Top Stories
AFP: "An Iranian activist said a woman sentenced to death by stoning could be executed as early as Wednesday, citing sources close to the court. 'We received the information three days ago,' exiled human rights activist Mina Ahadi told AFP by telephone Tuesday, citing a letter sent from a court in the northwestern city of Tabriz where Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani is in custody. 'If the decision is taken, she could be executed on Wednesday. We are very afraid.' Mohammadi-Ashtiani was sentenced to death by two different courts in Tabriz in separate trials in 2006. The first death sentence, by hanging, for her involvement in the murder of her husband, was commuted to a 10-year jail term by an appeals court in 2007. But the second, by stoning, was on a charge of adultery levelled over several relationships, notably with the man convicted of her husband's murder, and was upheld by another appeals court the same year." http://yhoo.it/bVANn1
Reuters: "Iran's envoy to the U.N. nuclear agency dismissed on Tuesday a U.S. suggestion that Tehran should agree to tougher conditions than those it rejected last year for a possible nuclear fuel swap. Western diplomats say economic sanctions are beginning to have an impact on Iran, and it may be possible to revive the fuel exchange plan if it also accepts broader talks they hope will lead to Tehran agreeing to curb its enrichment drive. They have made clear any new deal must be updated to take into account Iran's increased holdings of low-enriched uranium (LEU) material which can be used to build bombs if refined much further, and its work to enrich to higher levels since February. 'I'm afraid there is no logic for these kind of statements,' Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told Reuters when asked about a U.S. media report that Iran would be required to part with some two metric tons of its uranium stockpile under a revised proposal." http://reut.rs/cFehZi
AP: "The start of the trial of three Americans charged with spying on Iran has been postponed because one of them has not been summoned to return to the country to appear in court, Iran's judiciary spokesman said Monday. Sarah Shourd was freed on bail in September after nearly 14 months in a Tehran prison and returned to the United States. Her fiance, Shane Bauer, and their friend Josh Fattal remain in prison. Their trial was expected to begin on Saturday... In announcing the postponement, spokesman Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi said Shourd hasn't yet been legally summoned. 'Under this circumstances, the freed person (Shourd) needs to be summoned so that all three can stand trial,' Ejehi was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency." http://wapo.st/b6Q1i9
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "Building nuclear bombs would be a strategic mistake for Iran, its envoy to the U.N. atomic agency said on Monday, and a leading Western expert said Tehran should be taken seriously when it insists it will not obtain such arms. Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), suggested the Islamic Republic could never compete in terms of the numbers of warheads possessed by the nuclear-armed major powers. It would therefore be at a disadvantage in relation to these countries if it developed atomic bombs, Soltanieh said. 'That is the reason we will never make this strategic mistake,' he told a conference at IAEA headquarters in Vienna. 'We are as strong as those countries without nuclear weapons.'" http://nyti.ms/bONCH6
WSJ: "BP PLC (BP) is seeking clarification from the U.K. government over a North Sea gas joint venture it owns with Iran following new European Union sanctions on the Islamic Republic, the U.K. oil giant said Tuesday. In a third-quarter earnings disclosure, BP says that, following publication of new E.U. sanctions a week ago against Iran, it 'is seeking appropriate clarification from the U.K. government on certain aspects of the regulations and how they apply to the BP-operated Rhum field in the North Sea.' BP owns 50% of the field, which lies about 250 miles (400 kilometers) off Scotland's northeastern coast. Iranian Oil Company U.K. Ltd., which is indirectly controlled by state-owned National Iranian Oil Co., has the remaining 50%." http://bit.ly/bW6ZeE
Human Rights
LAT: "For a man preparing to go up against his own government in a case with international repercussions, Masoud Shafii doesn't look particularly worried as he brews some tea and offers it to a guest. Shafii, the lawyer defending the two American hikers who have been detained in an Iranian prison for more than a year, said he's oblivious to the global dimensions of the case, or the fact that his two clients come from the 'Great Satan' itself. Or even that another Iranian human rights lawyer was recently jailed on unspecified national security crimes and another was just sentenced to nine years in prison... In court, Shafii will argue that his clients are not spies who sneaked across the border from Iraq as charged, but merely hikers who got lost." http://lat.ms/aJYX4F
Radio Farda: "Around 1,300 workers at tire factory outside Tehran are continuing a weeklong strike to demand, among other things, payment of several months of back wages, RFE/RL's Radio Farda reports. Representatives of the workers of the Alborz tire factory have met with Industry Ministry officials to discuss their demands for assistance; however, negotiations were unsuccessful. Workers say they have not been paid around six months of back wages, in addition to not receiving a promised New Year's bonus." http://bit.ly/bNqppL
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hailed on Monday the election of Dilma Rousseff as Brazil's first woman president, saying it would boost the 'eye-catching progress' in ties between the two countries. 'The relation between Iran and Brazil in recent years has enjoyed eye-catching progress which I am certain will continue and consolidate under your leadership,' Ahmadinejad was quoted by state news agency IRNA as telling Rousseff." http://yhoo.it/a7L9ks
Opinion & Analysis
Hossein Askari in The National Interest: "Is this new round of effective sanctions the primary cause of increasing hardship on ordinary Iranians? No. Iran's economic failures are self-inflicted. The Iranian regime has failed its people. Iran's economic performance since the Revolution of 1979 has been miserable. While its economic failure in the 1980s can in large part be attributed to the war with Iraq, performance over the last twenty years is the fault of the regime alone. Although sanctions have undoubtedly slowed the development of Iran's oil and gas reserves (since the adoption of Iran and Libya Sanctions Act in 1996), the government has had ample resources, namely, easy money from oil, to achieve sustained and rapid economic growth. But instead of adopting sound policies to encourage private-sector growth, the government has squandered these resources to buy support through wasteful subsidies, to enrich regime insiders, to pursue military programs and grandiose foreign-policy adventures, all of which it could ill afford. Iranians have paid the price and will continue to do so as educated Iranians emigrate in record numbers for a better future elsewhere. Iran's economy was in a miserable state long before sanctions began to 'bite' in 2010. To attribute Iran's economic failure to these measures is simply incorrect." http://bit.ly/dxDbK2
Kate Allen in The Daily Telegraph: "Echoing earlier reports by human rights groups, the British media has recently highlighted the case of a young woman from Iran, 'Leyla', who was allegedly abducted, detained and raped by that country's security forces because her fiancée was involved in the demonstrations that followed Iran's disputed presidential election last year. It's a terrible story and sadly not a unique one. Following the post-election demonstrations, the Iranian authorities cracked down with astonishing severity on anyone perceived to be involved in criticism of the status quo. Thousands of people were arrested: students, lawyers, journalists, trade unionists and human rights campaigners were all targeted. Hundreds of people were subsequently tried unfairly in mass 'show trials', some of which led to executions. But as more people were released from detention, the details of abuse, including rape of both men and women, were repeated again and again." http://bit.ly/ad8aF2
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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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