Top Stories
AP: "Iran's commerce minister on Saturday denied that international sanctions imposed on the country over its disputed nuclear program have damaged Tehran's trade ties and said the penalties will prove futile... Ghanzafari's comments come after the president of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce, Mohammad Nahavandian, said last week that the international penalties have begun to take a toll on the economy, pushing up the cost of living. 'Sanctions can't halt the importation of goods into Iran but estimates indicate that the cost of imports has increased between 15 to 30 percent,' Nahavandian was quoted as saying by the semiofficial ISNA news agency." http://yhoo.it/blFrk5
Reuters: "Iran can keep its stake in a uranium mine in Namibia owned by Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, despite new U.N. sanctions restricting such investments, the firm said on Friday... United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), a U.S.-based non-governmental group that has been putting public pressure on businesses to break off ties with Iran, sent a letter last week to Rio Tinto warning it that the firm's majority ownership of the Rossing mine 'appears to be a violation of U.S. law.' The Iranian stake in Rossing is held by the Iran Foreign Investment Company, which the U.S. Treasury Department added in August to its list of Iranian companies subject to U.S. sanctions for supporting Tehran's nuclear program. 'Iranian government personnel also have access to the facility, from which they can acquire valuable technical knowledge to advance the regime's nuclear weapons program,' said UANI President Mark Wallace, a former U.S. diplomat." http://reut.rs/cYLrer
AP: "A weapons cache containing artillery rockets seized by Nigerian security agents at the West African nation's busiest port originally came from Iran, an international shipping company said Saturday. The statement from CMA CGM, an international cargo shipper based in France, comes after Israeli officials accused Iran of trying to sneak the shipment into the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip... The MV CMA CGM Everest picked up the 13 shipping containers from Bandar Abbas, a port in southern Iran, the company said. The shipment, which stopped in Mumbai's port before heading to Lagos, had been labeled as containing 'packages of glass wool and pallets of stone.'" http://bit.ly/bVxdsO
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
AFP: "Imposing sanctions on Iran has been the 'most ridiculous and failed' move adopted by the world powers, the country's hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday. 'Imposing sanctions on Iran was the most ridiculous political decision ever. It was a failed thing from the beginning,' Ahmadinejad said in an interview broadcast live on state television. Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly dismissed UN and other unilateral sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear programme, reiterated that the punitive measures were like 'torn paper' which failed to hurt Iranians. 'What do you want to sanction? Energy. We are energy producers. We have the second largest reserves of energy products in the world,' he said." http://bit.ly/d0FfZw
Reuters: "Iran is ready to hold its first talks with world powers in more than a year about its disputed nuclear program any time after November 10, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Friday. The meeting with a group of six world powers would be the first in the long-running dispute since October 2009 and also the first since the United Nations, the United States and European Union imposed tougher sanctions on Iran this year." http://reut.rs/cpopxV
Reuters: "Iran is not prepared to discuss its nuclear programme at talks with global powers which might happen next month, an adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying on Sunday. 'We will not be talking with the Western party about the nuclear energy issue in this round of the negotiation with this party,' Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a media adviser to the president, said, according to the semi-official Fars news agency." http://reut.rs/coxOnk
Bloomberg: "Iran would favor opening the next nuclear talks with world powers to all nations, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said. 'If more countries join the talks, better results will be achieved as international issues, which concern different nations, will be discussed,' Mehmanparast was quoted as telling the state-run Mehr news agency yesterday. Mehmanparast did not elaborate on which nations, aside from the five permanent United Nations Security Council members plus Germany, that Iran would like to see at the meeting." http://bit.ly/9wA2Hg
Reuters: "Iran's state-owned airline is considering legal action to force European companies to fuel its planes, official news agency IRNA reported on Saturday. To comply with European Union sanctions, aimed at pressuring Iran over its nuclear programme, several oil companies have cut their business with the Islamic Republic, including stopping sales of jet fuel. Tehran says that breaks international aviation law. 'These bans are in contravention of the Chicago Convention (on aviation) in that there must be no restrictions imposed on commercial airliners,' Iran Air Chief Executive Farhad Parvaresh was quoted as saying." http://bit.ly/bcBNTP
Commerce
Reuters: "Iran hopes to sign a deal with Indian firms on the development of its South Pars Phase 12 field by the end of March 2011, said Gholamreza Manouchehri, managing director of the Petropars Company. The $7.5-billion development of the South Pars phase 12 project, which has a capacity of 3 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas, of which 2 bcf has been reserved for LNG, or 10 million tonnes a year of LNG for about 25 years, Manouchehri told reporters at energy conference Petrotech." http://bit.ly/9AEyjI
