Top Stories
Bloomberg: "BP Plc said production at its North Sea Rhum natural-gas field will halt next week to ensure compliance with European Union sanctions against Iran. 'Pending clarification from the government and to ensure we comply with the required notification period in the regulations, preparations to suspend production are underway,' Matt Taylor, a spokesman for BP based in Aberdeen, Scotland, said in an e-mailed statement. 'From the middle of next week there will be no production from Rhum.' The Rhum field, 240 miles (370 kilometers) off Scotland's northern coast, is a 50:50 venture with Iranian Oil Co. U.K. Ltd., a unit of Tehran-based Naftiran Intertrade Co." http://bit.ly/drBsa5
AFP: "The United States is considering dusting off and toughening a year-old offer for Iran to transfer uranium to Russia for further enrichment, a leading French newspaper reported Thursday. President Barack Obama's administration has shared its latest proposal for diffusing the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme with Russia and China -- although France and Britain are miffed at being left out of the initial communication loop, Le Monde newspaper reported. If confirmed, the proposal appears to update an offer made last year for Iran to transfer low-enriched uranium for further enrichment in Russia and France to supply a research reactor in Iran. The only difference would be in the amount -- 2,000 kilos (4,400 pounds) of uranium transferred out of Tehran rather than the 1,200 kilos proposed last year -- according to Le Monde. Tehran must also agree to relinquish 30 kilos of low-enriched uranium it has accumulated since the beginning of the year, the newspaper said." http://bit.ly/dbStZp
WSJ: "Afghanistan's election authorities are being pressured by President Hamid Karzai and by Iran to alter the preliminary results of September's parliamentary races, adding new controversy to a fraud-marred election, officials and candidates say. In a meeting this week between Mr. Karzai and Afghanistan's two official election bodies, the president, who is a Pashtun, pushed for more seats to be allocated to Pashtun candidates, Afghan officials say... Iran exercises heavy influence over the Afghan government, a power that became apparent with recent disclosures by Mr. Karzai that he regularly receives bagloads of cash from Tehran." http://on.wsj.com/c7FvAK
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "The United States hopes talks will resume soon with Iran to address core issues at the heart of its disputed nuclear programme, Deputy U.S. Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman said on Thursday. 'We hope that a date ... and a place can be set for those talks very soon,' Poneman told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a meeting of the International Framework for Nuclear Energy Cooperation (IFNEC) at the Dead Sea in Jordan. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said on Oct. 29 Iran was ready to hold its first talks in more than a year with a group of six world powers. They would be the first negotiations since the United Nations, the United States and European Union imposed tougher sanctions on Iran this year. 'We are ready to engage with Iran. The resumption of talks and addressing those core issues is the right thing to do,' Poneman said." http://bit.ly/cmjB1K
Reuters: "Iran is on an 'explosive' course in the Middle East with its pursuit of nuclear enrichment and needs to clear up questions surrounding its program, Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal said on Thursday. Prince Turki, a former Saudi intelligence chief and former ambassador to the United States, said Washington should not take military steps against Iran's nuclear program to reassure Israelis over the peace process with Palestinians. 'No one denies that a nuclear Iran is a major international danger, but claiming that the U.S. must take military action against Iran to push forward the Israeli-Palestine peace process is to attempt to harvest apples by cutting down the tree,' he said." http://reut.rs/9dh9pj
Human Rights
AP: "An international rights group has urged Iran to immediately release the son and the lawyer of an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, saying the two were only trying to save her life. The call by Amnesty International, made late Wednesday, comes as fears grow that 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani could also be soon executed for murder. Ashtiani's case has triggered an international outcry and elevated tensions between Iran and the West, already high over suspicions about Tehran's nuclear ambitions." http://wapo.st/cGbMMS
AFP: "Five Nordic countries issued a joint appeal to Iran Thursday, calling on the Islamic republic to commute the sentence against a woman condemned to death for adultery. 'We have closely followed the case of Ms. (Sakineh) Mohammadi-Ashtiani who was at risk of execution by stoning for adultery and may now be executed by hanging,' said the statement from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. 'Both sentences are clearly unacceptable. We state our strong opposition to the death penalty under all circumstances,' it added. 'We appeal to the Iranian authorities to convert her sentence.'" http://bit.ly/b6ncVQ
BBC: "A prominent Iranian human rights lawyer is in a serious condition after going on hunger strike in prison, a New York-based Iranian rights group says. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI) called on the United Nations to intervene in the case of Nasrin Sotoudeh. Ms Sotoudeh was arrested in September and is accused of acting against national security. She has been refusing food since Sunday in protest against her treatment. ICHRI spokesperson Hadi Ghaemi quoted Ms Sotoudeh's husband, Reza Khandan, as saying she has lost a lot of weight since being detained in Tehran's Evin prison, and that her skin has darkened." http://bbc.in/aBj4W6
Domestic Politics
