0755 GMT: Chest-Thumping Watch. Highlight the theme of our morning analysis, the military has announced the start of "massive exercises", codenamed "Defenders of Velayat Skies 4", to show off capabilities in air defence.
Fars hands out the military press release, "In addition to testing mobility and rapid reaction capability of participating units, the air defence units will test artillery and missile systems' capabilities for confronting different types of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) flying in different altitudes."
0730 GMT: While headlines from Iran are likely to be dominated by the latest military declarations --- see our analysis this morning on the chest-thumping and what it means for US-Iran relations --- the economic news is just as significant.
The regime continues to withhold information in key areas, such as the currency rate, but the signs of difficulty --- as Iran tries to conserve its foreign reserves amid falling oil revenues --- accumulate. This weekend, officials spoke of the crisis in medical supplies and drugs, and the Central Bank reconfirmed its restrictions on movement of currency by travellers, with no more than 5 million Rials (about $130 at open-market rate) allowed per person in and out of Iran.
This morning the head of the Appliance Manufacturers Association has highlighted another tension, as he protested last week's ban on import of 75 "luxury" goods, from laptops to cars to toilet paper.
Posted via email from lissping
