Rooyesh

On a five day trip last week to the Fars province of southern Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad promised mass rallies that he would provide everything from swimming pools to better roads and soft bank loans - spending pledges that add up to $3bn. The FT’s Najmeh Bozorgmehr was the only foreign media journalist on the tour. Here is her exclusive diary of her travels with the president.

 http://media.ft.com/cms/ff6eb31c-f10c-11db-838b-000b5df10621.swf

In the town of Khorrambid, 700km south of Tehran, thousands of angry people have been waiting for Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad for hours. When he arrives they greet him as the “defender” of their rights and vent their frustration with “powerful people” in Tehran who have exploited the town’s marble mines without giving its residents a fair share of jobs or income. A large placard hanging behind them states a favourite Iranian slogan – “Nuclear energy is our inalienable right” – to which a note has been cheekily appended that says: “Mines are our main demand.”

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A former senior Iranian diplomat said on Monday that Ali Larijani, Iran’s top security official, had been given “the authority for compromise” over Iran’s nuclear programme in talks with the European Union due Wednesday in Turkey.Sadegh Kharrazi, former ambassador to Paris, was signalling that Mr Larijani has been given backing from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This was apparently lacking last year when Mr Larijani’s last talks with Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, failed to resolve the impasse over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

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Two thousand young men in Iran have protested against new clothing curbs, reports say, amid growing discontent about a crackdown on un-Islamic dress. Shiraz university students were angry about new rules banning sleeveless T-shirts, even inside all-male dorms. The protest came as the judiciary head warned police that an excessively ferocious campaign could backfire. Police say they stopped more than 1,300 women for dressing immodestly on the first day of the campaign in Tehran.

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