Top Stories
WashPost: "The Obama
administration has concluded that Chinese firms are helping Iran to improve its
missile technology and develop nuclear weapons, and has asked China to stop
such activity, a senior U.S. official said. During a visit to Beijing last
month, a delegation led by Robert J. Einhorn, the State Department's special
adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, handed a 'significant list' of
companies and banks to their Chinese counterparts, according to the senior U.S.
official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue
in U.S.-Chinese relations. The official said the Obama administration thinks
that the companies are violating U.N. sanctions, but that China did not
authorize their activities... In a recent meetings on Capitol Hill, China's
outgoing deputy chief of mission, Xie Feng, was told that 'if he ever wanted to
see Congress united, Democrats and Republicans, it would be on the issue of
China's interaction with Iran,' one participant said, speaking on condition of
anonymity to disclose a private discussion." http://wapo.st/aXpJeD
CNN: "Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad is taking a hard line ahead of nuclear talks scheduled for next
month with world powers skeptical of his government's intentions, local media
reported Sunday. Ahmadinejad said that Iran is ready to hold talks, but warned
that his country won't yield any of its international rights to peaceful
nuclear energy development, according to the reports. 'Holding talks with Iran
is the best choice for you,' Ahmadinejad was quoted by state-run Press TV as saying
at a rally in Ardebil in northwestern Iran Sunday. 'You have no other option.
All the other ways are closed. You know the fact very well.' ... He added that
Western powers should also pressure Israel over its undeclared but
widely-suspected nuclear capability, ISNA said." http://bit.ly/bB0QJ7
WashPost: "A recent agreement
between four of Europe's largest oil companies and the United States aimed at
further isolating Iran is already having an impact, with Iran Air, the Islamic
republic's national carrier, unable to refuel its planes in most of Europe. The
fueling problem follows a new push by the Obama administration to move beyond
the strict letter of sanctions it imposed to a broader attempt to discourage
international businesses from dealing with Iran... In recent weeks, several major
oil firms, including British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell and Q8, have
abruptlycanceled jet fuel delivery contracts with Iran Air. The move by some
big oil companies that were not part of the September agreement appears to
indicate a ripple effect across the industry, as administration officials had
hoped." http://wapo.st/9owKnn
Nuclear
Program
Reuters: "French oil major Total
has halted all its trade in oil products with Iran in compliance with a
European embargo, Total Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie said in an
interview. Total was one of several European oil companies that had been
resisting pressure from the United States to stop doing business with Iran,
part of Washington's drive to isolate Tehran over its nuclear programme... 'We
await the implementing laws, but there you are, we will respect the embargo.
The embargo is no more products sold, no more products bought, and we have
already done it, we've already stopped,' he said." http://bit.ly/9y8PIw
Bloomberg: "Iran has made uranium
exploration a priority of its nuclear program, the state-run Mehr news agency
reported, citing Vice-President Ali Akbar Salehi, who heads the Persian Gulf
country's Atomic Energy Organization. 'The activities have grown several-fold,'
Salehi said. Most exploration is being carried out in central and southern
Iran, according to Mehr. Salehi declined to comment on the results of the
program, it said." http://bit.ly/dAy0Q1
AFP: "Hezbollah chief Hassan
Nasrallah deceived Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by giving him a gun he
claimed was taken from an Israeli soldier in the 2006 war, an Israeli newspaper
said Sunday. The mass-selling Yediot Aharonot said the gun, which Nasrallah
presented to Ahmadinejad in person on his controversial two-day visit to
