazeera English's "Iran tests Shahab 3 missile".

0940 GMT: Universities Open, Protests Begin. As one of our readers has noted in Comments, reports are coming in of protests at universities as they begin the new academic year. An account of the demonstrations at the University of Tehran with chants of "Death to the Dictator!" is on-line, and video of the protest at  has been posted. There is a claim of more than 1000 students demonstrating at Daneshkadeh-ye Khabar (News College).

No one from President Ahmadinejad's office was present at the opening ceremony at the University of Tehran, and the Minister of Science was also absent.

0720 GMT: Missile Games. Iranian state media has published the next part of its script, Iran Is Really, Really Tough:

The Islamic Republic of Iran has successfully tested long-range Shahab-3 missile in a military drill dubbed The Great Prophet IV in a bid to bolster its defense capabilities, Press TV has learned....Shahab-3 missiles are said to have a range of 1,300 to 2,000 kilometers.

"Western" media will now take the stage to say, "Iran is Going to Kill Israel" (filling in the name of the country, which is not mentioned in the Press TV newsflash). Israeli leaders will hint darkly that they may now have to pursue military action,  and everybody will be very, very flustered as the 1 October talks in Geneva turn from engagement into showdown.

0635 GMT: Academic Fact of the Day. Yesterday we noted the allegation of the French newspaper Liberation that the Iranian Minister of Transport, Hamid Behbahani, plagiarised from French, Canadian, and Chinese scholars in a 2006 article. An EA reader adds, from the same article, that Behbahani was the Ph.D. thesis director of....Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

0615 GMT: And let's also pay tribute to Pedestrian for this item about Hojatoleslam Dehnavi on Iranian state television on the threat of “prank calls”, warning “housewives not to get emotionally attached to the callers":

Married women shouldn’t start talking, because before long, a longing develops. One housewife told me how she gets flustered if the caller does not call for one day. One other told me to find a way to pull her from this sinkhole of corruption she’s gotten herself into. These are married women after all, with husbands. Save yourselves from this sinkhole of corruption. What will you do with your conscience?

So, to elevate this serious discussion readers, what's your favourite prank call that, of course, does not threaten innoncent housewives? (I favour, "Do you keep Prince Albert in a can?", but I don't think that translates into Farsi.)

0600 GMT: Pedestrian has more --- much more --- on Javad Larijani's assault on the Green movement (0445 GMT).

Larijani not only linked the opposition to the Muhajedin-e-Khalq (MKO), with its 30-year campaign to overthrow the Iranian Government, he directly equated Mir Hossein Mousavi with Masoud Rajavi, the long-time head of the MKO: “Mousavi lost a good future in politics. He could have remained a great figure, but...[his] betrayal of the revolution is at one with Rajavi’s.” Larijani also launched a furious verbal assault on Seyed Hassan Khomenei, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomenei: “It is very inappropriate for the Imam’s family to support a certain political faction that is being applauded by traitors and zionists.”

Perhaps most intriguing, however, is an apparent attempt by Larijani to split the opposition by refraining from an attack on Mehdi Karroubi: “Karoubi is a pleasant man and considering his influential role in the revolution, we shouldn’t be too hard on him.”

0445 GMT: While international attention is almost exclusively on the Iranian nuclear programme, with the construction of the second enrichment facility near Qom, the internal power politics are far more significant for the fate of the Ahmadinejad Government.

We've published the text of a letter by Ayatollah Dastgheib, which highlights the intense debate within the Assembly of Experts over the future of the Islamic Republic and the space that should be given to the Green opposition. Meanwhile, Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of the Judiciary's Human Rights Division (and the brother of the Speaker of the Parliament and the head of Judiciary), has tied the Green Wave not only to Israel but to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, which has challenged the Islamic Republic for 30 years with assassinations, bombings, and sabotage: "“Mousavi was guilty of a great sin after the revolution and launched the reformist faction in the direction of protesting the system....If they had kept themselves from being angry after the elections, they would have seen that many of the Hypocrites [People's Mujahideen Organisation of Iran, the political wing of Mujahedin-e-Khalq] and Zionists were applauding their activities.”

