Top Stories
WashPost: "Iran is steadily
stockpiling enriched uranium, even in the face of toughened international
sanctions, according to a U.N. inspection report that raises new concerns about
the ability to monitor parts of the nation's nuclear program that could be used
to make a bomb. Citing a broad pattern of obstruction, the International Atomic
Energy Agency said Monday that it cannot confirm quantities of certain nuclear
materials, has a growing list of unanswered questions about enrichment sites
and disagrees sharply with Iran's recent decision to eject two inspectors." http://bit.ly/9r2NyL
MSNBC: "Iran is paying
Taliban fighters $1,000 for each U.S. soldier they kill in Afghanistan,
according to a report in a British newspaper. The Sunday Times described how a
man it said was a 'Taliban treasurer' had gone to collect $18,000 from an
Iranian firm in Kabul, a reward it said was for an attack in July which killed
several Afghan government troops and destroyed an American armored vehicle.The
treasurer left with the cash hidden in a sack of flour, the newspaper said, and
then gave it to Taliban fighters in the province of Wardak. In the past six
months, the treasurer claimed to have collected more than $77,000 from the
company." http://bit.ly/awgrkh
AFP: "Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has questioned the accepted narrative of the
September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, saying it was still not clear
who was behind them. 'Something happened in New York and still nobody knows who
the main perpetrators of that act were,' Ahmadinejad told diplomats and
newspaper editors late on Sunday while on a brief visit to Qatar. 'No
independent people were allowed to try and identify the perpetrators,' he
charged." http://bit.ly/c9iwqx
Nuclear Program
Daily Telegraph: "A report by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iranian nuclear scientists had
made at least 22 kilograms of enriched uranium at least 20 per cent purity, a
technical hurdle that is the hardest to overcome on the way to weapons-grade
uranium. Experts estimate that 20 kgs of uranium is the minimum required to arm
a warhead. The uranium would still need to have its purity raised to 90 per
cent, but that is a relatively easy process." http://bit.ly/alTTsd
AFP: "Iran said on Tuesday that
it was within its rights to vet UN inspectors who monitor its nuclear
facilities after the UN watchdog said its work was being hampered by the
barring of some of its staff. 'We have this right ... to change the inspectors
as per their record,' foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told
reporters... The UN atomic watchdog, in a new restricted report released on
Monday, said Iran was complicating a long-running investigation into its
controversial nuclear drive by vetoing the nomination of some inspectors." http://bit.ly/afbCeC
AFP: "Iran's President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad ruled out an attack on the Islamic republic over its nuclear
programme, during a visit to Qatar on Sunday, because any such action would
result in Israel's destruction. 'Any act against Iran will lead to the eradication
of the Zionist entity,' he told a joint news conference in Doha with Qatar's
emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, after their talks." http://bit.ly/dkfyaT
Bloomberg: "President Barack
Obama's top military adviser, Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, urged Turkey to help
ensure Iran doesn't gain the capacity to make atomic weapons and to extend the
period of its commands in Afghanistan. 'The mutual goal of Iran not achieving a
nuclear-weapons capability, that we completely agree on, we just need to
reinforce,' Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters
today in Ankara. Both countries need to 'do all we can to make sure that doesn't
happen.'" http://bit.ly/bIn9Ba
Commerce
WSJ: "The central bank of the United
Arab Emirates is studying the economic impact of United Nations sanctions
against Iran and has asked lenders in the U.A.E. to declare remittances sent to
Iran on a monthly basis, bankers said Monday. The central bank asked lenders to
report by Tuesday remittances in August, and said it intends 'to run this exercise
for just a few months,' from August, according to bankers who received a memorandum
from the central bank." http://bit.ly/d2oHuG
AFP: "Most banks in the United
Arab Emirates, an important trading partner for Iran, have stopped money
