Top Stories
Foreign Policy: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
has requested a visa to attend a high-level conference next week at U.N.
headquarters to review progress on the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,
according to senior U.N. officials and diplomats." http://bit.ly/d3piAQ
Telegraph UK: "Iran has warned suntanned women and girls
who looked like 'walking mannequins' will be arrested as part of a new drive to
enforce the Islamic dress code." http://bit.ly/bBXDOe
USA Today: "French President Nicolas Sarkozy is heading
to Beijing Wednesday with hopes of getting Chinese backing for further
sanctions against Iran, but President Hu Jintao may have different ideas. The leaders, whose countries hold two of the
five permanent U.N. Security Council seats, are due to discuss Iran, among
other issues, at the start of Sarkozy's three-day state visit to China." http://bit.ly/99jADJ
Nuclear Program
AP: "Iran's foreign minister on Tuesday expressed
optimism Tehran would soon strike a deal with the international community to
provide his country with nuclear fuel - the latest in a new Iranian diplomatic
push to stave off fresh U.N. sanctions over its controversial nuclear
program. As part of the push, top
Iranian officials have been courting some non-permanent Security Council
members to pre-empt possible sanctions." http://bit.ly/csoEjg
Reuters: "The head of a hardline Iranian political party
warned the United States Tuesday against attacking Iran, saying it could hit
back by choking 'the West's throat' at a waterway crucial for global oil
supplies." http://bit.ly/btAoHq
AP: "The United States is 'doing the right thing' by
pursuing a diplomatic solution to the threat that Iran may soon gain a nuclear
weapon, but the world cannot afford to wait too long, Israel's defense minister
said Tuesday." http://bit.ly/9GIZ0s
Reuters: "Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday
he was satisfied with Pentagon planning to counter the threat posed by Iran's
nuclear program. 'I'm very satisfied
with the planning process both within this building and in the inter-agency. We
spend a lot of time on Iran and we'll continue to do so,' Gates told reporters
at a press conference with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak." http://bit.ly/9GxyLb
Commerce
Bloomberg: "Iran, OPEC's second-biggest oil producer,
added three supertankers to its fleet of vessels storing crude, matching a
similar program in 2008 that helped freight rates to triple, ship tracking data
show. At least 15 such vessels are
idling in the Persian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and Gulf of Suez, according to data
from the ships collected by AISLive Ltd. The tankers can store a combined 30 million
barrels of oil, more than a week of national output." http://bit.ly/a7785R
Domestic Politics
LAT: "Iran's embattled opposition leaders are calling for
a new protest march to coincide with the one-year anniversary of disputed presidential
elections in an attempt to jump-start a grass-roots political movement subdued
by street violence and mass imprisonments, a reformist news website reported
Tuesday." http://bit.ly/dw7kJ6
Human Rights
AP: "Retired South African archbishop Desmond Tutu is
calling for the urgent release of three American hikers detained for nearly
nine months in Iran. In a statement
Wednesday Tutu says two of the hikers are ill and they are all suffering
emotionally and are considering a hunger strike. He says Shane Bauer, Josh
Fattal and Sarah Shourd have committed no crime." http://bit.ly/crZcpR
Foreign Affairs
AP: "U.S. military officials said Tuesday that Iran is
trying to expand its influence in Latin America but that Tehran's presence
there doesn't yet pose a military threat to the United States." http://bit.ly/ceSxdM
Telegraph UK: "The Ministry of Defense has announced it
is to return money paid upfront by the former regime of the Shah of Iran for a
huge consignment of tanks and support vehicles ordered in the 1970s. The Iranian side cancelled the contract at
the time of the revolution, but the British government said it could not have
its money back." http://bit.ly/9aAOnJ
Opinion
Victor Davis Hanson for National Review: "So the problem
is not nuclear weapons, but who has them - in particular, the degree to which
an autocratic, renegade country seeks them either to threaten rivals, or to
blackmail the world. We worry a lot about a nuclear Pakistan, are especially
disturbed over a nuclear North Korea, and are terrified that Iran may well
become nuclear. Their nuclear status earns them undue attention, money, and
even deference from the United States - which they might not have garnered had
they not been actual, or at least potential, nuclear powers." http://bit.ly/aHOQjl
Howard LaFranchi in CS Monitor: "In the race between Congress
and the Obama administration to deliver a new round of sanctions related to the
Iran nuclear program, lawmakers appear to be winning. On Wednesday, members of a House-Senate
conference on an impending Iran Sanctions Act will meet to take public comment
and to iron out differences between each chamber's version - with the aim of
delivering the law to President Obama's desk within a few weeks." http://bit.ly/9RvUon
Scott Peterson in CS Monitor: "Iran has pushed its
diplomacy into overdrive as it tries to woo members of the United Nations
Security Council away from US-led efforts to impose new sanctions within weeks. From Brazil to Uganda, Bosnia to China, top
Iranian officials are on a charm offensive unlike any in recent memory." http://bit.ly/bmHgNN
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