Fars News chooses, however, to avoid the internal disputes in favour of the Iranian challenge to the world on its military programmes. It upholds the Revolutionary Guard's praise for the "very high precision" of the missiles that Iran has test-fired in military exercises.

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2000 GMT: Psychological Warfare. Unsurprisingly, the Fars News story that Mehdi Karroubi's son Ali is the subject of an arrest warrant, due to a financial dispute with the mobile phone company Irancell, appears to be a bit of fiction to shake up the reformist movement.

The specific claim is that Ali Karroubi is connected with Persian Telecom, which failed to carry out advertising obligations for Irancell. However, Irancell has told Saham News, connected with Karroubi party's Etemade Melli:

Mr. Ali Karroubi does not hold any shares in Persian Telecom....The two companies have a business association in the form of purchasing Irancell products and selling them and therefore no advertisement is done on behalf of Irancell by Persian Telecom. (Translation from Tehran Bureau)

1925 GMT: The Reformist Fightback. A series of reformist members of Parliament and clerics have been striking back at the comments of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps commander, General Ali Mohammad Jafari (see 1730 GMT), all day. The latest is Hojatoleslam Alikhani, a cleric and MP, who has emphasised that the military should not enter political issues.

1920 GMT: The Battle for the Universities (Cont.). Iranian newspapers and the Islamic Republic News Agency report, “The Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies [has been] tasked by the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council to revise the human sciences curriculum."

The head of the Institute declared, “In our country a large part of the syllabus… is not in line with our Iranian-Islamic culture. This calls for a revision." The syllabus will be revised
“based on the supreme leader’s recommendations.” (Agence France Press has an English summary.)

1730 GMT: Pursuing the Revolutionary Guard. Following up our last update yesterday, The Assembly of Combatant Clerics had responded to the claims of Revolutionary Guard Commander General Mohammad Ali Jafari, alleging that former President Khatami and other prominent reformists have tried to "unseat" the Supreme Leader and Government, by filing a formal complaint against Jafari and Keyhan newspaper for publishing lies and insulting several members of the Assembly.

1725 GMT: Responding to claims by Deputy Head of Judiciary, Ebrahim Raeesi, that he had not presented any evidence of detainee abuse in his meeting with the three-member panel investigating the claims, Mehdi Karroubi has described three documents that he presented.

1715 GMT: Hey, Look Over There! According to Press TV, the Supreme Leader gave visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez a quick international lesson on Sunday: "The US had far greater failures in the Islamic Republic of Iran than in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine. A power has been formed in this region which was once regarded by the US as its courtyard."

Surprisingly, the article offered no reference by Ayatollah Khamenei made to Iran's internal situation.

1440 GMT: Regime Goes After Karroubi. Fars News reports that an arrest warrant has been issued for Mehdi Karroubi's son, Ali. The cause of the action is a financial dispute involving one of Iran's largest mobile phone companies, Irancell, for whom Karroubi's company was supposed to sell phone cards. The amount involved is almost $2.5 million.

Nice touch, by the way, for Fars to use this as the illustration for the story:


1305 GMT: Josh Shahryar's "Green Brief" summarising the events of Saturday is now out.

1255 GMT: As the regime pushes its campaign for a "proper" academic sector (see 0740 GMT), former President Khatami held his own discussion with the Islamic Association of University Teachers. He pointedly challenged both the Supreme Leader's call on academics to be the commanders in a war against "Western" soft power and last Friday's prayer address in Tehran for a "non-Western" approach to humanities. Khatami expressed his opposition to those who in the name of fighting western liberalism, were forcing people to follow their path by employing fascism and totalitarianism ideologie and warned the authorities to start rebuilding public trust before all the opportunities are wasted."

1015 GMT: Business as Usual. Deputy head of judiciary Ebrahim Raeesi, who seems to be the regime's "hold-the-line" guy on detentions and prosecutions, declared Saturday that the replacement of Saeed Mortazavi as Tehran prosecutor by Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi will make no difference to the current approach: “The trials will continue and we will do our best so that the rule of law is upheld and justice prevails."

