Top Stories
Reuters: "Lloyd's of London will not insure or reinsure
petroleum shipments going into Iran, the insurance market said on Friday. U.S.
President Barack Obama signed into law last week far-reaching new sanctions
that aim to squeeze the Islamic Republic's fuel imports and increase its
international isolation. 'The U.S. is an
important market for Lloyd's and, in recognition of this, the market will not
insure or reinsure refined petroleum going into Iran,' Lloyd's General Counsel
Sean McGovern told Reuters in a statement." http://bit.ly/98TTeH
Reuters: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on
Thursday that the United States must make its position on Israel's nuclear
strategy clear before talks on Tehran's atomic program could resume. Sanctions imposed by 'arrogant' Western
powers would not slow Iran's nuclear progress, he said." http://bit.ly/cxgE0c
FT: "Coincidentally, the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline
will top the agenda as Iranian and Indian officials sit down for two days of
trade talks in New Delhi - although Iran's finance minister - Seyed Shamsodin
Hosseini - refused to be drawn on it at a seminar hosted today by the
Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Iran's 50-strong business delegation is
looking to do some serious courting of their own, hoping to entice Indian
business to invest in Iran's energy, textiles, agriculture, automobiles,
chemicals, transportation and pharmaceutical sectors, to name, well, lots." http://bit.ly/bGyzwx
Nuclear Program
AFP: "US President Barack Obama said in an Israeli TV
interview broadcast on Thursday it is highly unlikely the Jewish state would
surprise Washington with an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. 'It is unacceptable for Iran to possess
nuclear weapons and we are going to do everything we can to prevent that
happening,' Obama told Israel's Channel 2 television in the interview taped on
Wednesday." http://bit.ly/amSaJo
Reuters: "Turkey still sees a chance of Iran doing a
nuclear fuel swap on the basis of an agreement reached with Turkey and Brazil
in May, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday. Under the deal reached in Tehran, Iran agreed
to send some of its uranium abroad, reviving a fuel swap plan drafted by the
United Nations with the aim of keeping its nuclear work in check." http://bit.ly/cw6h50
BBC News: "The US and its European allies like to see
Iran as an increasingly isolated country; its economy hobbled more and more by
economic sanctions and with the pressure growing weekly. There is no doubt that Iran is to a large
extent isolated from key markets and that the sanctions are beginning to act as
a significant brake on its economy." http://bit.ly/96rJTd
Bloomberg: "Iran, the second-largest oil producer in the
Middle East, released six supertankers from its fleet of vessels storing crude
oil, a 40 percent reduction that may mean more oil heading to Europe, shipping
tracking data show. The National Iranian
Tanker Co. has nine supertankers stationed off the United Arab Emirates and its
own coast, according to data from the ships collected by AISLive Ltd. and
compiled by Bloomberg. That's down from 15 of the vessels on April 27. The six
tankers that have been released can hold about 12 million barrels of oil." http://bit.ly/csa1Jj
NYT: "Even as the United States imposes new sanctions on
Iran, one of the biggest gaps in the American strategy is on full display here
in Iraq, where hundreds of millions of dollars in crude oil and refined
products are smuggled over the scenic mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan every year."
http://nyti.ms/chNmgg
Human Rights
AP: "The case of an Iranian woman sentenced to death by
stoning drew international outrage after her lawyer's blog posts sparked a
global campaign to save her life, and British media reported late Thursday that
the stoning would not occur." http://bit.ly/dwkNUL
Domestic Politics
NYT: "Widespread strikes continued for a third day on
Thursday at Tehran's central bazaar, according to Iranian news sites, as
merchants protested a proposed tax increase on their earnings. One merchant was
arrested, the Jaras Web site reported, and some opposition Web sites reported
that a merchant had been killed in a clash with the police." http://nyti.ms/cTEMey
Opinion
Charles Robb and Charles Wald in WP: "When President
Obama signed into law tough, new legislative sanctions against Iran last week,
he capped a month of new measures against that country's nuclear program.
Earlier in June, the Obama administration achieved a new round of U.N. Security
Council sanctions, and the European Union declared plans to adopt additional
sanctions in July. This activity, the culmination of months of political and
diplomatic negotiations, is welcome. Absent a broader and more robust strategy,
however, sanctions alone will prove inadequate to halt Iran's pursuit of
nuclear weapons." http://bit.ly/aMruYT
CFR Interview on The Limits of New Sanctions: "Still, it
is too simplistic to dismiss sanctions entirely. The record is quite mixed. If
you look at the multitude of sanctions imposed by Congress, by the United
Nations, and by the U.S. executive branch over the last couple of decades, you
can discern general conditions under which sanctions are more likely to
contribute to a positive outcome and conditions under which 'success' is less
likely." http://bit.ly/chQXgN
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