Top Stories
WSJ: "Cooperation among Iran, al
Qaeda and other Sunni extremist groups is more extensive than previously
known
to the public, according to details buried in the tens of thousands of
military
intelligence documents released by an independent group Sunday. U.S.
officials
and Middle East analysts said some of the most explosive information
contained
in the WikiLeaks documents detail Iran's alleged ties to the Taliban and
al
Qaeda, and the facilitating role Tehran may have played in providing
arms from
sources as varied as North Korea and Algeria." http://bit.ly/aTJdoI
AP: "The head of Iran's opposition warned the country's hard-line political
leaders Monday that they could suffer the same fate as the deposed Shah if they
continue to consolidate their grip on power. The powerful comparison was Mir
Hossein Mousavi's first direct criticism of a ruling system that he was once
firmly a part of and represented a bolder stance certain to provoke the
authorities' anger." http://bit.ly/bRpuaS
Reuters: "Iran will only resume
nuclear negotiations on certain conditions, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said
in a TV interview aired on Tuesday, after the European Union imposed tough new
sanctions. According to state-run Press TV, Ahmadinejad reiterated conditions
he first set out in June for returning to talks about Iran's nuclear program,
but which his envoy to the U.N. nuclear agency had on Monday indicated no
longer applied." http://yhoo.it/cyFAeg
Nuclear Program
BBC: "Sanctions were imposed by the US after the seizure of American hostages
in the aftermath of the revolution, and the 1980 Iran-Iraq war. In recent years
a fresh wave of UN sanctions has attempted to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions.
But what effect have these measures actually had on the country and its
economy?" http://bit.ly/c6p9Cg
WSJ: "European Union foreign
ministers set the seal Monday on tough new sanctions aimed at Iran's suspected
nuclear-weapons program-but at the same time unexpectedly lifted curbs
restricting supplies to a nuclear-power plant Russian engineers are building in
the country." http://bit.ly/cM9MHx
AP: "Canada has imposed new
unilateral sanctions against Iran, joining an international campaign to force
Tehran to drop its nuclear program. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon
said Monday the new measures will include a ban on any new Canadian investment
in Iran's oil and gas sector, and restrictions on exporting goods that could be
used in nuclear programs." http://bit.ly/9120eD
Human
Rights
CNN: "An attorney representing an imprisoned Iranian woman facing possible
execution by stoning remained missing Tuesday, although his wife and
brother-in-law were in custody, a human rights activist said." http://bit.ly/c60Aiy
Radio Farda: "A jailed Iranian
journalist has warned that if his complaint against Iran's supreme leader,
president, and chief prosecutor is not pursued he will appeal to international
bodies, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports." http://bit.ly/bN7b9W
Foreign Affairs
Reuters: "Iran expects the United States to launch a military strike on 'at least
two countries' in the Middle East in the next three months, Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told state-run Press TV. In an interview recorded on
Monday, Ahmadinejad did not specify whether he thought Iran itself would be
attacked nor did he say what intelligence led him to expect such a move." http://bit.ly/bIKjMx
Reuters: "Iranian criticism of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is 'unacceptable'
and 'fruitless, irresponsible rhetoric', the Russian Foreign Ministry said on
Monday." http://bit.ly/b78w3z
Daily Telegraph: "Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, the Iranian leader, says Paul the Octopus, the sea creature that
correctly predicted the outcome of World Cup games, is a symbol of all that is
wrong with the western world." http://bit.ly/dyRt6w
Opinion
Thomas Joscelyn in The Weekly Standard: "One of the more interesting aspects of the
WikiLeaks document dump is the persistence of intelligence reports indicating
collusion between al Qaeda, al Qaeda-affiliated parties, and Iran. By itself,
this should not be surprising. The 9/11 Commission, Clinton-era federal
prosecutors, and many others have found evidence of such
cooperation. Still, it is widely assumed that such an alliance is
impossible due to theological differences between Sunni al Qaeda and the Shiite
mullahs. The WikiLeaks documents demonstrate, once again, that the world does
not abide by armchair assumptions. Our terrorist enemies are not mindless
automatons. When it comes to confronting their common enemies, collusion is the
order of the day." http://bit.ly/aWNJQ2
Meir Javedanfar in The Diplomat: "In Iran, a new movement is appearing which wants
to say that it's more revolutionary than the Supreme Leader. This new movement
wants to pit the supporters of Hezbollah (the original Hezbollah party, which
is based in Iran and later had an offshoot in Lebanon) in the society against
the Supreme Leader, and to make this movement problematic for him. This new
movement doesn't want to see the country in peace and tranquility. It even
wants to vacate the surroundings of the Supreme Leader from others and only
keep itself in his proximity. And when this happens, it will want to say that
we are the only ones who stayed, therefore all authorities should be surrendered
to me because I won 25 million votes." http://bit.ly/alGrVg
Vladimir Radyuhin in The Hindu: "The
mixed signals on Iran that Russia has been sending in recent days have puzzled
many western analysts. A little over a month after it went along with the
United States in supporting tougher sanctions on Iran, Moscow signed a
framework pact on wide-ranging cooperation with Tehran in hydrocarbons and
announced a similar plan for nuclear energy projects." http://bit.ly/dzyltC
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment