Presidential Aide Saeed Mortazavi (see 0535 GMT)0920 GMT: Political Prisoner Watch. Labour activist Reza Shahabi has been sentenced to six years in prison and a five-year occupational ban.
0905 GMT: Education Watch. Iranian media report that the latest examination of the International English Language Testing System, a leading test for qualification for study abroad, has been cancelled because organisers in Iran are unable to pay their British partner due to banking sanctions.
Websites say Iranian applicants were expected to take the exam on 12 and 14 April.
0605 GMT: Bank Fraud Watch. The sixth hearing in the $2.6 billion bank fraud case, with 32 defendants, has opened in Tehran. Today's proceeedings will focus on two of the bank officials charged over the embezzlement.
0535 GMT: Both Iranian and international headlines this morning will be about the nuclear talks in Istanbul between Iran and the 5+1 Powers, but we will begin with a significant story in the continuing effort to curb President Ahmadinejad and his inner circle.
On Saturday, Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari Doulatabadi said that President advisor Saeed Mortazavi would be tried for his alleged role, as Doulatabadi's predecessor, in the abuses and killings of protesters at Kahrizak detention centre after the 2009 Presidential election.
Mortazavi would be the highest-ranking official to face conviction in the Kahrizak scandal, and the prosecution would be a notable setback for Ahmadinejad's camp, who have held out for months against court proceedings.
And there was more bad news. In the afternoon, prominent MP Gholam Ali Haddad Adel said Mortazavi resigned as head of the Social Security, a position to which he had been controversially appointed last month. Legislators had denounced Mortazavi's selection, given the allegations over Kahrizak, and had threatened to impeach Minister of Labour Abdolreza Sheikholeslami for his defence of the former Prosecutor General. Haddad Adel said that, with Mortazavi's resignation, the Minister's job was safe.
Meanwhile, on the nuclear front....
Iranian State media are celebrating yesterday's "talks about talks" in Istanbul, with the agreement between Tehran and the 5+1 (US, UK, Germany, France, Russia, and China) to meet in a second round --- possibly with an agenda of issues --- in Baghdad on 23 May, as a victory for the Islamic Republic's determination.
Press TV focuses on the European declaration of a "positive atmosphere", "totally different" from the "last time" the two sides met, to portray the Europeans moving towards Iran's enlightened position.
The site does not mention, for example, that "last time" refers to January 2011 talks between the European Union and Iran, when the Europeans blamed Tehran's representative Saeed Jalili for stubbornly resisting engagement on the nuclear issue and talking about diversionary points. Instead, Press TV holds up Saturday's declaration of Jalili's deputy, Ali Baqeri, "The capacities of the Islamic Republic of Iran in various areas have created conditions directing the other party towards respecting the role of the Islamic Republic of Iran."
And then there is the slap-down of the US as weak and pleading: "Sources close to the Iranian delegation said Iran's negotiators rejected multiple requests by the US for bilateral talks following the first round of talks and again before the beginning of the second round."
Our EA correspondent covering the talks has a different view, which will be posted later this morning.
Posted via email from lissping
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