Top Stories
Guardian: "The EU
will next week announce a package of sanctions against Iran that go well beyond
last month's UN measures. They will affect UK and other European companies in
the transport, banking and insurance sectors, diplomats say. 'This is the most
substantive and far-reaching set of sanctions the EU has agreed to on Iran or
indeed on any country,' said one EU diplomat, who did not wish to be named." http://bit.ly/dqk0ot
WaPo: "Increasingly tough international sanctions over Iran's nuclear program
have significantly slowed the county's most prestigious economic project,
scheduled to rake in more than $130 billion in annual sales of natural gas
after its completion." http://bit.ly/aY1iyw
NY Daily News: "On Monday, the anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr met
with Iyad Allawi, who is vying to become Iraq's next prime minister after his
coalition narrowly won parliamentary elections in March. It might seem like a
minor development in the endless political jockeying over forming a stable
government in Iraq. But, in fact, this meeting was a victory for Iran and
another setback for the United States." http://bit.ly/cbTL7G
Nuclear Program
Reuters: "The United
Arab Emirates is toughening its posture toward Tehran, worried that the risks
of a nuclear Iran on its doorstep may outweigh the cost of a conflict between
Iran and the West." http://bit.ly/dh2VUy
LAT: "In a counterstrike of psychological warfare, Iran will use the United
States' own greatest propaganda weapon against it by shooting a Hollywood-style
spy thriller based on the alleged kidnapping and return of Iranian nuclear
scientist Shahram Amiri, said news reports this week." http://bit.ly/b4ks0X
Commerce
Reuters: "Iran and China are in talks to use the Chinese yuan to settle
transactions of oil and projects, as heightened sanctions from the United
States and Europe seek to further isolate Tehran from the global financial
system." http://bit.ly/cZboxu
Bloomberg: "Iran, the second-largest oil producer in OPEC, wants to 'move away'
from taking payment in dollars and euros for its crude exports, the country's
vice president said today as the pressure of international sanctions increase
on the Persian Gulf state." http://bit.ly/cU0UQd
Reuters: "Iran plans to issue bonds worth some 11.5 billion euros ($14.8
billion) by March 2011 to help finance development of its energy sector, the semi-official
Mehr news agency quoted a senior official as saying on Friday." http://bit.ly/bfM90c
Foreign Affairs
Reuters: "Russia, the world's largest oil producer,
must carve a careful path between its efforts to improve ties with Washington
and its historic relationship with Iran, a fellow oil and gas power." http://bit.ly/9YEUBO
Japan Times: "Ever since the United States and India started to transform their
relationship by changing the global nuclear order to accommodate India, Iran
has been a litmus test that India has had to pass from time to time to the
satisfaction of U.S. policymakers. India's traditionally close ties with Iran
have become a factor influencing a U.S.-India partnership." http://bit.ly/9P313p
Opinion
Washington Times Editorial
Board: "A task force report released this week by the American Foreign Policy
Council entitled 'Toward An Economic Warfare Strategy Against Iran' lays out
some of the potential measures short of war that could push Tehran towards a
peaceful solution. The task force concludes that the U.S. needs to 'marshal a
comprehensive economic warfare strategy toward the Islamic Republic - one that
leverages the latent vulnerabilities inherent in the Iranian economy to ratchet
up the cost of the regime's nuclear endeavor.' Among the suggestions given, it
appears that the best place to hit Iran is in the gas tank." http://bit.ly/aj2kV6
Saul Rosenberg in WSJ: "When Houshang Asadi's feet hurt, he doesn't have to
wonder why. They've been that way for 25 years, since the days when he was
regularly beaten in an Iranian prison. The Islamist government's jailers knew
well that the soles of the feet make an inviting target-rich in sensitive nerve
endings and easily crushed bones. Memories of his imprisonment and torture in
the early 1980s, Mr. Asadi says, still brought on tears every morning when he
sat down to write about life before he escaped to Paris in 2003 from 'the
mega-prison that is today's Iran,' as he calls his former home in the
extraordinary memoir 'Letters to My Torturer.'" http://bit.ly/cUOASM
Gerald Seib in WSJ: "The owner of a large tanker, which was to carry gasoline
from a Turkish refinery to Iran, stopped the ship from sailing as scheduled.
The uncertainties of doing business with Iran these days, and the potential
penalties under international sanctions for firms that do so, apparently
created too much doubt about the wisdom of completing the transaction." http://bit.ly/cBjs3T
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