Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

There are two Iran clocks – a democracy clock and a nuclear clock. But which is ticking faster? Lindsey Hilsum blogs for Channel 4 News.

“Iran has begun negotiations with the six major world powers in Geneva on a wide realm of global issues…. The Geneva meeting is based on Iran’s package of proposals released earlier this month.”

It’s not surprising security is tight at the UN during the general assembly. We all expect to have to stand in long queues to pass through metal detectors at any gathering where Barack Obama is present, especially when he is joined by Benjamin Netanyahu, Mahmoud Abbas, Muammar Gaddafi and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. No wonder there are…

The Iranian government would have us believe that the opposition is dying, suppressed out of all existence. Since mid July it’s been pretty much impossible for large crowds to gather – every time they do, basiij militia come out to beat people up or arrest them. The opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi said he had evidence…

At some parties the buzz is all about who’s there. The big issue at President Ahmadinejad’s inauguration was who wasn’t there. There was a distinct lack of former presidents – no Khatami, no Rafsanjani. He wasn’t doing well on former parliamentary speakers either. No member of the late Imam Khomeni’s family.

Iran’s opposition supporters have a way of turning things upside-down and back-to-front in the Islamic Republic. Many of them are secular, yet they go onto their balconies every night to shout “Allah Akbar,” putting the Basij militia, the vanguard of the Islamic Revolution, into the invidious position of telling people to stop praising God. That’s…

  I feel as if I went to bed in one country and woke up in another.   Yesterday, I saw thousands of Iranians laughing and happy as they queued in the sunshine to vote. Today, thuggish looking secret policemen with walkie-talkies stood on every street corner, while riot police with truncheons roared around the…

An enormous thunderstorm has blown up over Tehran tonight. Maybe tomorrow’s election results will bring another kind of tempest.     I’m cautious about opinion polling in Iran, but it’s clear that the opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi is at the very least a serious challenge to President Ahmadinejad, who seemed so secure just three weeks…

ESFAHAN, IRAN – A video dispatch from this historic city, on one of the most passionately fought election campaigns I have ever seen anywhere: (Read more from Esfahan here.)

ESFAHAN, IRAN – I can bear witness to the fact that support for Ahmadinejad’s main rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is not confined to wealthy north Tehran. We nearly got crushed in the crowd in Esfahan‘s central square yesterday. It wasn’t even the main man speaking but his prominent and much-loved supporter, former President Khatami. The…

TEHRAN, IRAN – The biggest mosque in Tehran was full. It was, according to a true believer I met, the biggest rally ever, anywhere in the world. Their leader, president and presidential candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was to address them. They screamed slogans, sang patriotic songs and waved national flags. Music blared from huge speakers. It…

What next in Iran’s nuclear plan? President Ahmadinejad says “we don’t have to tell you everything”. Science Correspondent Julian Rush visits a civil nuclear power station on the Persian Gulf coast.