The Latest from Iran (8 July): Admitting the "Sanctions Problem"

See also Iran Document: Tehran's Official Proposals in the Nuclear Talks in Moscow
The Latest from Iran (7 July): Warning the Green Movement

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Saturday's Expediency Council Meeting2110 GMT: Poll Watch. Days after State TV's website was embarrassed by surveys indicating most Iranians would give up enrichment of 20% uranium for sanctions relief and would not support the closure of the Strait of Hormuz --- to the point where the polls were withdrawn and the BBC was accused of hacking the site --- Khabar Online produces a result of 80% opposing the blocking of the Strait.

1400 GMT: The Battle Within. Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi has told a press conference that charges are being brought against MP Ali Motahari over inflammatory remarks in Parliament.

Motahari has been a prominent critic of the Ahmadinejad Government's political, economic, and social policies and has alleged corruption among the President's inner circles. The prosecutor's charges, however, may be related to Motahari's recent allegation that the Revolutionary Guards were involved in manipulation of Parliamentary elections in March.

1247 GMT: Straits Watch. Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani has put the brakes on talk of Parliamentary demands for the closure of a vital waterway, through which 20% of the world's oil passes, in response to sanction, "The lawmakers are allowed to comment on internal and external issues and even prepare bills, but a specific bill on blocking the Strait of Hormuz has not yet been prepared."

State media this week quoted MP Ibrahim Agha-Mohammadi's statement that Parliament planned to pass a bill for closure of the Strait in response to the European Union's cut-off of imports of Iranian oil from 1 July.

1152 GMT: Economy Watch. MP Gholamreza Kateb, the spokesman for Parliament’s Planning Committee, has said the "real" inflation rate is 33.5%.

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The official rate, provided by the Central Bank, was 22.2% for April-May.

Deputy Ministry of Economy Behrouz Alishiri has said that Iran needs an annual $400 billion in foreign direct investment to meet its objective of 8% economic growth by 2015.

1010 GMT: Oil Watch. Another Iranian official has declared that Tehran can cope with European Union sanctions by providing insurance cover for tankers shipping the Islamic Republic's crude.

Mohammad-Reza Mohammadi Banaei, the managing director of Kish Mutual Protection and Indemnity Club insisted, “At present, there is no problem to insure oil tankers within the country.” He claimed his company has recently provided insurance cover for more oil tankers and that 13 new tankers are set to be insured in the near future.

The head of Iran's oil exporters union, claimed on Saturday that Tehran has reached agreements with European refiners to sell some of its oil through a private consortium.

The EU sanctions, which came into force on 1 July, banned insurance cover for Iran's tankers. European insurers provide 95% of the coverage for the global oil trade.

0700 GMT: CyberWatch. Raja News publishes a lengthy call on the authorities to deal with the social networks who are operating as "spies" on the Internet to "make underlying problems in the field of culture and politics, and consequently security problems".

Culprits, according to Raja, include Google, Microsoft BizSpark, Amazon Web Services, George Soros, the Albert Einstein Foundation, Wilson Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, and National Endowment for Democracy.

0640 GMT: Forget the rhetoric, the real clue to Iran's evaluation of international sanctions lay in a meeting of the Expediency Council on Saturday.

After the disputed 2009 Presidential election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boycotted the meetings of the Council, headed by his rival Hashemi Rafsanjani. However, he was present yesterday. So were his leading Ministers.

Reports of the meeting focused on denunciation of the West's sanctions, propaganda, and "psychological war". Details of the discussion and, more importantly, the regime's response to the sanctions are sketchy. However, the Secretary of the Expediency Council, Mohsen Rezaei, identified the challenge of restrictions on Iran's financial transactions, transfers of currency and shipping.

According to Rezaei, Ahmadinejad told the meeting that he had established a one-year plan to deal with the crisis.