The Latest from Iran (11 April): Targeting Ahmadinejad

See also Iran Special: How the Myth of the Green Movement and "Regime Change" Was Created
Iran Snap Analysis: Speaker of Parliament Larijani Uses Syria for a Power Play
The Latest from Iran (10 April): Talks in Istanbul, Challenges to Ahmadinejad at Home

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1925 GMT: Human Rights Watch. According to MP Fatemeh Alia, Parliament has approved a bill to spend 20 billion Toman (about $16.5 million at official rate; about $10.5 million at open market rate) to supervise human rights violations in the US and Britain.

1835 GMT: Posture Watch. In the category of Statements With Very Little Significance....

Saeed Jalili, Iran's lead negotiator in the nuclear talks that begin Saturday in Istanbul, has said:

Iran's representatives will participate in the negotiations with new initiatives and we hope that the P5+1 countries (US, UK, Germany, France, China, Russia) will also enter talks with constructive approaches. The language of threat and pressure against the Iranian nation has never yielded results but will lead to more seriousness in the attitude of the Iranian nation. We are ready to hold progressive and successful talks on cooperation.

Jalili gave no details of the "new initiatives".

Continuing his provincial tour in southern Iran, President Ahmadinejad declared, “Hereby, on behalf of the Iranian people, I tell them (Western nations), the approach you have adopted will fail, and you must correct your literature in addressing the Iranian nation and must speak respectfully."

Ahmadinejad gave no further details about relationship between the Western "bullying", "literature", and the nuclear talks.

1605 GMT: Labour Front. Ali Dehghan-Kia, a member of the Tehran Islamic Labour Council, has said that a permit for a May Day protest will be requested from the Ministry Interior. The march will focus on problems with subsidy cuts.

1605 GMT: Economy Watch. Radio Zamaneh reports that the price of rice has risen by about 25% in nine months.

The site says one kilogramme (2.2 pounds) of rice now costs more than 4500 Toman (about $3.60 at official rate) in Tehran and 3700 Toman (about $3.00) in northern Iran.

1600 GMT: Campus Watch. MP Nourollah Heydari has responded to the reported statement of Minister of Education Kamran Daneshjoo that those who protested after the 2009 Presidential election are banned from higher education. Heydari that evidence and conditions for the study bans must be announced.

1550 GMT: Economy Watch. So what's the top story in today's Iranian newspapers? The nuclear talks? Syrian crisis? President Ahmadinejad's provincial tour?

Try gasoline prices --- the dailies speculate on price for gasoline, after further subsidy cuts. of 900 to 1500 Toman (about $0.72 to $1.23 at official rate) per litre.

1500 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Singer/songwriter Arya Aramnejad has been sentenced to one year in prison.

Aramnejad, seized in November 2011 in Sari in northern Iran, was freed last week on bail. He distributed a song, "All Rise", after the Ashura demonstrations of December 2009, and is known for other anthems such as "Nostalgia" and "In Order to Touch Freedom".

1440 GMT: Detention Watch. Two Russian nationals working for the Zarkouh mining company were reportedly arrested on 5 April in Tehran.

1430 GMT: Elections Watch. Back from a vacation break to find that the head of Iran's Election Commission, Soulat Mortazavi, has said that that the second round of Parliamentary elections will be held on Friday, 4 May.

There will be contests for 65 seats --- 25 of them from Tehran --- in 33 districts with 14,640 poll stations.

Both the Unity Front and the Islamic Constancy Front, the two most prominent conservative/principlist factions in the first round on 2 March, have announced 25-candidate lists for the Tehran contests.

0750 GMT: At the Movies. Hizbullahi activists from Rasht in northern Iran have shut down a cinema showing "Gasht-e Ershad (Moral Police)".

The film's humourous treatment of Iran's social laws and their enforcers has drawn heated criticism. The movie has been banned by Tehran's municipal authorities.

0720 GMT: Surveillance Watch (Part 2). Reuters claims from documents that China's ZTE Corp, which recently sold Iran's largest telecommunications firm a powerful surveillance system, later agreed to ship millions of dollars of embargoed US computer equipment to Tehran.

The American components were part of an 8 million euro ($10.5 million) equipment-supply contract, dated 30 June between ZTE and a unit of the consortium that controls Telecommunication Co. of Iran.

The equipment to be delivered from China included IBM servers; switches made by Cisco Systems Inc and Brocade Communications Systems Inc; database software from Oracle Corp and a unit of EMC Corp; Symantec back-up and ant-virus software; and a Juniper Networks firewall.

A spokesman for ZTE said last week in an email that "as far as we know" the company had not yet shipped any of the products. Asked if ZTE intended to do so, he replied on Monday: "We have no intention to implement this contract or ship the products." He said ZTE decided "to abandon" the agreement after "we realized that the contract involved some US embargoed products".

0715 GMT: Surveillance Watch. Global Post reports on a lawsuit alleging that Africa’s biggest cell phone company conspired to help Iran obtain South African weapons and Pretoria's support for Tehran's nuclear programme.

Cell phone company MTN, in exchange for a license to operate in Iran, allegedly said it would persuade the South African government to support the Islamic Republic at the United Nations and to sell it heavy weapons prohibited by international sanctions.

The accusations of bribery and corruption against MTN, filed in a US court, are made in a lawsuit by a rival mobile firm that was also vying for the Iranian operating licence.

MTN has denied the accusations made in the $4.2 billion lawsuit launched in a US federal court by Turkcell, a Turkish company initially awarded the Iranian cellular license.

0540 GMT: International media eagerly spread President Ahmadinejad's declaration on Tuesday that the Islamic Republic could withdraw sanctions, to the point of surviving even if it did not sell a drop of oil over the next three years.

No one seemed to recognise that this was a diversion. The real story in Iran lay elsewhere --- away from the impending nuclear talks, away from the "West", and even away from the sanctions.

Monday's pressure on Ahmadinejad, including the threats to prosecute his Vice President and two of his top advisors, escalated yesterday. MPs took up Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani's damnation of the Government's subsidy cuts, with 15 legislators calling on Larijani to summon Ahmadinejad for questioning over the programme, problems with domestic production, and inflation. (One of the MPs, former Minister of Health Ali Larijani, had proclaimed only last week that "his entire family had voted for Ahmadinejad" in 2009.)

And in a move which may be symbolic or may be much, Parliament passed an emergency bill which warns of much more to come: the measure says Ahmadinejad can be dismissed if he fails to answer six or more questions satisfactorily.