The Latest from Iran (20 November): Reading a "Muzzled" Press

1805 GMT: Tough Talk of the Day. The head of the Basij militia, Mohammad Reza Naqdi, has said, "We are ready to organise a 100 million Basij army in the Muslim world to liberate Quds [Jerusalem] as promised by Ayatollah Khomeini.

Revolutionary Guards commander Hossein Hamedani has tried to follow up with the assurance that more than 2000 bloggers are organising for cyber-war.

Only problem --- last year the Guards said they were training a 15,000-strong cyber-army.

1800 GMT: Economy Watch. Some outlets in Iranian media are reporting that the Government owes 30 trillion Toman ($22.5 billion) to Iran's Social Security fund and cannot pay all State pensions.

1755 GMT: Bad Television Watch. MP Moradali Mansouri-Razi explains that satellite TV is the reason for Iran's high rate of divorces in 2010/11.

1745 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. The Oxford Student posts a lengthy article examining claims of improper conduct by Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani and a Ph.D. student at Oxford University.

The newspaper notes the order by a Canadian court this week that Hashemi pay millions of dollars to a businessman he tortured and details claims from Hashemi's improper admission to Oxford to his links with the Qaddafi regime in Libya.

1740 GMT: (Dis)Unity Watch. Ali Mazrouei offers a sharp analysis of Thursday's mass meeting in Tehran, organised by the "7+8" Committee, to show conservative/principlist unity.

Mazrouei says that, to the contrary, the event showed hard-liners are split into three groups: 1) the "deviant current" around President Ahmadinejad; 2) former Ahmadinejad supporters, who are now in the Islamic Constancy Front, only present in the Tehran meeting at a low level; and 3) traditional hardliners.

The analyst says the final statement of the meeting was not accepted by the Constancy Front and argues that unity of hardliners will become possible only with pressure from the Supreme Leader.

1735 GMT: Political Prisoner. Mehdi Saharkhiz has passed on the views of his father, detained journalist Isa Saharkhiz --- foreign governments should not allow any Iranian representative.into their countries or international organisations before free and democratic elections are held in Iran.

1725 GMT: Cartoon of the Day. Maya Neyestani comments on the two-month ban imposed on the reformist newspaper Etemaad:

1715 GMT: Bank Fraud Watch. The entire board of directors of Bank Saman has formally resigned over the $2.6 billion bank fraud.

1700 GMT: Oil Watch. Minister of Oil Rustam Qassemi speaks with Al Jazeera English about Iran's situation and the possible use of oil as a political weapon:

1650 GMT: An Educated Press. The "Community to Defend Palestinians" has launched a five-week workshop in "Zionist Studies" for Iranian journalists.

1530 GMT: War Drums Watch. Conservative Amir Mohebian, writing for the Supreme Leader's website, has set out three scenarios for war with Iran's enemies: 1) a ground war; 2) attacks on sensitive infrastructure, trying to force negotiations; 3) attacks on military bases.

1435 GMT: Clerical Intervention. The prominent cleric Ayatollah Khazali has announced that the President's Chief of Staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, and Vice President Hamid Baghaei, have caused Ahmadinejad's "deviation". Challenging the alleged "Iran-first" v. "Islamic-first" approach of advisors like Rahim-Mashai, the ayatollah declared, "There is no Iran!"

1425 GMT: Bad Behaviour Watch. Tehran Police have announced they will shut down photography studios and internet cafes that “act against social norms and business regulations".

Police chief Hossein Sajedinia, declared, “Internet cafes hurt our youth and their families by providing illegal services. And it is the duty of our police force to confront them.” Some photography and film studios were engaged in illegal activities by “targeting families and revealing private matters", he said.

Ninety studios and 260 internet cafes have been inspected in a current wave of police activity. The security forces have also shut down 70 clothing wholesalers charged with selling “tacky and obscene” clothing, after 70 designers were reportedly arrested and charged with encouraging girls to work as models.

1420 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Journalist and human rights activists Davood Khodakarami was arrested on Saturday in Zanjan in northwest Iran.

1200 GMT: Bank Fraud Watch. A prominent host on State broadcaster IRIB has been summoned for questioning, allegedly because of a billion Toman (about $750,000) deal with Aria Bank, at the central of the $2.6 billion bank fraud scandal, for advertising campaigns.

