2205 GMT: The Tajik Show? BBC Persian follows up on the curious story of the “release” of former Vice President Mohammad Reza Tajik from detention. Tajik appeared on the 22:30 programme on IRIB 2 saying that there was no election “fraud” and that “foreign and Zionist media” are riding the wave of the protests.
2145 GMT: Lawyer Forough Mirzaei and Mahin Fahimi, a member of “Mothers for Peace”, have been released from detention.
2100 GMT: And Analysing Rumour of Day (Week? Month?). We’ve posted a snap analysis considering the reasons for and implications of a Rafsanjani “ultimatum” to the Supreme Leader.
Writing for The Daily Beast, Reza Aslan, a fellow at the Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California, suggests:
The opium crisis in Afghanistan is not a drug enforcement problem, it is a national security issue: Licensing and regulating poppy cultivation would not only create stability and economic development, it could sap support for the Taliban and help win the war in Afghanistan.