1010 GMT: Methinks He Doth Protest Too Much. Presidential spokesman Aliakbar Javenfekr is a bit upset at the claim, highlighted by Deputy Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Reza Bohanar (see Friday's updates), that up to six of the Ministerial nominees only got approval after the Supreme Leader's intervention of a letter to Parliament: "This was not an order at all but a consultative and friendly view which compelled the lawmakers to work more tolerantly with the government." Bahonar was "insulting the lawmakers who through their independent, conscious, and intelligent vote helped establish a powerful, efficient government".

0850 GMT: The three-member judiciary panel investigating allegations of detainee abuse has said that Mehdi Karroubi has formally submitted the names of four detainees who will appear before the panel if invited.

0810 GMT: We've split off our opening update on the reformist fightback as a separate entry, "How Important is the Mousavi Statement?"

0800 GMT: No, No, It Ain't So. The head of Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, is insisting that the claims of 72 deaths in post-election violence are "questionable, given the fact that no detail on the identity of the victims has been present".

We linked Friday to the Farsi-language site Norooz, which has collected the names and descriptions of the dead, but we're hoping to help Mr Boroujerdi later today with an English translation of the list.

0740 GMT: In recent days, we've been updating on the regime's statements linking academia and the "proper" post-election path in Iran, including the Supreme Leader's address to heads of universities and research centres as "commanders" of the fight against foreign "soft power" and the statement in last Friday's prayers in Tehran warning against "Western-style" instruction in humanities.

Today The New York Times has an excellent article by Robert Worth today, "Iran’s Universities Punish Students Who Disputed Vote". Drawing from Iranian website, it not only notes the arrests and summoning for questioning of politically active students but also writes that "a presidential panel has begun an investigation of the humanities curriculums at universities".

The lengthiest passage, however, summarises the academic and political fight around Islamic Azad University:

Significantly, several clerics and high-ranking officials have taken aim at Islamic Azad University, which is based in Tehran and has branches around the country. The university is largely run by the family of former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful moderate and leading opponent of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“This university must once again be purified,” Ayatollah Muhammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, the president’s spiritual adviser, said during a meeting with new cabinet members, the Rouydad Web site reported. “This purification must occur at the management level and other levels. You see just how many who do not believe in religion, Islam and God have attended and graduated from this university.”

Another cleric, Muhammad-Reza Babai, called for the new minister of higher education to review Azad’s management charter, during a Friday Prayer sermon in the central city of Kerman. The new minister, Kamran Daneshjoo, has also accused Azad of failing to meet standards.

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The Latest from Iran (2 September): The Votes on the Cabinet

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1835 GMT: A reader writes to clarify the "first woman" Minister reference in the Reuters report (1645 GMT), and just now repeated by a CNN reporter: "Iran's first female minister, Mrs. F. Parsa, was appointed by the Shah to serve the Ministry of Education." Parsa was arrested by the new Islamic Republic in February 1980 and executed three months later.

1645 GMT: A bit of a lull as most of the Western media condense today's events to fit their agenda: 1) the approval of Cabinet should be linked to "an international dispute over Tehran's nuclear program"; 2) the Minister of Oil is a "relative novice"; 3) Iran has its first female Minister; 4) the Minister of Defense is wanted by Interpol for a 1994 attack in Argentina. (Reuters wins the prize for getting all of this into two paragraphs.)

But here's a wacky flashback from the morning (0808 GMT): remember the moment when an MP joked, ""If you say the confidence vote was rigged, we'll take you to Kahrizak [Prison, where presumably you will be abused like other detainees]!" Well, the video is now posted in a separate entry.

1240 GMT: A top reformist in the Mousavi presidential campaign, Abbas Mirza Aboutalebi, has been released from Evin Prison, almost two months after he was detained. Aboutalebi, a former MP, is the Deputy Secretary General of the Hambastegi Party..

