This morning’s Guardian carries a report on a private memorandum reportedly sent by United States officials to representatives of European governments, urging them not to support a Palestinian bid to upgrade the status of its delegation at the United Nations. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced plans last week to ask the UN General Assembly to recognise the Palestinian delegation as a ‘non-member state’. The US memorandum reportedly expresses deep concern that the one-sided nature of such a move would undermine the peace process and warned that it could impact US financial support for the PA. Both the Times and Guardian online report that the Iranian currency is in crisis, with the Iranian rial having fallen 15 per cent in one day against the US dollar. Both articles report that the plunge is largely the result of sanctions by the US and European Union, which have targeted the Iranian financial, energy and shipping sectors. The Times quotes Israel’s Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, who claimed that the Iranian economy is ‘on the verge of collapse.’ The Guardian carries an analysis that speculates that the Iranian financial crisis will become another front in a split between Iranian President Ahmadinejad and the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In a related story, the Telegraph online reports that a cameraman considered a trusted ally of Ahmadinejad has defected to the US, having accompanied the Iranian President to the UN General Assembly in New York last week. This comes after the Times yesterday reported a rift in the Iranian regime as an estimated £6billion spent on supporting President Assad in Syria has failed as yet to deliver a decisive victory for his regime.

Meanwhile, the Financial Times online reports that the UK government is leading the call for a fresh set of EU sanctions against Iran. Quoting an unnamed UK diplomat, the report claims that the new measures would focus on trade, finance, energy and transport and will be brought before the EU foreign ministers’ meeting on 15 October. Also online, the Telegraph covers a speech delivered by Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Moallem to the UN General Assembly, in which he accused countries of interfering in Syrian domestic affairs, by supporting forces seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, the Independent online claims that feuding between different opposition groups in Syria is holding up the delivery of arms to such forces.

In the Israeli media, Maariv gives prominence to Iran’s reported financial crisis, speculating that the Israeli government will look to the international community to step up sanctions, in the hope that it will help foment public discontent with the Tehran regime. Haaretz leads with a report that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to call a general election to be held in February or March 2013. The report suggests that Netanyahu will make the decision in the coming days, with coalition agreement on his proposed 2013 budget unlikely. Israel Hayom’s headline also speculates over the possibility of an early general election, adding that Netanyahu will meet the leaders of rival political parties during the coming week, to assess the possibility of passing the budget. The Jerusalem Post reports criticism by Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak levelled at the country’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Barak says that Lieberman’s recent public claim that there is no chance of peace with the Palestinians under the leadership of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, ‘harms Israeli interest.’