The Latest from Iran (27 April): Where's Mahmoud?

2020 GMT: A senior official of the US Treasury is in Turkey to "urge full and robust implementation of U.N. Security Council resolution 1929 [for sanctions] against Iran".

David Cohen said the US is concerned by Turkey's growing trade with Iran and has warned Turkish banks against dealing with blacklisted Iranian counterparts.

2015 GMT: Two more videos of Amir Kabir students protesting on Tuesday about poor food and dorm conditions (see 1535 GMT):

1600 GMT: Where's Ali? While there was no sign of President Ahmadinejad today, the Supreme Leader addressed an audience of Iranian workers.

As we noted earlier from the Twitter messages of his office (see 0835 GMT), the Supreme Leader highlighted his theme of "The Year of Economic Jihad", saying the Iranian nation and Government officials must prepare the ground for major economic growth. He also framed developments outside Iran, "“The future of the region will be much better than its current situation thanks to the efforts and movement of nations on the path of Islam,” as "arrogant powers...have been disgraced in the world" as "nations have lined up in front of the Islamic Republic".

Khamenei made no reported reference to the President and his whereabouts.

1555 GMT: Clerical Intervention. Ayatollah Dastgheib, a prominent critic of the Government, says he and five other leading religious authorities in the country concur on 16 points where where the Iranian regime has deviated from the teachings of Islam, the Qur'an, and the Constitution of the Islamic Republic.

Dastgheib made the comments during a lecture on Sunday when he criticised intimidation and harsh court rulings against his students in the city of Shiraz: “I presented five marjas with 16 items of transgression from and violation of Islam, and they all approved and said, ‘We do not think otherwise’ and furthermore they even added some points. Even if we assume that I know nothing [about Islam], do they also know nothing? Are they also ‘foreigners?’”

Dastgheib did not name the five clerics.

1550 GMT: Foreign Affairs. The Iranian Foreign Minisry has summoned the Bahraini charge d'affaires to complain about Bahrain's expulsion of an Iranian diplomat.

1535 GMT: On Campus. Daneshjoo News reports a student protest at Amir Kabir University in Tehran yesterday over poor food and the condition of the dormitories.

1035 GMT: Where's Mahmoud? President Ahmadinejad may not have been at today's Cabinet meeting, but Fars says he did talk with the President of Turkmenistan by phone about Turkmen gas exports to Iran.

1025 GMT: Where's Mahmoud? BBC Persian, from Fars, reports that President Ahmadinejad failed to attend his second Cabinet meeting in a row, with today's session again chaired by 1st Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi.

Peyke Iran claims that Ahmadinejad also skipped a meeting of the Supreme Council for Cultural Revolution.

Ahmadinejad's Presidential website has not been updated since last week's Cabinet gathering in Kurdistan.

0955 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Student activist Farzin Rahimi has been sentenced to 16 months in prison.

0835 GMT: Economy Watch. The Supreme Leader's office checks in via Twitter: "Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized on Iran's self-sufficiency and recommended Iranians to buy Iranian goods....Iran's Leader on importance of workers job: your job prevents people that want to destroy our economy, you are fighting them."

0535 GMT: Syria Watch. Tucked away in a Los Angeles Times story on Syria and the region is this interesting nugget: "'The Syrian regime should heed the demands of people in Syria and manage the current crisis in the country,' former Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as telling students Tuesday."

The Times did not identify the Iranian source for Mottaki's remarks.

0530 GMT: The House Arrests. The reformist Islamic Iran Participation Front has issued a statement calling on all social organizations, political parities and influential religious, political and academic figures to address the illegal arrest and incarceration of political prisoners.

The statement was prompted by Monday’s arrest of Alireza Rajai, a prominent journalist and activist of the Freedom Movement of Iran, who was detained on “security charges": “The persistence of such arrests reveals that the fraudulent ruling autocrats are helpless in the face of the dynamic Green Movement of Iranians for democracy and change; they are on their last breaths, soon to be held accountable for oppressing the most prominent members of our nation.”

0520 GMT: Labour Front. Radio Farda reports on workers' protests this week, with about 800 workers at the Alborz Tyre Factory gathering in front of President Ahmadinejad's office on Sunday to demand nine months of unpaid wages and the reopening of the plant.

The 1300 workers of the tyre plant were told after the Iranian New Year in March that the factory would be closed until it had enough money to reopen. 

On the same day, workers at the Isfahan Steel Company gathered in front of Parliament to protest the nonpayment of their back wages. And about 100 workers and their families gathered outside the Fars Organization of Industries and Mines in Shiraz seeking payment of their wages for the past six months, a worker told Radio Farda.

0510 GMT: No doubt about the most interesting chatter from Iran right now --- President Ahmadinejad has not been seen at work in five days; Ahmadinejad did not attend Sunday's Cabinet meeting; Ahmadinejad and the Cabinet have cancelled a planned trip to Qom this week.

Some of this news is confirmed, such as the Qom cancellation; some remains as intriguing rumour. But what is clear is that the Iranian establishment is in the midst of a serious rift. Factions within the conservative media are at each other's throats. The managing director of State news agency IRNA, former Ahmadinejad aide Ali Akbar Javanfekr, has been referred for prosecution over his handling of the resignation/non-resignation of Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi. Another senior aide, Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, is denying a report --- published in the conservative outlet Fararu --- that he has resigned.

Twelve MPs made a token --- so far --- move on Tuesday with the proposed impeachment of Ahmadinejad. And a prominent cleric, Hojatoleslam Jafar Shojooni, has said the fate of Iran's first President Abdolhassan Bani Sadr awaits Ahmadinejad; we'll post the English text of the interview later this morning.

It's a building story, even if those outside Iran may be slow to pick up on it. Reuters, for example, is headlining the passage of Iran's budget on Tuesday. That would be fair enough in "normal" circumstances, but even the final decision on the budget, held up for months, was far from normal. Almost a third of the MPs boycotted the vote, and some of those who were absent were Ahmadinejad supporters.