Top Stories
AP: "Iran's president Sunday
called for U.S. leaders to be 'buried' in response to what he says are American
threats of military attack against Tehran's nuclear program. Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad is known for brash rhetoric in addressing the West, but in a speech
Sunday he went a step further using a deeply offensive insult in response to
U.S. statements that the military option against Iran is still on the table. 'May
the undertaker bury you, your table and your body, which has soiled the world,'
he said using language in Iran reserved for hated enemies." http://bit.ly/92a5LZ
NYT: "Iran has arrested an
unspecified number of 'nuclear spies' in connection with a damaging worm that
has infected computers in its nuclear program, the intelligence minister,
Heydar Moslehi, said Saturday. Mr. Moslehi also told the semiofficial Mehr news
agency that the ministry had achieved 'complete mastery' over government
computer systems and was able to counter any cyberattacks by 'enemy spy
services.' Iran confirmed last week that the Stuxnet worm, a malicious
self-replicating program that attacks computers that control industrial plants,
had infected computers in its nuclear operations." http://nyti.ms/cBXcZ6
AP: "A
months-long delay in starting up Iran's first nuclear power plant is the result
of a small leak, not a computer worm that was found on the laptops of several
plant employees, the country's nuclear chief said Monday. The leak occurred in
a storage pool where the plant's fuel is being held before being fed into the
reactor core, and it has been fixed, said Ali Akbar Salehi, who is also Iran's
vice president. He did not specify whether it was nuclear fuel or another
material that leaked. He first announced the delay on Thursday but without
giving a reason." http://bit.ly/aoQmIV
Nuclear
Program
AFP: "Two of the eight Iranian
officials targeted by Washington with sanctions for alleged human rights abuses
on Saturday mocked the moves against them by US President Barack Obama as a 'joke.'
Welfare Minister Sadeq Mahsouli and deputy police chief Ahmad Reza Radan said
Obama's decision questioned the very perception of the United States as a
superpower. On Wednesday, Obama ordered that any US assets held by the eight
officials, who include Mahsouli and Radan, be frozen. They will also be denied
US visas." http://bit.ly/9U8lG0
Commerce
Reuters: "Iran's currency, the
rial, defied central bank attempts to revive its value on Sunday, remaining
weak after falling 13 percent against the dollar last week. Last week's rial
slump stirred talk of an unannounced policy of devaluation or a scramble for
dollars amid fear of a scarcity in hard currency due to economic sanctions. But
the central bank said later it would intervene to shore up the rial." http://bit.ly/99ZF58
Bloomberg: "Iraq increased the
estimate of its petroleum reserves to 143.1 billion barrels, Oil Minister Hussain
Al-Shahristani said today in Baghdad, overtaking Iran to become the world's
fourth-largest holder of crude. The 24
percent rise in estimated reserves boosts Iraq past Iran, which has 137.6
billion barrels, while leaving it behind Saudi Arabia, Canada and Venezuela.
Iraq last estimated its oil reserves at 115 billion barrels, in 2001." http://bit.ly/acS80T
Human
Rights
WashPost: "For Iranian political
prisoners, being locked away is not necessarily a
barrier to speaking out. In a series of
taboo-breaking letters written from prison, activists, politicians and
journalists - most of them arrested in the aftermath of President
Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's disputed June 2009 election victory - have been telling
tales of
torture, criticizing Iranian leaders and encouraging others to continue
their
protests. Government officials and their
supporters in the media say the criticisms threaten national security
and are
demanding that judiciary officials put a stop to them."
http://wapo.st/9QvnFz
Reuters: "Iran
detained opposition politician Ebrahim Yazdi Friday, the official IRNA
news agency reported,
in the latest crackdown on the pro-reform movement in the Islamic state.
Yazdi,
who heads the banned Freedom Movement, was foreign minister in Iran's
first
government after the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew the
U.S.-backed
shah, but was sidelined as religious hardliners took over."
http://reut.rs/c3eYuk
NYT: "Cultural officials have
lifted a ban on film production by Asghar Farhadi, an award-winning director,
that was imposed after he made public remarks supporting opposition filmmakers
last month. The Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance said it lifted the ban
last week after the director apologized." http://nyti.ms/bmSTEe
Foreign Affairs
LAT: "Iran and Egypt, two
countries that long have been openly hostile to each other, made a surprise
agreement Sunday to resume direct flights for the first time since radical
clerics ousted Iran's monarchy in 1979. Civil aviation and tourism authorities
meeting in Cairo signed an accord to begin 28 weekly flights between the two
countries but did not specify a start date, media in both countries reported. The
pronouncement baffled observers." http://lat.ms/dsOoho
CNN: "Iran's leadership has made
clear its intent to play an enhanced role in Mideast regional affairs amid
troubled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, as indicated
by a series of high-level visits with regional allies. Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is expected to make his first official visit to Lebanon
since assuming office in 2005, according to Iranian state media. The visit is
scheduled to begin October 13." http://lat.ms/dsOoho
Reuters: "Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad assured his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday that
their ties were solid -- a view unlikely to please Washington which is working
to isolate the Islamic state. 'We have stood beside Iran in a brotherly way
from the very beginning of the (Iranian Islamic) revolution,' Assad said during
a one-day visit to Tehran." http://reut.rs/aPJ17v
Opinion
David Kay in The National Interest:"The thought of a nerdy computer worm bringing Iran's nuclear program to an at-least-temporary
standstill, something that repeated 'red line' declarations from Washington,
four sanction resolutions from the UN Security Council, and IAEA inspections
and safeguards have failed to do, adds an element of comic irony to a dangerous
challenge to global stability. The more
one digs into what are the likely origins and motivations behind the 'Stuxnet'
computer worm, the more it comes to resemble a cross between an Agatha Christie
mystery and a Frederick Forsyth thriller. First, there are the obvious suspects
that clearly have the motivations, expertise and opportunity to have created a
stealthy computer termite that might bring the nuke-house of Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad tumbling down. At the top of this list would be the United States
and Israel." http://bit.ly/a7Kq92
Bruce Stokes in The Daily Star: "In a speech to the US Council on Foreign Relations, US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently asserted proudly that 'through
classic shoe-leather diplomacy, we have built a broad consensus that will hold
Iran accountable to its obligations if it continues its defiance' of the
international community and builds a nuclear arsenal. Clinton is right that
most governments, particularly in the West, have come together in opposition to
Iran's nuclear program. But public views and official views often differ. And
the devil is always in the details. 'Holding Iran accountable' could prove both
more difficult and more divisive than Clinton implied. The overwhelming
majority of people in the US, Turkey and 11 countries in the EU are concerned
about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, according to a new survey conducted by
the German Marshall Fund of the United States, released on September 15." http://bit.ly/bgAOzr
Caroline Glick in JPost: "Stuxnet's
first lesson is that it is essential to be a leader rather than a follower in
technology development. The first to deploy new technologies on a battlefield
has an enormous advantage over his rivals. Indeed, that advantage may be enough
to win a war. But from the first lesson, a second immediately follows. A
monopoly in a new weapon system is always fleeting. The US nuclear monopoly at
the end of World War II allowed it to defeat Imperial Japan and bring the war
to an end in allied victory. Once the US exposed its nuclear arsenal, however,
the Soviet Union's race to acquire nuclear weapons of its own began." http://bit.ly/a6rzvj
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