AP: "The website of former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has announced that authorities have blocked it without explanation. A statement on Khatami.ir said a government committee had decided to filter the website, which on Thursday could only be reached from inside Iran through proxy servers. While the site was not known to be controversial, Khatami, president from 1997 to 2005, supported opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in 2009 presidential election that led to re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad." http://wapo.st/dhdjfZ
Foreign Affairs
AP: "Demonstrators chanted 'Down with America' outside the former U.S. Embassy and pelted the British diplomatic compound with eggs and tomatoes Thursday in separate rallies held under tight security but without challenges from opposition groups. The protests outside the former American Embassy were well-scripted events to mark the anniversary of the 1979 storming of the site - which began a 444-day hostage crisis and severed Washington's ties with Iran." http://wapo.st/ckmUjl
Reuters: "Iran, which the United States and its NATO allies accuse of destabilizing Afghanistan, has provided some $500 million in aid for its conflict-torn neighbor, a senior Iranian official said on Thursday. The statement from Mahmoud Barimani, head of international economic and specialized organizations at Iran's Foreign Ministry, came just over a week after Afghan President Hamid Karzai admitted his office gets 'bags of money' from Iran. 'In recent years, we have undertaken some projects ... aimed at rebuilding and reconstructing the country, focusing on infrastructure and capacity building,' Barimani told a meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on Afghanistan. 'So far, the Islamic Republic of Iran's official assistance to Afghanistan amounts to about $500 million for these projects,' he said." http://reut.rs/b06hjh
Opinion & Analysis
Ambassador Mark Wallace in Fresh Outlook: "The announcement that Iran began loading fuel rods into the Russian-built 1,000 megawatt reactor at Bushehr this past week was met throughout the world with a large collective yawn. Various officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, remarked that concerns about Iran's nuclear weapons program are not based on activities at Bushehr, but Iran's (once) secret facilities at Natanz and Qom. The argument that the Bushehr reactor poses no proliferation threat is based on two premises: 1) that Bushehr is operating under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safeguards; and 2) the Russians, who are supplying the fuel for the reactor, will take possession of the spent fuel rods thus making it impossible for the Iranians to extract fissile material usable in a nuclear weapon." http://bit.ly/ckTZR4
Borzou Daragahi and Ramin Mostaghim in LAT: "Supporters of Iran's government took to the streets of the capital Thursday to denounce the United States on the 31st anniversary of the takeover of the American Embassy compound, even as the nation's Foreign Ministry praised Washington for placing an Iranian militant group on a list of outlawed terrorist organizations. In a rare moment of accord between the two nations, ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast praised the announcement Wednesday that the Obama administration had placed the ethnic Baluchi group Jundallah on its terrorism list. Iran executed the group's leader, Abdulmalak Rigi, in June. 'The Islamic Republic of Iran considers putting the name of Rigi's terrorist group on the U.S. national list of terrorist organizations as a move in the right direction,' Mehmanparast said, according to news reports. 'Fighting terrorism is a general responsibility of all nations.' He also said he hoped Washington would place other militant groups fighting the Iranian government on the list. Washington's move came as diplomats from Iran and world powers, including the U.S., prepare for talks on Iran's nuclear program later this month. The day's contradictory messages showed Iran's dueling political impulses, combining ritualistic and theatrical appeals to the street with high-wire diplomatic maneuvering." http://lat.ms/9HBvpk
Reuel Marc Gerecht in The Weekly Standard: "The latest dump of classified WikiLeaks documents shows a few important facts: (1) The United States military unavoidably classifies a mountain of documents because of the easy loquacity of modern computerized warfare; (2) the release of these documents provides no startling revelations-anyone who'd read the liberal Iraqi émigré Kanan Makiya's writings in the 1980s and 1990s knew the savage potential for internecine conflict in Iraq; former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his 'light-footprint' generals Tommy Franks and John Abizaid were derelict in their duty to preserve order after Saddam Hussein's fall; and (3) the Iranians have been wicked in Mesopotamia. This last point deserves further comment since it is of some importance in understanding how to approach the Islamic Republic today... But the problem for President Obama, then and now, is that Ali Khamenei and his inner circle really like to kill Americans. They had relatively few opportunities to do so before the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But those wars have brought American targets near." http://bit.ly/avpu0Y
Michael Theodoulou in The National: "The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has come under harsh and unprecedented criticism from his usually close supporters, the Revolutionary Guards, in a move that suggests rifts among the Islamic Republic's power centres are widening. An article in the most recent issue of the Guards' monthly magazine took the polarising president to task for declaring recently that, after the supreme leader, it is his government and not parliament that is the country's highest authority. 'Does being on top justify whatever action the government thinks right, disregarding the law?' asked the magazine, Payam-e Enghelab (Message of the Revolution), in a story entitled: 'Is parliament at the centre of affairs or not?' Conservative parliamentarians, judiciary officials and some clerics previously have accused Mr Ahmadinejad of trying to amass power in the office of the presidency at the expense of parliament. But this was the first time the Revolutionary Guards have spoken against him publicly." http://bit.ly/9DHRMW
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.
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