AFP: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that the foreign exchange reserves of sanctions-hit Iran were higher than the World Bank's estimate of 100 billion dollars. 'They say that the foreign exchange reserves of the country are estimated to be 100 billion dollars, but in fact they are definitely more than this figure,' the website of Ahmadinejad's office quoted him as saying at a seminar in Tehran and referring to estimates by the World Bank. Last week Iranian media reported that central bank chief Mahmoud Bahmani had said that the World Bank estimated Iran's foreign exchange reserves to be at 100 billion dollars." http://bit.ly/bJWq0x
Human Rights
NYT: "The three American hikers accused of espionage by Iran stepped off an unmarked dirt road - inadvertently crossing from Iraq into the Islamic republic - only because a border guard of unknown nationality gestured for them to approach, the lone hiker to be released said Sunday... Ms. Shourd, 32, said she wanted to correct the gathering false impression, fueled by a classified United States military report made public last week by WikiLeaks, as well as earlier American and British news reports, that the hikers were detained inside Iraq and forced across the border." http://nyti.ms/crZ6wB
Domestic Politics
LAT: "Iran's supreme leader wrapped up an unprecedented 10-day visit to the Iranian seminary city of Qom on Friday that was widely seen as an attempt to bolster support among those in a clerical establishment either indifferent or hostile to his conservative agenda. In a series of meetings, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned turbaned leaders of the Shiite Muslim clergy to avoid becoming excessively enamored of unorthodox, reformist and Western ideas and too unsupportive of the hard-line government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has long aroused suspicion among Iran's clerical old guard." http://lat.ms/a6htjm
AFP: "Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has charged that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government lacks the means to implement its plan to scrap subsidies on energy products. Mousavi, quoted on fellow opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi's website Sahamnews.org on Monday, also reiterated that the government's 'adventurous' foreign policies were endangering Iran's regime. 'We are not against targeted subsidies, but what we are really saying is that they (government) do not have the people to execute and manage this plan as most experts have been sidelined,' he told Karroubi at a meeting on Sunday." http://yhoo.it/dAoIE3
Foreign Affairs
AP: "Iran's embassy in Nigeria says it won't elaborate on military-grade weaponry seized in Nigeria's busiest port and linked to Iran. A statement released Monday says that 'any unnecessary word would add to the confusion already existing.' The embassy also said no Iranian had been arrested over the weapons seizure. Nigerian security agents seized the weapons shipment Tuesday, hidden inside 13 shipping containers supposedly containing building materials. Instead, officials say the shipment contained 107 mm artillery rockets and other weapons." http://wapo.st/9zEJv6
AP: "Bolivia says it is interested in buying Iranian-made airplanes and helicopters for military training and transportation. Finance Minister Luis Arce tells Patria Nueva radio that the Andean nation is looking at Fajr-3, S-68 and 52-seat Iran-140 planes, along with four-seat helicopters. He does not say how many of each." http://wapo.st/9Bs62R
Opinion & Analysis
Jaime Darenblum in Weekly Standard: "If you're looking for evidence that a nuclear Iran would be very difficult (if not impossible) to 'contain,' visit Buenos Aires. Between 1992 and 1994, the Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah launched not one but two murderous attacks in the Argentine capital, bombing both the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center. It is widely believed that Tehran was involved in plotting the deadly explosions. If a non-nuclear Iranian government felt bold enough to mastermind such horrendous attacks in a faraway, seemingly random country, just imagine how aggressive a nuclear-armed Iran might be... Like Iran, Venezuela is a state sponsor of terrorism whose government harbors a messianic and virulently anti-American worldview. Though some analysts have tried to minimize its significance, the Tehran-Caracas alliance now represents the biggest threat to hemispheric stability, a reality that the Obama administration simply cannot ignore." http://bit.ly/9hKl1R
David Broder in WashPost: "Look back at FDR and the Great Depression. What finally resolved that economic crisis? World War II. Here is where Obama is likely to prevail. With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran's ambition to become a nuclear power, he can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. This will help him politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve. I am not suggesting, of course, that the president incite a war to get reelected. But the nation will rally around Obama because Iran is the greatest threat to the world in the young century. If he can confront this threat and contain Iran's nuclear ambitions, he will have made the world safer and may be regarded as one of the most successful presidents in history." http://wapo.st/ccEE4f |
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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