Top Stories
Reuters: "U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday he
expects new sanctions on Iran by May as Tehran began lobbying the U.N. Security
Council to oppose new steps against the Islamic Republic over its atomic plans. Biden issued the latest U.S. warning to Iran,
locked in a standoff with the West over a nuclear program Tehran insists is
entirely peaceful, in an appearance on ABC television's 'The View' talk show." http://bit.ly/bd14AW
NYT:"Over the past five years, 41 foreign companies have
helped Iran develop its oil and gas sector, which accounts for more than half
of the Iranian government's revenues, Congressional investigators reported
Thursday." http://nyti.ms/dwN062
Reuters:"Iran has said that it will allow U.N. nuclear
officials better monitoring and access to a site where it started enriching
uranium to higher levels over two months ago, diplomats said. The move should have happened earlier,
diplomats said, as Iran started higher enrichment in February, before
inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) could improve
surveillance." http://nyti.ms/bUyHkT
Nuclear Program
WSJ: "Iran has a history of saber-rattling under pressure. A
U.S.-led push has been building steam at the United Nations for fresh economic
sanctions against Tehran, while President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian
officials have mounted what appears to be a diplomatic push to thwart the U.N.
effort." http://bit.ly/cat8sy
AFP:"Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned Thursday
that the UN Security Council cannot wait indefinitely for Iran to heed the
warnings of the international community on its nuclear program. 'If we are talking about a situation where
everything stays as it is, in a dead-end state, then I don't think the Security
Council will observe this for too long without intervening,' Lavrov said in
televised comments." http://bit.ly/d9xx6K
Reuters:"Iran's oil industry has not been dented by
sanctions, Oil Minister Massoud Mirkazemi said on Thursday, dismissing a
potential threat to the country's vital gasoline imports as 'a joke.' Mirkazemi's comments, at an energy conference
in Tehran, come as the United States pushes for a fourth round of United
Nations sanctions to pressure Iran to curb a nuclear programme the West fears
is aimed at building a bomb." http://bit.ly/b3SZDC
Human Rights
AP: "Two of three American hikers jailed in Iran for nearly
nine months are in poor health and told Swiss diplomats -- their first outside
visitors since October -- that they were considering a hunger strike, their
mothers said late Thursday." http://nyti.ms/9aa3Mn
Radio Farda:"A group of detainees in Iranian prisons has
addressed an open letter to the country's top clerics alleging that they and
their families have been tortured, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports. The detainees, who are considered to be
political prisoners by human rights groups, were arrested in the crackdown that
followed Iran's disputed presidential election in June. They are being held at
Tehran's Evin prison." http://bit.ly/a2aOKt
Foreign Affairs
Reuters: "Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has backed
Iran's controversial nuclear programme and accused the West of seeking to
punish the two countries for asserting their independence. Mugabe was speaking at a banquet he hosted
for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who arrived in Harare on Thursday
for a two-day visit." http://nyti.ms/aNxnoh
Opinion
Gerald F. Seib in WSJ:"Iranian forces launched a big
military exercise in the Persian Gulf Thursday, thereby underscoring a grim
reality: The strategy for stopping Iran's nuclear program is turning into a
race against time before options turn from mediocre to bad to worse." http://bit.ly/9GZmgB
Tom Gjelten on NPR:"But officials have been hard-pressed to
say what else can be done to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear state. If the Obama White House is unnerved by
critics who say the administration hasn't figured out where it's going on Iran,
there's no outward sign of it. Speaking about the administration's Iran policy
Wednesday night, Gen. Jim Jones, the president's national security adviser,
made a sweeping declaration." http://n.pr/9ZiWHj
Saba Farzan in WSJ:"As the international community works on
new sanctions against Iran, a small revolution is happening in Germany. Members
of the Free Democratic Party have drafted a motion urging the government to
classify the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist
organization. The proposal has already won near unanimous support at a regional
FDP meeting in Berlin." http://bit.ly/994T2a
Roger Cohen in NYT:"For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, his people are not traumatized by some wild delusion. No, there are
facts: the rise of Iran, the fierce projection of Iran's proxies, Hamas and
Hezbollah, and the rockets that have been fired by them." http://nyti.ms/bf6Gn9
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