2030 GMT: Cartoon of the Day (Iran-Syria Special). Maya Nayestani depicts a special message from Tehran to Damascus, a woman explaining to her friend, "He is sending a smoke signal to Bashar al-Assad":
2015 GMT: The House Arrests. Kalemeh updates on the house arrest/detention of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard....
1800 GMT: Economy Watch. Prominent economist Saeed Leylaz has declared that the main problem of the Iranian economy is domestic mismanagement rather than foreign sanctions, adding that smuggling is $20 billion per year.
1755 GMT: Labour Front. Claimed video of a strike on 19 March at the Bandar Imam Petrochemical Complex in Mahshahr in southwestern Iran:
The son of the former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani is being investigated by Oxford University after claims that his successful doctoral thesis proposal was written with the help of others.
Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former head of Iran's state-owned gas company, began a five-year DPhil course in the Iranian constitution at the faculty of oriental studies in October.
1525 GMT: Back to the Regime Party. Iranian media have released pictures of regional Presidents being treated by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at Nowruz festivities. Not sure it's a 100% success, however --- Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai appears to be sleeping through the entertainment.
Better news for Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammadov --- Ahmadinejad gave him a two-seater LSA airplane worth $130,000.
Last week, Berdimuhammadov sent a thousand tons of flour to Iran for Nowruz.
1700 GMT: Rafsanjani Watch. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has thrown another jab at the Government in his website message for the New Year: "We unfortunately witness the pursuing of indecent methods by those in charge, such as making lies and giving empty slogans to the people....The Iranian people are educated and well-informed and neither deserve lies nor promises which are impossible to be implemented....Those in charge should listen to criticism, and either convince the critics through logic or correct their policies.
Rafsanjani, who lost his post as head of the Assembly of Experts this month, even had a poke at the post-election repression: "What we should, however, definitely not do as Muslims is acting beyond ethics and eventually expose an Islamic society as disgrace."
1640 GMT: The Battle Within. Promient MP Hojatoleslam Hossein Sobhani-Nia has declared that the further the Government goes, the more dissent there is within the camp of the hardliners.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at 7:55 | Scott Lucas in EA Iran, EA Middle East and Turkey, Middle East and Iran 
Feb 2009: Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa and Manouchehr Mottaki In the context of the Bahraini regime's claims that Tehran is behind the wave of protests that started 14 February, Western media's depictions of a US concern with Iranian intervention, and Tehran's propaganda campaign highlighting Bahrain, this August 2008 cable for the US Embassy in Manama takes on significance.
Those who have noted the WikiLeaks document, from WikiLeaks, have seized on the Embassy's observation: "Bahraini government officials sometimes privately tell U.S. official visitors that some Shi'a oppositionists are backed by Iran. Each time this claim is raised, we ask the GOB to share its evidence. To date, we have seen no convincing evidence of Iranian weapons or government money here since at least the mid-1990s."
Yet the wider setting for Bahraini-Iranian relations deserves at least as much recognition: here are two regimes that are not necessarily enemies, but are willing to use each other as the "threat" for domestic consumption: "Bahrain's Sunni rulers view Iran with deep suspicion, and support USG efforts to pressure Iran to change its behavior. But the Al-Khalifas also seek to keep channels open, and make occasional gestures to placate their large, touchy neighbor."
2020 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. The chair of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, former MP, and university professor Mohsen Mirdamadi has been released on bail.
1120 GMT: A Death at the Fire Festival. A close friend of university student Behnoud Ramezani describes the 19 year-old's death at the hands of security forces a week ago during the celebration of Chahrshanbeh Suri.
1905 GMT: Claimed video from Shiraz of people welcoming in Iranian New Year with political slogans such as "Death to Dictator":
1710 GMT: A New Year's Message. The opposition Coordination Council has released another message for Nowruz, calling for patience, perseverance, and hope for victory. The poster with the message declares, "We are a wave whose calmness would mean our non-being":
1650 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. RAHANA has posted statistics on more than 1250 arrests in Iran in the past year, including 185 students, 165 members of religious minorities, 129 Kurdish activists, and 43 journalists.
Watch these references to "unity" from Rafsanjani and the "moderate conservatives". They may indeed mark a unification --- one which is not of support for the Government, but of the forging of an alliance to challenge Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his closest allies.
