Ahmadinejad threatens the whole wide world    –    Cartoon by Nikahang Kosar

* * Monday, August 30th live news feed from Saham News reports: More than fifty plain clothes agents as well as members of the Basij militia have swarmed to and surrounded Mahdi Karroubi’s residence in Tehran. The agents who are armed, have covered their faces and head with balaclavas for fear of recognition through photographs and video taken by citizen reporters. The agents are also seen with caches of tear gas, handcuffs, high voltage tasers and electroshock weapons as well as batons and night sticks. The guards prevented Karroubi from leaving his house to attend the Ghadr Night* ceremony. Reportedly this is a step taken by the Iranian regime as a backlash to Karroubi’s call for Green supporters to join him for the anti-regime Quds Day protests.

UPDATE: The number of agents grew to 100 and prevented the Karroubi family from entering or leaving their resident. The agents and their mob of supporters chanted against Karroubi however this time the agents did not break the windows or throw paint on Karroubi’s house, as they did on March 14th.

* Ghadr Night or “night of power” refers to a night in the holy month of Ramadan in which the Quran was revealed to Prophet Mohammad

* * China visa black market being run out of Chinese embassy in Tehran. According to received reports a black market outfit inside the Chinese embassy in Tehran is selling visas to China for astronomical prices. There are nine different visa categories to China and the regular cost of obtaining a visa is seventy thousand Tomans (approximately $70 US), however the black market visas are said to cost anywhere between six hundred thousand ($600 US) to seven hundred thousand Tomans ($700 US). Based on this report anyone who is able to pay this price receives the visa in one day.

* * The Revolutionary Guards are setting forests throughout Iran on fire claiming to be ’smoking out’ anti-regime forces hiding out in the forests of Iran. In recent months the number of forest fires all across Iran has skyrocketed. Residents of areas who in an attempt to save their properties have tried to put the fires out, have been confronted by threats and abuse from the guards.  Many villages and farms have been engulfed by the flames and farmers are said to have lost their homes, crops and their farm animals. Reports also indicate that the charred bodies of a large number of extinct wildlife indigenous to Iran have also been found.

* * As we reported in our news round-up last week, the slogan writing on cash notes in Iran continues. Here is a sample of the latest round, with names of political prisoners emblazoned on them.