Lebanon, was a type of weapon not been used by the Israeli military since the
early 1970s." http://bit.ly/aQwX4m
Human
Rights
AFP: "An Iranian court has
condemned a man convicted of robbing chocolates and cocoa from a Tehran pastry
shop to have a hand chopped off, Fars news agency reported on Saturday. Judge
Mohammad Reza Giyuki, quoted in the report, also sentenced the 21-year-old man,
whose identity was not revealed, to six months in prison for damaging the shop
and another six months for 'disobeying police.' Fars said police arrested him
on May 29 and found in his possession 900 dollars worth of cash, three pair of
gloves, chocolate and cocoa." http://bit.ly/91QlHU
NYT: "Iran's intelligence
minister on Friday insisted that two United States hikers who remain in custody
more than a year after their capture near the Iraqi border must be tried in an
Iranian court. 'In the opinion of this ministry, the two detained Americans
accused of spying must await trial by the judiciary,' the intelligence
minister, Heydar Moslehi, told reporters from IRNA, Iran's state-run news
agency, on Friday in Lebanon, where he had gone on a state visit with President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." http://nyti.ms/9kmiuj
AP: "An Iranian-American
businessman freed after more than two years in Tehran's main prison visited
survivors of a deadly 2008 mosque bombing as a condition of his release in a
scripted event yesterday that could carry propaganda value at home. Iranian
authorities did not immediately explain their demand for 71-year-old Reza
Taghavi to pay homage in Shiraz - and personally acknowledge an attack to which
he denies any connection. But it would fit neatly into possible Iranian
attempts to squeeze multiple messages from Taghavi's release on Saturday after
29 months in custody." http://bit.ly/bgzjUL
Reuters: "Iranian print media
will be shut down if they publish news about the opposition, a senior state
official was quoted by an opposition website as saying, pointing to a fresh
crackdown on freedom of speech in the Islamic state.
Dozens of pro-reform activists have been imprisoned and sentenced to long jails
in the past few weeks, something analysts say is meant to uproot opponents of
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was re-elected in a disputed vote last year."
http://bit.ly/bJlLFO
Domestic Politics
NYT: "The future of Iran's largest academic institution is in question
after the supreme leader stepped into a tug of war this week between President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad and his rival Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was instrumental in
vastly expanding and improving the university. The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei, issued a ruling this week that Mr. Rafsanjani could not place the
vast financial assets of the Islamic Azad University - which some estimates put
at $250 billion - into a public religious trust. Doing so would have
effectively prevented Mr. Ahmadinejad from seizing control of the institution."
http://nyti.ms/9ypcRH
Reuters: "A senior Iranian cleric
warned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government on Friday that its plan to
slash huge state subsidies on essentials like food in the coming weeks risked
provoking popular dissatisfaction. The
criticism of Ahmadinejad's cornerstone economic plan was the latest sign of
policy divisions within the hardline conservative elite that rules the Islamic
Republic and reflected growing concern about economic hardship ahead. Some
Iranians saw their electricity bills soar tenfold last month, the first sign
that the subsidy cuts were taking effect. Queues at filling stations have
lengthened as motorists anticipate the price of gasoline to rise sharply." http://bit.ly/aDu9J7
Foreign Affairs
AP: "The leader of the Iraqi bloc
that came first in elections accused Iran yesterday of trying to destabilize
Iraq and manipulate the political process as he jeered at rival politicians
seeking Tehran's blessing for forming the next government. Ayad Allawi, a
secular Shi'ite, narrowly won the most seats in the March 7 vote with strong
Sunni backing, but did not get nearly enough to control the government outright....
