Top Stories
AFP: "Iran will need another two weeks
to complete the process of loading fuel into its Russian-built first nuclear
power plant, atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi has said. The process of loading 163
fuel rods, also supplied by Russia, into the
nuclear power plant located in the southern port city of Bushehr began on August 21 and was to be
completed by September 5. Thereafter the rods were to be transferred to the
reactor."http://bit.ly/c1x1Gd
Reuters: "Iran said it would produce in
a year the nuclear fuel needed for a medical reactor in Tehran, a news agency
reported on Monday, days after the Islamic state began loading fuel into its
first atomic power plant. Iran's nuclear
chief Ali Akbar Salehi said Tehran so far had produced 25 kg (55 lb) of uranium
to a level of 20 percent purity for the Tehran reactor, the official Irna news
agency quoted Salehi as saying in an interview with the country's
Arabic-language TV station, Al-Alam." http://bit.ly/bhquho
AFP: "Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has backed the
Iranian government's plan to scrap subsidies in the coming weeks, despite
concerns from some conservatives of its inflationary impact. Khamenei has asked
the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to 'seriously apply... the plan
for removing subsidies' state news agency IRNA reported late Monday quoting the
all-powerful leader as telling members of the government, including Ahmadinejad."
http://bit.ly/b5yLmn
Nuclear Program
AP: "Iran
says it has set a 2020 target date to build its first experimental nuclear
fusion reactor, a feat that has yet to be achieved by any nation. Iran
said in July that its nuclear agency began research on the experimental reactor.
Nuclear fusion, the process powering the sun and stars, has so far only been
mastered as a weapon, producing the thermonuclear explosions of hydrogen bombs."
http://bit.ly/cZvUJK
Human Rights
CNN: "The mother of the
26-year-old woman whose videotaped shooting last year in Tehran sparked
anti-government demonstrations throughout Iran appealed Monday to international
human rights organizations and to the international court in The Hague for help
in prosecuting her daughter's killer. 'I have kept my silence all this time,'
Hajar Rostami told the New York-based International Campaign for Human Rights
in Iran.
'Now I want the world to help me find Neda's murderer.'" http://bit.ly/9w8KjB
Radio Farda: "Iran's science minister has said
universities that are against the values of the regime and its Basij militia
should be razed to the ground, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports. Kamran Daneshjou
was quoted by Iranian media as saying on August 29 that universities should
follow the path of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei." http://bit.ly/bIFmyh
Domestic Politics
FT: "Iran's radical and conservative
fundamentalists have ignored the orders of the regime's supreme leader and
begun exchanging recriminations once again. Barely one week after Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, who holds ultimate power, publicly urged President Mahmoud
Ahmadi-Nejad and his critics to unite and keep any disagreements private,
another round of acrimony between the factions has taken place." http://bit.ly/aBICSk
LAT: "A rare victory was won by
Iranian moderates Monday. The legislature opted to shelve a controversial set
of proposals that activists said would have further restricted women's
rights. According to a report by the Iranian Labor News Agency, Iran's
parliament has decided to send three articles of the family law bill back into committee
for additional study. 'According to the notification of the lawmakers and in
consultation with the judiciary branch, seemingly the articles 22, 23 and 24
contain some Islamic shortcomings,' said parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani,
according to the news agency." http://bit.ly/cHMVSG
Foreign Affairs
AP: "Iran on Tuesday sought to distance itself from
harsh remarks by a hard-line newspaper, which called France's first lady a 'prostitute'
for condemning the stoning sentence against an Iranian woman convicted of
adultery. Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said insulting foreign
dignitaries like Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is incorrect and not sanctioned by the
government." http://yhoo.it/9yNkon
Opinion
Gerald Seib in WSJ: "When
President Barack Obama speaks to the nation Tuesday night about Iraq,
he'll be marking the removal of American combat troops from that nation, an
important milestone. But his address will signify something much broader as
well. This week's Iraq moment
means that Mr. Obama now has, to steal a term he used last year to refer to
Russian relations, hit the reset button on all four important areas of American
policy in the region: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
and Iran...
Whatever the odds of success, though, a common thread runs through Mr. Obama's
moves in Iraq, Afghanistan and
the Palestinian territories. In each case, one important goal is to clear the
decks in order to concentrate more intensely on the paramount challenge posed
by Iran
and its Islamic extremist friends." http://bit.ly/a0i8tA
George Friedman in STRATFOR: "Public
discussion of potential attacks on Iran's nuclear development sites is surging
again. This has happened before. On several occasions, leaks about potential
airstrikes have created an atmosphere of impending war. These leaks normally
coincided with diplomatic initiatives and were designed to intimidate the
Iranians and facilitate a settlement favorable to the United States and Israel. These initiatives have
failed in the past. It is therefore reasonable to associate the current
avalanche of reports with the imposition of sanctions and view it as an attempt
to increase the pressure on Iran and either force a policy shift or take
advantage of divisions within the regime." http://bit.ly/9OxVL6
Mohamad Bazzi in Global Post: "In February 2003, as he marshaled the United
States for war, President George W. Bush declared: 'A new
regime in Iraq
would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in
the region.' Now, as the U.S.
military concludes its combat role - which President Barack Obama will formally
announce from the Oval Office on Tuesday - Iraq
is indeed a dramatic example for the Middle East,
but not in the ways that Bush and his administration envisioned. Iraq
did not become a beacon of democracy, nor did it create a domino effect that
toppled other dictatorial regimes in the Arab world. Instead, the Iraq war has
unleashed a new wave of sectarian hatred and upset the Persian Gulf's strategic
balance, helping Iran consolidate its role as the dominant regional power." http://bit.ly/9LuH3c
Joshua Kucera in The Diplomat: "The
Caspian Sea, an oil-rich body of water on the border of Iran and the former
Soviet Union, has seen an unprecedented amount of naval activity this year:
Iran has launched its largest ship yet into the Caspian, Kazakhstan has declared
plans to start construction of six new ships by the end of the year and
Turkmenistan announced the creation of its first navy. This military build-up,
though so far still modest in scope, has observers wondering if the stage is
being set for an arms race on this heretofore quiet sea."
Michael Theodoulou in The National: "Within
the space of a few weeks, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, an Iranian vice president,
opined that the British were 'inhuman' idiots saddled with a dunce of a prime
minister, and the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, scoffed that the
Americans should 'pour water where it burns,' a vulgar Iranian expression that
refers to people who are so angry that their buttocks catch fire. A hardline
Iranian newspaper joined the fray by branding Carla Bruni, France's first
lady, a 'prostitute.' It is nothing new for the Iranian regime to lambast the
West in robust terms. But these various diatribes raised eyebrows at home and
abroad because crudity rarely features in Iran's political discourse." http://bit.ly/aKsxmK
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