1130 GMT: The Battle Within. ISNA reports that President Ahmadiinejad media advisor Ali Akbar Javanfekr has been sentenced to one year in jail and a three-year ban on journalism for the special run by his newspaper, Iran, on "ladies' fashion".

The issue provoked controversy with a historical article that indicated that the full-length chador covering for women was inspired by a 19th-century Shah's observation of European women in all-black evening dresses.

0845 GMT: Press Watch. Authorities have banned the pro-reform newspaper Etemaad for two months, claiming it insulted officials and spread lies.

No details of the decision are given by the State news agency IRNA. However, on Saturday, Etemaad featured an interview with President Ahmadinejad's senior aide, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, in which he criticised officials such as Iran Prosecutor General Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei and former Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

Most newspapers in Iran ignored the development this morning.

0835 GMT: Beyond Muzzling. Khabar Online asks who profited from gains, caused by currency fluctuations, of 4.3 trillion Toman (about $3.3 billion) this year? The website notes that there is now almost a 25% difference between the official and open-market rates for the Iranian currency.

Khabar notes the claims of Kamal Seyed Ali, who has been dismissed as the Central Bank's deputy for foreign exchange affairs, that $33 billion in foreign currency has been sold this year, with some of the activity carried out in support of the smuggling of imports.

0825 GMT: Better Late Than Never? And here is another curiosity in the Iranian press: Khabar Online reports this morning that the Supreme Leader has offered his condolences to Mohsen Rezaei, the 2009 Presidential candidate and Secretary of the Expediency Council, over the death of his son Ahmed.

But Khabar does not ask this question: given that Ahmed Rezaei died more than a week ago in a Dubai hotel, why did Ayatollah Khamenei wait so long to express his sorrow?

0755 GMT: An exchange with an EA correspondent to start the morning. I commented that, in comparison to events in North Africa and the Middle East on Saturday, "Iran was SO quiet". She offered the sharp correction, "Iran is NOT quiet at all, only totally muzzled. Khabar Online, Aftab, etc. resort to cinema, football, or to crime stories as headline 'news'."

In that context, international displays take priority. Only one of Press TV's top 10 Iran stories is about life inside the country --- and, yes, it is on cinema --- while IRNA headlines with Yemen this morning. 

But despite the limits on reporting, there are scuffles amongst the Iranian media that can be revealing. Consider the dispute over the comments of the brother of the Revolutionary Guards commander, Rashid Islam Hassan Moghaddam, killed in last Saturday's explosion at a base west of Tehran. Mohammad Tehrani Moghaddam said, according to Iran newspaper:

He did many things [for the Guards]. One of them was a high-technology system that he himself invented and made it indigenous [so that Iran could produce it]. He founded Sepah's Organization of Self-Sufficiency Jihad and his innovations gave our country a ballistic missile....One of the the things that General Moghaddam was doing was developing the ballistic missile for which he lost his life. He lost his life when the latest test was being done on the missile. Sepah had intended to present this innovation to the world when that accident occurred. 

A few hours later, Fars was carrying Moghaddam's was denying that he had made the remarks: "Even we were not aware of the work that General Moghaddam was doing. What Iran has reported about ballistic and intercontinental missiles is something that it has done on its own."

How to read this? Well, it is useful to go back to last Wednesday when the head of Iran's armed forces, Hassan Firouzabadi, was clearly boasting that --- despite General Moghaddam's death --- something important was going on and it would continue: "The killing of General Moghaddam will postpone by only two weeks the presentation to the world of the results of the research he was carrying out."

So some in the Iranian establishment wanted to project Tehran's defiance --- especially of Israel and the US --- despite the deaths of its troops in a blast whose cause is still unexplained, at least publicly. Others, however, saw a risk: if Iran boasted too much, would it not reveal too much information, as wella as giving the US and Israel the "proof" of Iran's push for a militarised nuclear programme?

That tension is also evident in the muddled account of how many Revolutionary Guards died last weekend. The Guards are still sticking with an official count of 17, but Digarban has put together 36 names and some sources say a 37th victim was buried Friday.