The Latest from Iran (4 January): If You Yell Victory, Does It Count?

See also Iran Feature: Explaining the Currency Crisis
Iran Snap Analysis: After the Show of Ships and Missiles, Regime Declares, "We've Won!"
The Latest from Iran (3 January): Desperately Seeking Reformists

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2145 GMT: Foreign Affairs (Turkish Front). Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has made an unexpected trip to Tehran today, briefly meeting his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi.

No details of the discussion or of the agenda were given in Mehr, which said only that Davutoğlu would be meeting Iranian officials tomorrow.

2045 GMT: Currency Watch. Amidst the currency crisis, the Central Bank has ordered a decrease in the amount that can be exchanged under a preferential "traveller's rate" from $2000 to $1000.

Under the "traveller's rate" of about 13000:1, the Iranian rial is weaker than the official rate of 11800:1 but still stronger than the open market rate of 15700:1, thus enabling Iranians going abroad to get more US dollars or foreign equivalents for their Iranian currency. Iranians can carry out the transaction once a year.

(Hat tip to Moandor, who provided information earlier today and predicted the Central Bank would soon take a step over the traveller's rate in .)

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The Real Net Effect: Andy Carvin & the Power of Twitter

Many readers who follow EAWorldview (@EANewsFeed) on Twitter are likely to know the name Andy Carvin (@acarvin). Carvin, the senior social media strategist at NPR and an established foreign policy journalist, has spent the last year Tweeting the revolutions and uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa.

And few would dispute Andy's prowess on the social media platform. In 2011, The Daily Dot said that no one had done more to transform Twitter than Carvin and the hacking group Anonymous. The Columbia Journalism Review even asked, "Is This the World’s Best Twitter Account?" Carvin has been called a "living, breathing real-time verification system," and has often spoke about the power, and sometimes the pitfalls, of using social media to spread the news.

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US Elections Audio & Analysis: Scott Lucas with the BBC "A 4-Point Guide to the Iowa Result"

A Fading Candidate: Newt Gingrich1. The Republican contest is probably already down to two candidates: Mitt Romney v. Anyone Not Named Mitt.

2. Rick Santorum, in a victory of timing, got to be "Anyone Not Named Mitt" yesterday, with previous "Anyones" --- Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich --- fading to the point of departure without a surprise boost in the next few weeks. 

3. Even with a limited share of the vote, this is good news for Romney. Iowa, with its distinction as town-meeting caucuses rather than a primary in the voting booth, usually throws up surprise victors --- anyone remember Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee in 2008? The challenge for a front-runner is to avoid embarrassment, and Romney has accomplished that.

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Saudi Arabia Feature: A Princess in London Calls for Reforms (Milmo)

Photo: Teri PengilleySat in a living room decorated with Saudi artefacts and in front of a table carrying a plate of Saudi dates ("the best in the world"), Princess Basma Bint Saud said: "The problems are because of the ruling ministers. We have ministers who are incapable of doing what has been ordered from above because there is no follow up, because there are no consequences. If you are poor man and you steal, your hand is cut off after three offences. But if you are a rich man, nobody will say anything to you."

She added: "We have 15,000 royals and around 13,000 don't enjoy the wealth of the 2,000. You have 2,000 who are multi-millionaires, who have all the power, all the wealth and no-one can even utter a word against it because they are afraid to lose what they have."

Asked if her decision to speak out means she risks losing what she has, she replied: "Oh, definitely. Definitely."

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Bahrain Feature: An Uprising In The Numbers (Amiri)

See also Bahrain 1st-Hand: @MariamAlSarraj & the Raid on Salihiya

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Population of Bahrain: 1.2 million

Number of citizens: 535,000

Percent of citizens who are Shia Muslim: 70

Percent of those in government: 13

Number of senior positions they fill in the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Cabinet Affairs, the National Guard, the Supreme Defense Council and the Royal Court: 0

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Iran Feature: Explaining the Currency Crisis (Naghshineh-Pour)

Central Bank Head Bahmani & President Ahmadinejad The Central Bank is losing its battle with the local Iranian gold and foreign exchange markets. Central Bank governor, Mahmoud Bahmani, has been struggling futilely with market forces for a few months now, to prevent potentially profound devaluation of the Iranian rial. For years monetary policy has been based on clutching the rial against the USD despite double digit inflation and directive bank deposit rates lower than the rate of inflation. It seems that at last people are losing their confidence with the rial and exchanging their rial based capital to non-rial liquid asset classes such as gold and foreign currencies to safeguard their resources.