transfers there after the latest round of sanctions on the Islamic republic,
bankers said on Sunday. A Dubai-based Iranian businessman said that the latest
sanctions have halved trade with Dubai, an important re-export centre for
Iranian goods. 'We stopped transfers to Iran in all currencies in July,' an
executive from an international bank, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told
AFP." http://bit.ly/atAiV8
Daily Telegraph: "China
is poised to sign a $2bn (£1.3bn) deal to build a railway line in Iran in the
first step of a wider plan to tie the Middle East and Central Asia to Beijing. China's
railways minister, Liu Zhijun, is expected to visit Tehran this week to seal
the deal, according to his Iranian counterpart, Hamid Behbahani. 'The final
document of the contract has already been signed with a Chinese company and the
Chinese minister will visit Iran on September 12 to ink the agreement,' said Mr
Behbahani." http://bit.ly/aJypb8
Human Rights
NYT: "A mix-up over a photograph
led to a sentence of 99 lashes for the Iranian woman whose earlier death
sentence by stoning from Iranian authorities caused an international outcry, a
lawyer for the woman said Sunday. The lashing of the woman, Sakineh Mohammadi
Ashtiani, 43, was carried out in the northern Iran prison where she is being
held, according to the lawyer, Javid Kian. But another lawyer for Ms. Ashtiani
disputed that account." http://nyti.ms/aBsYg6
AP: "The European Union on Tuesday condemned the stoning to death sentence
passed against an Iranian woman convicted for adultery, saying it was 'barbaric.'
In his first State of the Union address to the European parliament in
Strasbourg, France, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he
was 'appalled' by the news of the sentencing, and called it 'barbaric beyond
words.'" http://huff.to/bhwjWK
AP: "The Vatican raised the
possibility Sunday of using behind-the-scenes diplomacy to try to save the life
of an Iranian widow sentenced to be stoned for adultery. In its first public
statement on the case, which has attracted worldwide attention, the Vatican
decried stoning as a particularly brutal form of capital punishment." http://bit.ly/9qCBwU
Reuters: "An Iranian Baha'i
missionary has been arrested in northern Iran for allegedly having an 'illicit
sexual relationship', the semi-official Fars news agency said on Monday without
giving a source. The man, identified by Fars only as P.P., is accused of
seducing women to have illicit sexual relationships with him, the agency said,
a punishable offence in Iran which implements strict sharia, Islamic law." http://bit.ly/9WwTV5
AP: "French Foreign Minister Bernard
Kouchner says he is willing to 'do anything' to save an Iranian woman sentenced
to death on an adultery conviction and has offered to travel to the Iranian
capital to plead her case. Bernard Kouchner calls Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani's
sentence to death by stoning 'the height of barbarism' and says her case has
become a 'personal cause' for him." http://bit.ly/diMCgn
LAT: "Iranian authorities on
Saturday arrested the prominent lawyer and women's rights activist Nasrine
Sotoudeh, her husband told Babylon & Beyond. Sotoudeh, in her 40s, is among
the small cadre of courageous and outspoken lawyers who risk liberty and their
careers to take the country's politically motivated court system to defend
political dissidents, activists, women and religious and ethnic minorities." http://bit.ly/bFBsxN
Domestic Politics
AP: "Iran's elite
Revolutionary Guard has condemned an attack on the home of an opposition leader,
calling the perpetrators 'unruly elements.' The state news agency on Sunday
quoted the Guard division in Tehran as saying the attack on Mahdi Karroubi's
home was caused by 'unruly elements' and the Guards 'strongly condemn it.' The statement
added that the group was 'totally unrelated to the Guards and Basij,' it said
referring to the group's street militia." http://bit.ly/9VG7CD
WSJ: "The annual event, Quds Day, is a
show of support for Palestinians in their conflict with Israel and is held on
the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. It was initiated in 1979
by the leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who
declared the liberation of Jerusalem a religious duty for all Muslims. This
year, the day was also marked by bitter criticism of Mr. Ahmadinejad's
administration by his opponents. Dissident leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, issued a
