Iran Live Coverage: Engineering June's Presidential Election

The Supreme Leader's senior aide Ali Akbar Velayati announces plans for the Presidential election at a Sunday press conference

See also Sunday's Iran Live Coverage: Revolutionary Guards v. Ahmadinejad

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1818 GMT: Economy Watch. The Financial Times picks up on one of the hot topics of conversation as Iranian New Year approaches --- the sharp rise in pistachio prices.

The nuts, a staple of the Nowruz celebrations, have soared in cost at home as farmers --- able to make three times as much as a year ago in foreign currency because of the falling Iranian Rial --- send their pistachios abroad.

One kilogrammes of pistachios cost 200,000 Rials last year. This March, the price is between IR540,000 and IR780,000.

In recent days, the Government has forced shops to sell pistachios at 300,000 Rial per kilo, but the intervention has had little effect so far.

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The Latest from Iran (23 August): Arrested...for Helping Earthquake Victims

Some of those arrested in East Azerbaijan Province for helping earthquake victims, in a photo before their detentions: Vahed Kholoosi (far right), Hossein Ronaghi Maleki (front row, white hat), Navid Khanjani (front row, black hat), Misagh Afshar (front row, sitting on the right of Hossein Ronaghi), Artemis Varzandeh (front row, second from left)

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2343 GMT: The Earthquakes. Back to our opening story --- activists report that all eight women and four men arrested while helping victims of the East Azerbaijan earthquake have been released on bail.

At least 23 other men remain behind bars.

A photograph of one of the detainees, blogger Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, with a young girl while helping with the recovery:

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The Latest from Iran (3 February): Glancing at Cairo

2120 GMT: The "Right" Egyptian Revolution. How much is Tehran playing up Egypt? To the point where almost all the story on Press TV's "Iran" section after actually about Cairo....

The military advisor to the Supreme Leader, Brigadier General Yahya Rahim-Safavi, suggests that some of the opposition figures are not "right" for Iran: “By introducing several people as [protest] leaders, the US is seeking to pave the way for creating rifts amidst the Egyptian nation and to use the outcome to its own advantage.”

Grand Ayatollah Hossein Nouri-Hamedani is also setting out Good and Bad for the demonstrators, warning anti-regime protesters in Egypt over the dangers of a “secular revolution".

So what is the right path? MP Gholam-Reza Mesbahi-Moghaddam helps out, “Thanks to the Islamic Revolution, Islam and Shiism is cultivating in the world and this revolutionary culture is Islamic.”

The Foreign Ministry says it is monitoring the "wave of Islamic awakening".

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