The reasons for this devaluation may be sought in four serious immediate threats to Iran's economy.

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Iran Snap Analysis: After the Show of Ships and Missiles, Regime Declares, "We've Won!"

So what do you do after 10 days of showing off your ships and declaring that you have fired missiles, taken out simulated enemy submarines and taken down simulated enemy drones, and scared off a US aircraft carrier?

Do you step up the pressure, feeding the media jitters that you are going to close the Straits of Hormuz, choking off much of the world's oil supply?

No, because you were never going to do that in the first place. That would mean an actual confrontation and its likely costs, instead of the benefits of propaganda.

Instead, you declare victory.

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Bahrain 1st-Hand: Mariam Al Sarraj and the Raid on Salihiya

A Bahraini flag is removed from the home of Nabeel Rajab last night.

See Also, Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Newsflash --- "The Killings Continue"

Last month, Mariam Al Sarraj was arrested alongside Zainab AlKhawaja for staging a sit-in protest at a roundabout on Budaiya Highway. Last night, she tweeted that her father had been arrested during a raid on the village of Sallihiya, a raid that nearly also led to the detention of Nabeel Rajab, President of Bahrain Center for Human Rights.

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What happened in Salihiya last night --- The people came out in a peaceful march, with [President of Bahrain Center for Human Rights] Nabeel Rajab and [human rights activist] S. Yousif Almahafda.

Just after a few minutes [into] the march, mercenaries came to attack - and most of the people were running to hide in the nearest house. My uncle's house was the nearest to us, so we...entered. Nabeel Rajab and S.Yousif were in the same house, so we got the most amount of tear gas.

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Syria, Bahrain (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Newsflash --- "The Killings Continue"

2135 GMT: Zainab Alkhawaja provides details of this latest woman killed in Bahrain. According to her Twitter stream, the woman is named Fakhriya Jassim, 55 years old. She inhaled teargas in the town of Isa on New Year's Eve. According to Zainab:

Fakhriya's son says a day before she died his mother kept saying "this time the tear gas is different" she could barely talk. The night be4 being exposed to the teargas Fakhriya was fine, she went out shopping

She was the mother of 5 children, and had 10 grandchildren, according to alKhawaja.

We're still hearing rumors of more tear gas in Bahrain tonight.

2127 GMT: We've been tracking reports of teargas in Bahrain for the last hour or so, but not activists are reporting that a woman has died from teargas suffocation tonight. Said Yousif Almuhafda reports:

#Bahrain picture of fakhrya jassim alsakean who died today after sofecatung from tear gas .im with her family now

2050 GMT: This video was reportedly taken earlier today in Hama. Citizens talk to the Arab League observers, and one yells out, "They've massacred us."

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The Latest from Iran (3 January): Desperately Seeking Reformists

See also Iran Snap Analysis: Finding a Scapegoat in the Currency Crisis
Iran Audio Feature: Scott Lucas with the BBC "The Economy is More Important than the Missile Tests"
The Latest from Iran (2 January): The Currency is Falling

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2040 GMT: No Comment. Those conservatives and principlists who have warned of the "deviant current" around President Ahmadinejad may be interested in this from the Tehran Times:

Presidential aide Mojtaba Hashemi-Samareh ruled out the possibility of the manipulation of the March parliamentary elections by administration officials, emphasizing that there is no cause for concern in this regard.

He told the Mehr News Agency that the administration is tasked with holding the elections, but candidates’ representatives and the Guardian Council will oversee the running of the elections, so there is no cause for concern.

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