1220 GMT: US MediaWatch on the Ahmadinejad Cabinet. The New York Times leads US media in the summary of today's developments in Parliament, "Ahmadinejad Wins Approval of Key Cabinet Slots". Michael Slackman, based in Cairo, has raised his reporting game recently, relying on the best US-based analysts, and today he picks up not only on "a victory to the beleaguered president who now has close allies overseeing key ministries of oil, interior and intelligence" but also an outcome which "appeared to serve the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, who has struggled recently to try to restore credibility to his tarnished leadership and government while also trying to put the brakes on Mr. Ahmadinejad’s desire to sideline conservative rivals and monopolize power".

The quick reaction of The Los Angeles Times is surprisingly weak and even misleading. The lead sentence of "Iran's hardliners united behind Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today" sweeps away tensions and nuances in the struggle for power, not only with the unhelpful "hardliner" tag and the implications that all divisions are now resolved. (Compare that with our analysis, "Those conservative and principlist MPs who have problems with the President were not prepared, in the end, to make their stand over the Cabinet....The fights, if they are to take place, will now return to the system of detentions and trials, rather than a direct clash over the Ministers overseeing them." --- see 0845 GMT.)

The Associated Press really doesn't care about the internal situation, preferring, "President Mahmoud Ahamedinejad vowed Thursday that Iran would not bend to Western deadlines for nuclear talks after his new government won broad backing from parliament."

And CNN's website? Still nothing (see 1030 GMT).

1045 GMT: Rooz Online claims, from an "informed source", that the Ministry of Intelligence has established a team "to identify the leaks and whistle blowers that led to the revelations that some of the people who had been killed in the aftermath of the June 12 disputed presidential elections were secretly buried".

1030 GMT: We've posted a separate story on how Al Jazeera English let down its usually-high standard of coverage with an example of how not to discuss the Iranian nuclear programme.

However, this slip-up is nothing compared with CNN International's continuing (non-)coverage. One of its top on-air personalties has just tweeted, "Will have more on #Iran lawmakers approving all but 3 of Ahmad's 21 cabinet nominees."

More? I could cut off nine fingers and still be ahead of the total number of words on CNN's website about the Cabinet discussions since Sunday.

1010 GMT: An EA correspondent adds information and analysis to the demand by Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, a key ally of President Ahmadinejad, that Islamic Azad University be "cleaned up" so it can be "Islamic" (0520 GMT).

The Islamic Azad University was the first private university established after the Revolution and its establishment was promoted by Hashemi Rafsanjani and executed by [his brother-in-law Abdullah Jafar Ali] Jasebi, the current head of the university. The limited capacity of state-run universities caused the IAU to become an extremely lucrative cash cow, bringing Rafsajani a lot of money and influence. Nowadays almost any town with a population of more than 150,000 people has an IAU branch.

Needless to say, Ahmadinejad and company want to appropriate the revenue and influence of the IAU, and I am convinced that all the issues of "bringing the IAU back to the main path, etc." is really just a money grab. Mohammad Hashemi-Rafsanjani [brother of Hashemi Rafsanjani] and Jasebi have tried to prevent this power grab in their recent attempt to re-define the IAU as an endowment associated with a religious beneficiary, provoking the ire of Fars News and other Ahmadinejad supporters.

0930 GMT: Media Alert. Is this the beta version of Mehdi Karroubi's proposed new television station?

0925 GMT: Journalist Isa Saharkhiz, in a two-minute phone call to his family, has advised them that his detention has been extended another two months.

0915 GMT: Some Post-Vote Confusion. There were conflicting reports over whether Mohammad Aliabadi was confirmed or rejected as Minister of Energy (see 0840 GMT), but situation has now been clarified. Although the vote was in his favour 137-117, the number of Yes ballots was less than 1/2 of the total of 286 MPs. So he's out, and it's 18 of 21 Ministers confirmed.

The wider story, which we'll track down, is why Aliabadi was the only male nominee to take a fall.