statement saying the government was using Israel as an excuse to crush its
critics." http://bit.ly/aNr7Gj
Foreign Affairs
Daily Telegraph: "Bahrain has hinted
that Iran was implicated in an alleged plot to overthrow its government after
23 prominent opposition leaders were charged with terrorism offences in the
US-backed Gulf kingdom. Authorities in the island state, which serves as a US
naval base, made the arrests during weeks of unrest in the run-up to a
parliamentary election next month. Officials said activists were members of 'a
terrorist network with international support' and were planning a campaign of 'violence,
intimidation and subversion.'" http://bit.ly/9tdyrp
AFP: "A senior Iranian cleric, Grand
Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, dismissed the Nazi Holocaust of Jews during
World War II as a new 'superstition' for the West, media reported on Saturday. 'The
Holocaust is nothing but superstition, but Zionists say that people of the
world should be forced to accept this,' he was quoted as saying by the state
news agency IRNA." http://bit.ly/99dzjT
CNN: "The administration of Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas lashed out at Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad on Saturday, a day after Ahmadinejad criticized Abbas for renewing
direct peace talks with Israel. 'He who does not represent the Iranian people,
who forged elections and who suppresses the Iranian people and stole the
authority, is not entitled to talk about Palestine, or the President of
Palestine,' said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority,
according to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority's news agency." http://bit.ly/bv9avE
Opinion
Alasdair Palmer in The Daily
Telegraph: "Joseph Stalin was once described as 'Genghis Khan with a
telephone'. President Ahmadinejad may soon be Genghis Khan with a nuclear bomb.
Admittedly, Ahmadinejad hasn't yet committed mass murder on that scale,
although when he promised to 'wipe Israel off the map', he showed that he would
- if only he could. And he may treat his own people slightly better than
Genghis Khan treated his. But as Dr Johnson said, 'there is no settling orders
of precedence between a louse and a flea'. Ahmadinejad has imprisoned thousands
for protesting against the brutality, incompetence and illegitimacy of his
rule; he has condoned the imposition of the death penalty for any Muslim who
converts to another faith; and he supports punishing adultery by stoning those
involved to death." http://bit.ly/dAnYcT
Dokhi Fassian in FP: "On June 20,
2009, the day Neda Agha Soltan was gunned down on a Tehran street, President
Obama quoted Martin Luther King when he said 'The arc of the moral universe is
long, but it bends toward justice.' The first step to attaining justice is to
build recognition of injustice. The Iranian people need the UN's help -- as did
the citizens of Chile, South Africa, and Hungary -- to attain justice. At the
UN General Assembly meeting this fall, the United States has another
opportunity to help them by ensuring the establishment of a UN mandate that
will investigate abuses and encourage accountability for those perpetrating
crimes in Iran. We should not miss it again." http://bit.ly/a5JXky
Terry Teachout in WSJ: "Advice to
music lovers: Stay the hell out of Iran. According to the Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, Iran's maximum politico- spiritual leader, the promoting and teaching
of music-not just Western music, but any kind whatsoever-is 'not compatible
with the highest values of the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic.' He 'suggests'
that Iranian youth should instead 'spend their valuable time in learning
science and essential and useful skills and fill their time with sport and
healthy recreations instead of music.' Those Iranians who prefer to do as they
please run the risk of getting themselves stoned, by which I don't mean high." http://bit.ly/aPCxjq
Doyle McManus in LAT: "Something
unexpected broke out at last week's relaunch of direct negotiations between Israel
and the Palestinians: a glimmer of what looked almost like optimism... But the
biggest difference is something outside the control of any of the parties at
the bargaining table: Iran. The threat of a nuclear-armed Iran has given
Israel, most of the Arab countries and the United States a common interest in
working together against a regional power they all fear." http://bit.ly/bnCbZV
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