'We know that unfortunately, Iran is trying to wreak havoc on the region,' Allawi
said. 'And definitely in Iraq, I can say categorically that Iran is trying even
to bring about change to the political process according to their wishes and
requirements,' he told CNN's 'Fareed Zakaria GPS.'" http://bit.ly/cX9krb
CNN: "With the political future of
Iraq still hanging in the balance, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, leader
of a coalition of powerful Shiite parties backed by Iran, arrived for talks in
the Islamic republic Monday. Al-Maliki's opponent, who leads a more secular
coalition, has accused Iran of fomenting unrest in Iraq. Welcomed by Iran's
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on his arrival in Tehran, al-Maliki is
meeting senior Iranian officials to discuss various issues of importance for
both countries, his office said." http://bit.ly/aC5PEu
AP: "Officials say Iran has
joined in the high-level talks on Afghanistan that are part of a renewed push
to end the nine-year-old war. Richard
Holbrooke, U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Washington had
no problem with Iran's presence in the talks in Rome on Monday, which also
include senior Afghan, U.N. and NATO officials. Holbrooke said the United
States recognizes that Iran 'has a role to play in the peaceful settlement of
the situation,' citing Iran's long and porous border with Afghanistan." http://wapo.st/c5IDLa
CNN: "Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
is set to arrive in Iran Monday night to discuss the expansion of relations
between the two countries, according to Iran's semiofficial Fars News Agency. His visit comes on the heels of stops in the
Russian Federation and Belarus, where the Venezuelan leader signed economic
cooperation deals, which included an agreement with Moscow to build Venezuela's
first nuclear power plant. With its burgeoning nuclear program, Iran has shown
interest in uranium deposits in Venezuela." http://bit.ly/aNZQPu
Culture
NYT: "Marzieh, the great diva of
Persian traditional song, who was silenced after the Islamic Revolution in 1979
but who re-emerged years later outside Iran as a singer and a highly public
supporter of the resistance, died on Wednesday in Paris. She was 86 and had
defected to France in 1994. Her death, of cancer, was announced on the Web site
of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the opposition group, founded in
1981 and based in France, of which she was a member. Survivors include a son
and a grandchild. A household name in prerevolutionary Iran, Marzieh
(pronounced mar-ZEE-eh) was as closely identified with her country's music as
the great Egyptian chanteuse Umm Kulthum was with hers." http://nyti.ms/be9lYw
Opinion
WashPost
Editorial Board: "The United States
and its allies on the U.N. Security Council are patiently waiting for the
Iranian government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to turn up in Geneva for new
negotiations on its nuclear program -- or, at least, to formally respond to
their offer. So it can't be a good sign that Mr. Ahmadinejad chose instead to
travel last week to southern Lebanon, where he offered a vivid demonstration of
what is actually on his mind... The larger message here is that Mr. Ahmadinejad's
and his boss, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have no interest in a 'grand bargain'
with the United States or an accommodation with the Security Council. Sanctions
have hurt the Iranian economy, but they have had no impact on the regime's
belligerence. Iranian negotiators may eventually turn up in Geneva. But as long
as these rulers are in power, Iran will not give up its ambition to exercise hegemony
over the Middle East." http://wapo.st/cafAYi
NY Daily News Editorial Board: "The triumphalist visit to Lebanon by Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was designed to deliver to the world - to Israel in
particular - a message as to who fancies being in charge in the Mideast... Unless
he is stopped, Ahmadinejad will soon have missiles and nuclear weaponry with
which he could devastate Israel from a long distance. His point now is that he
is perfectly positioned to strike at short range. And the global community -
apart from the U.S. and Israel - barely said boo about such naked,
up-close-and-personal warmongering. Disgraceful, as always." http://bit.ly/d2Cx4c
David Amess
in WT: "Why do despots resort to
the Big Lie? To cover up what they don't want their own people or the world to
know. In the present case, Mr. Ahmadinejad is trying to divert attention from
what is happening in Iran - the opposition is getting stronger and the regime
has to resort to ever-tougher suppressive measures to try to keep control. That's
why, just the other day, President Obama signed an executive order imposing
sanctions on eight Iranian officials determined to be responsible for or
complicit in severe human rights abuses in Iran since the presidential election
last year... The United States keeps insisting that sanctions are hurting the
Tehran regime and are the key element in a drive to change Tehran's behavior.
In reality, the problem with U.S. policy is that it has failed to factor in the
mullahs' key weak point, i.e., the enemy within." http://bit.ly/cvptH8
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