0910 GMT: On Another Front. The Assembly of Combatant Clergy, have strongly condemned the recent accusations by Revolutionary Guard commander General Mohammad Ali Jafari (see yesterday's updates) that former President Khatami and other prominent reformists sought the overthrow of the Supreme Leader and the Government. The clerics said they expect the new Prosecutor General to show the "proper reaction" to these lies.

0900 GMT: Tabnak has posted a summary of the vote totals (use Google Translate for the English version).

0845 GMT: The Verdict? There will be a big smile on President Ahmadinejad's face, with 19 of 21 nominees receiving votes of confidence. The only two rejections were of women: Sussan Keshavarz (education) and Fatemeh Ajorloo (welfare). The 3rd woman, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi (health), was confirmed.

Interpretation? Those conservative and principlist MPs who have problems with the President were not prepared, in the end, to make their stand over the Cabinet. The two rejections are politically "safe" --- to be blunt, it will be easy to frame that as a discrimination against women, rather than a smack at Ahmadinejad, and even then, Dastjerdi (to the surprise of many, I suspect) came through. Other opportunities for rejection were by-passed, even when these could have been portrayed as doubts about individiuals, rather than a fight with the President. Mirkazemi and Aliabadi survived uncertainties over the Government's approach on energy, Mehrabian was not punished for his court scandal, and Daneshjoo's recent stumble over a suspect Ph.D. was not relevant.

Whether that was because they did not want to be seen as allied with "reformists" in blocking Ministerial choices, because of the Supreme Leader's intervention, or because tensions over Ahmadinejad's post-election actions have eased remains to be seen.

Too early, for me, to declare a reconciliation within the Establishment. My preferred interpretation is that the fights, if they are to take place, will now return to the system of detentions and trials, rather than a direct clash over the Ministers overseeing them.

0840 GMT: Nominees for Ministries of Housing, Interior, and Labour have been confirmed. The nominee for Minister of Oil, Masoud Mirkazemi, scraped through 147-117, and a similar result for Minister of Energy Mohammad Aliabadi (137-117).

0835 GMT: The nominee for Minister of Welfare, Fatemeh Ajorloo, has been rejected 181-76.

Ali Akbar Mehrabian, who has provoked some controversy after being found guilty of patent fraud in a recent court case, won approval as Minister of Mines and Industry 153-103. Similarly "Dr" Kamran Daneshjoo, despite the changing, dubious status of his Ph.D. from some British university (see separate entry), has become Minister of Science after a 186-75 vote.

0830 GMT: The nominee for Minister of Education, Sussan Keshavarz, has been rejected 209-49. Keshavarz was one of three women nominated.

Reza Taqipour has been confirmed as Minister of Communications 197-62. Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi was approved 194-67, and Minister of Economy Shamsodin Hosseini was confirmed 224-41. The current Foreign Minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, has also received a vote of confidence, as has the new Minister of Justice, Morteza Bakhtiari.

0829 GMT: The Speaker of the Parliament, Ali Larijani, began the announcement of results by thanking the Supreme Leader, whose remarks had "helped" the voting process.

0825 GMT: Parliament has voted confidence in the proposed Minister of Defence, Ahmad Vahidi.

0820 GMT: Yes, Mahmoud Did Say That. Interpret this as you will, from Iranian Labor News Agency. Ahmadinejad told the Majlis, as they prepared to vote on his Cabinet: "Parliament and government are responsible for the country and should not put this responsibility on Supreme Leader and other clerics."

Oh, yes, and "I think the members of parliament should give [foreign powers] a decisive response. A United vote to propose Cabinet is a strong punch in enemy's mouth.''

0808 GMT: Bad-Taste Parliamentary Comment of Day. One member of Parliament "joked" to a colleague, "If you say the confidence vote was rigged, we'll take you to Kahrizak [Prison, where a number of detainees have died]!" State television quickly cut the nearby microphone off.

0805 GMT: Ayande News has published more details of the purported letter from the Supreme Leader calling on members of Parliament to give a full vote of confidence in the Ahmadinejad Cabinet: Khamenei declared his desire for a Yes vote to all of the President's selections, but this was not an obligation for MPs.

