Ejecting Ahmadinejad from office before the end of his term would come at a high cost, and it’s only likely to happen if he makes himself absolutely intolerable for the Supreme Leader and the regime as a whole. In other words, it depends on a cost-benefit equation where the price of removing him is set against the price of continuing to put up with him.
Last month, as a flood of exuberant economic forecasts poured on Iran on the back of an unusually positive International Monetary Fund press release, one on-the-ground observer morosely invoked an old Iranian proverb: "My cheeks look rosy because I slap them" (Bah seeli sourat ra sorkh negah dashtan). To the members of Tehran's business and financial community, it appears the Iranian government has adhered to this saying, perking up its numbers to present the world with a peachy picture of its less-than-stellar economic performance.
No other city in the world has been the tragic target of as many serial terror attacks and bombings as Mumbai, which went through the agony in 1993, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2008 and now July 13, 2011. On Wednesday evening, three serial bomb blasts in the span of ten minutes ripped through three of the busiest hubs in the city — Zaveri Bazar, Opera House and Dadar — at rush hour, killing 17 people and injuring 131.
The first explosion was at 6.54pm at Zaveri Bazar, followed by another at Opera House a minute later. The third explosion was at 7.06pm outside Kabutarkhana, a few metres from the western side of Dadar railway station.
1650 GMT: A series of photos of the blast sites and victims has been posted (Warning: Graphic).
UPDATE 1640 GMT: The Home Ministry has revised the casualty figures to 20 dead and 113 injured.
UPDATE 1620 GMT: Important clarifications from the Mumbai Police Commissioner....
The three blasts were not from car bombs, as initial reports claimed in at least two cases, but from improvised explosive devices. The IED near the Opera House was "high-intensity"; the others in Zaveri Bazaar and Dadar West.
The three devices exploded between 6:50 and 7:04 p.m. local time.
1700 GMT: Economy Watch. Ayande News reviews the increasing price of basics, from 350% for oil to 180% for food.
An EA source said today that, in some parts of Tehran, the price of sangak flatbread has risen from 100 tomans (less than 10 cents) to 1000 tomans (about 90 cents). He confirmed that both unemployment and inflation were rising sharply.
1655 GMT: Supreme Leader Brother's Watch. Seyed Hadi Khamenei, the reformist brother of Ayatollah Khamenei, has asked, "How do you expect us to participate in elections?" He said there had been thousands of hours of insults against reformists which had not been possible to answer.
1650 GMT: Supreme Leader Watch. Ali Saeedi, the representative of Ayatollah Khamenei to the Revolutionary Guards, has said that people can change government but not the system of velayat-e faqih (clerical supremacy) --- "If they choose what God wants, it's OK."
Nestled in a back corner of Mogadishu’s Aden Adde International Airport is a sprawling walled compound run by the Central Intelligence Agency. Set on the coast of the Indian Ocean, the facility looks like a small gated community, with more than a dozen buildings behind large protective walls and secured by guard towers at each of its four corners. Adjacent to the compound are eight large metal hangars, and the CIA has its own aircraft at the airport. The site, which airport officials and Somali intelligence sources say was completed four months ago, is guarded by Somali soldiers, but the Americans control access. At the facility, the CIA runs a counterterrorism training program for Somali intelligence agents and operatives aimed at building an indigenous strike force capable of snatch operations and targeted “combat” operations against members of Al Shabab, an Islamic militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 7:29 | Scott Lucas in Africa, EA Global, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 1645 GMT: Thanks to James Miller for taking the LiveBlog through the afternoon.
Video testifies to a series of protests across Yemen today, calling for a transitional government. Claimed footage of a march in Taiz attacked by security forces:
A march of women and children in Taiz:
A demonstration in Hodeidah:
We should not have participated in any elections since [the presidential election of] 2005. Unfortunately, this was our mistake. If this time the conditions are not right, we will definitely not participate. This is my own personal view, and we should make a collective decision after consultation.
How can we ignore the people's rights? Even if the families of all those who have been killed in these events [since the 2009 presidential election] come forward and say that they forgive those who spilled the blood of their children, how can we ignore the legitimate rights of the people?
And now a mystery: yesterday a collection of activists, reportedly inside Iran, put out a document which claims to be a new path for the opposition. The "manifesto" emerged outside the country through two outlets: Martin Fletcher in The Times of London and insideIRAN, a project of The Century Foundation in the US.
The document is forthright in its language and general in its ambition: "the complete subordination of all government and state posts to direct popular sovereignty", while putting forth the Green Movement as an umbrella for different groups who were pursuing rights long before the 2009 Presidential election.
But there is an important starting question, especially amidst the current debate amongst reformists and activists over the way forward inside and outside the Iranian system: who are these "intellectuals who are leaders in the Green Movement in Tehran"?
Earlier this week the opposition site Kalameh published an interview with former Deputy Minister of Interior Mostafa Tajzadeh while he was on furlough from a nine-year prison sentence.
The headline from the discussion about the current political situation was Tajzadeh's position on the reformist debate over participation in the Parliamentary elections next March. He stood firm on no involvement without the release of political prisoners and a confirmed free and fair proces, "There is no middle ground. The reformists will take part only in democratic elections." He added that the situation had changed with the disputed Presidential ballot in 2009 and the post-election challenge to Mahmoud Ahmadminejad's legitimacy: "The narrative of the Green Movement has changed the entire affair....Either the elections will be free, with all the parties and free press, or we should not participate and leave them [supporters of conservatives and principlists] to play out the conflicts among themselves."
However, that important statement was made in equally important contexts about the aims of the Green Movement, the challenges facing the regime, and the prospects for "freedom" in Iran.
