Today on EA (16 February 2010)

Iran: More posturing today over the nuclear issue, as well as slurs and counter-claims between the US and Iran on which country is the "dictatorship". Human rights continues to dominate internal news, and labour activism appears to be gathering speed, although there no firm signs of a nationwide general strike yet. We have live-blogging from Ahmadinejad's press conference, and as always, all news and links will be updated throughout the day on our live weblog.

Late-breaking news is of a rising challenge from the Karroubi family, with both Mehdi Karroubi's wife and son making pointed challenges to the regime. That bears out the importance of the analysis by EA's Mr Verdeof the beating of Medhi Karroubi's son Ali: "Imagine for a moment that the son or daughter of a Presidential or Prime Ministerial candidate in the US or Britain had been taken away by plainclothes security forces and kept in an unknown locations for days. Imagine that he or she had been beaten and threatened with rape...."



We've posted the text of human rights lawyer Shadi Sadr’s address to the United Nations last Friday: “In addition to the numerous examples of human rights that are systematically violated…during the post-election events, basic and fundamental human rights remain in serious peril, such as equality of persons before the law, the right to peaceful assembly, the rights of political prisoners, and the rights of human rights defenders and civil society activists.” Four labour unions published a public declaration of their ten minimal demands.

Middle East: We have the full transcript of US Secretary of State Clinton's interview by Al Jazeera at the Qatar Town Hall Meeting on 15 February.

Middle East and Afghanistan: Ali Yenidunya's Inside Line picks up on the capture of the second-ranking official in the "old Taliban" of Afghanistan and on the Saudi line for action against Iran.