0800 GMT: Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem-Shirazi has called for investigations of alleged crimes in Kahrizak Prison and in raids against University dormitories, with punishment of those found responsible.

0745 GMT: Did The President Really Say That?: According to an activist monitoring the Parliamentary discussions, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has promised that his Cabinet will meet with MPs every two to four weeks.

Here, however, is the statement that raises eyebrows: "We should take responsibility for running country off the shoulders of Supreme Leader." Perhaps it's a change of meaning in translation --- would the President really want to push Ayatollah Khamenei to the sidelines?

0625 GMT: Another Event to Note. The "40th Day" memorial for Mohsen Ruholamini, who died in detention in Evin Prison, will be from 2-3:30 p.m. local time (1030-1200 GMT) at Vali-e Asr Mosque in Tehran.

0615 GMT: Thanks to the Internet, you can watch the live, televised coverage of state-run IRIB 1  of today's Parliamentary discussions of the Ahmadinejad Cabinet.

0520 GMT: The Parliamentary votes of confidence in President Ahmadinejad's Cabinet should finally take place today. The last two nominees to speak, Masoud Mirkazemi (oil) and Mohammad Aliabadi (energy), have presented their cases to the Majlis.

Despite the delays and dramatic stories such as the Supreme Leader's alleged letter asking for full support for Ministers, the general situation appears to be the same as on Sunday. Up to seven Ministers, and in particular the three female nominees, may not be confirmed.

Even this story, however, will be a distant second today if a rumour spread by Javan newspaper, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, proves to have substance. The report claims that there will be an end of Ramadan "present", with leading reformists Saeed Hajjarian, Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, Mohammad Ali Abtahi,  and Mohammad Ghoochani to be released from detentions, although others such as Behzad Nabavi, Mostafa Tajzadeh, and Mohsen Aminzadeh will remain in jail. The article adds that the head of Iran's judiciary, Sadegh Larijani, is unhappy with televised confessions and the "current trend" will be suspended.

President Ahmadinejad's religious advisor, Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, is not thinking of any concessions. Instead, he has said that the private Islamic Azad University, has lost its “true way” and should be brought back to the “main path”, "clean[ing it] up" so it becomes “Islamic". (It is probably far from coincidental that Mehdi Hashemi, the son of Hashemi Rafsanjani, is one of the leading officials of the university.)

Iran: Busted! Would-be Minister of Science Rewrites His "Ph.D."

The Latest from Iran (2 September): The Votes on the Cabinet

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"Dr." Kamran Daneshjoo, nominee for Minister of Science, Research, and Technology, we're really sorry.

We gave you a chance last month when other media were excitedly running the story that you might have lied about holding a Ph.D. from a British university. OK, so your university profile lists, for your Ph.D., the non-existent "Manchester Imperial Institute of Science and Technology". We thought that maybe there had been a mis-translation back from Farsi to English of "University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology".

And when no one could locate a Ph.D. thesis under "Daneshjoo" in the University of Manchester system, we thought that catalogues are not always complete and they might not have checked alternative spellings like "Daneshjou", and we did find one of the articles (from 2005) that you claimed on your profile.

In short, we were happy to give you a break because, if you couldn't prove you had a Ph.D., we couldn't prove that you didn't have one.

But then you had to mess it all up and make us look foolish. Seems your university profile has suddenly changed (the new profile can be verified at the website of "Iran University of Science and Technology", which does exist).



Now your Ph.D. is from "Imperial College London". Which does exist, but is about 200 miles from Manchester. And which cannot be a simple transliteration mistake from "Manchester Imperial Institute of Science and Technology". And which also does not seem to have a copy of your doctoral thesis.

Gosh, it would have been so much easier if you had just changed the entry to "UMIST". Then you could have been approved by the Parliament tomorrow with whatever diploma you have hanging on your wall, and we could have ignored this little incident.

As we tell our own Ph.D. students: "First rule in writing a thesis: if you're going to lie, keep it simple."