1900 GMT: Some Good News for Mahmoud. President Ahmadinejad and his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, signed 13 cooperation agreements on trade, energy, stocks and banking, agriculture, news agenices, technology, culture, and visa requirements.
1735 GMT: Mortazavi Mystery Over? After days of rumours that he was in Evin Prison, former Tehran Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi has appeared at the memorial service for Ali Kordan, the former Minister of Interior who died this weekend.
1725 GMT: Isolating Rafsanjani? Division of opinion here amongst EA staff: one colleague is saying Hashemi Rafsanjani is a spent force while another is arguing strongly that “the Shark” is far from finished and about to make another move.
If the latter, those in the regime opposed to Rafsanjani (and possibly worried about the possibility of his working in combination with Ali Larijani) will try to block it. Having dismissed him from the rota for Friday Prayers in Tehran and the Qods Day Prayer, authorities are now taking away the Eid al-Adha Prayer from Rafsanjani and giving it to Ahmad Khatami.
Usually we don’t feature panel discussions on political chat shows, especially when they have an “octo-wall” of speakers. Yesterday, however, there was a turn of debate on CNN’s GPS which may be symbolic of the shift in US foreign policy.
This was a clash of “Iran-first” vs. “Palestine-first” in the US approach towards Israel. And Palestine-first won, 16 hands down.
The episode began when the Israeli historian and commentator Benny Morris put forth the case for focusing on a purported Iranian nuclear weapons programme. Then the twist: Morris’ assertions were taken apart by Juan Cole, and with only one Israeli on the octo-wall of 7 different nationalities and perspectives, the notion that the issue of Palestine had to be set aside — especially to threaten economic sanctions or even military action against Iran — was roundly dismissed. Useful contributions from Hanan Ashrawi, Maziar Bahari, Saad Ibrahim, and Rami Khouri ensured that both the Palestine aspect and the wider aims of President Obama’s Cairo speech replaced Tehran as the centre of attention:
1910 GMT: Prosecuting Journalists. Reporters without Borders has published a summary of latest news on journalists who have been convicted and arrested (and even one who was released).
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