Top Stories
AFP: "US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that some Chinese firms were still failing to comply fully with UN sanctions and suggested Washington could impose its own sanctions on them. 'We think that there are some entities within China that we have brought to the attention of the Chinese leadership that are still not as, shall we say, as in compliance as we would like them to be,' Clinton told ABC television. 'And we are pushing very hard on that and we may be proposing more unilateral sanctions,' the chief US diplomat said during the interview with the network during the state visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao. 'Now, the Chinese response is they are enforcing the sanctions they agreed to in the Security Council; they did not agree to either European, American, or Japanese sanctions that were imposed unilaterally,' she said." http://bit.ly/fKH51D
WSJ: "The U.S. and other world powers meeting with Iran here this week will press Tehran to take concrete steps to ensure its nuclear activities are peaceful and to justify the continuation of an eight-year diplomatic track that has so far yielded few gains, American and European officials involved in the negotiations said. Washington and its European allies specifically want to discuss with Iran the reworking of a year-old proposal that would see President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government ship out a substantial portion of Tehran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium in return for Western energy assistance, according to these officials. Western diplomats see such a deal as limiting Iran's ability to quickly 'break-out' and produce the weapons-grade fuel required to develop an atomic bomb. Tehran says its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful purposes... 'Prospects for exploring a fuel swap will depend on whether Iranians are ready to get serious,' said a senior U.S. official involved in the talks. 'Remember, this is meant as a confidence-building measure to begin to demonstrate that their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.'" http://on.wsj.com/gcUMB8
Reuters: "Switzerland is tightening sanctions against Iran to bring them in line with those of its own trading partners, the Swiss government said on Wednesday. The new measures, which will come into force from Thursday, should prevent Switzerland from being used as a way for Iran to get goods that it would otherwise not be able to get from other countries, the government said in a statement... Swiss companies will now no longer be allowed to sell or deliver so-called dual use goods, products which could also be used for military purposes. The existing ban on exports of heavy war material will be extended to all sorts of military goods. There will also be limits placed on the exports of certain products that could be used in Iran's oil and gas industry as well as on financing in this sector, the Swiss government said. Switzerland is also restricting the financial services that Iran can get from Switzerland." http://reut.rs/fX8n2u
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
WSJ: "Iran's plan to save money by significantly cutting subsidies for fuel, electricity and basic food items has had an unexpected response: many Iranians, cushioned from the impact and threatened with arrest if they complain, are quietly adjusting to the rising cost of daily living. Gasoline consumption fell 14% by early January from the time the first cuts were introduced on Dec. 20, said Oil Minister Seyed Masound Mir Kazemi. Household consumption of gas dropped 5%, energy officials said. Use of public transport has increased by nearly 20% since gasoline prices were raised from 1,000 rials (about 10 cents) per liter to 4,000 rials, according to transport officials. Fares for Tehran's buses and subway were increased by only 20%. Authorities prepared for a harsher response. The first cuts were introduced only after multiple delays by a parliament concerned about public backlash. Restrictions were imposed on the media and a surge of security forces deployed in the capital to stifle expressions of discontent. And the government introduced a $40 per-person monthly stipend to soften the blow." http://on.wsj.com/gXXmYc Reuters: "Iranian negotiators said they had no fresh offer to make for a nuclear fuel swap when they meet six world powers Friday, and Russia said talks should also address prospects for easing sanctions on Tehran. Expectations of any breakthrough in an eight-year-old stand-off over Iran's nuclear ambitions were low ahead of a second round of negotiations between Iran and the powers in the Turkish city of Istanbul Friday and Saturday... The Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV news channel reported on Tuesday that Iran would propose a revised version of a deal that was agreed in principle at a 2009 round of talks but then unraveled. But Iranian officials denied any such intentions. 'I haven't heard about it,' Ali Baqeri, a deputy to Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, told Reuters as the Iranian delegation arrived in Istanbul Thursday." http://reut.rs/fcnIRA AP: "The U.S. is joining five other world powers for talks with Iran this week publicly confident that international efforts have slowed Tehran's capacity to make nuclear arms and created more time to press Tehran to accept curbs on its atomic activities. But while diplomats and officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency - the U.N. nuclear monitor - agree that Iran's enrichment program has struggled over past years, the Federation of American Scientists warns against complacency. It notes impressive improvements in the performance of the Iranian machines that enrich uranium - an activity that has provoked U.N. sanctions because it could be used to make nuclear weapons." http://bit.ly/hmZCFU AP: "Iran says it has test-fired an anti-aircraft missile near a nuclear site in a military display before talks resume with world powers over Tehran's uranium enrichment program. The semiofficial Fars news agency says the 'Hawk' surface-to-air missile system was tested near Arak in central Iran, where a research reactor is under construction. The report Wednesday gave no other details. U.S.-made Hawk missiles were purchased by Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but Iran says it has made its own versions." http://wapo.st/fiWky2 Bloomberg: "Russia cautioned the U.S. on the eve of a meeting of world powers over Iran's nuclear program not to undermine negotiations by threatening the Persian Gulf country with more sanctions. 'Unilateral sanctions are serving as spoilers and undermine efforts for a joint solution,' Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference in Istanbul today. 'They are counterproductive.'" http://bit.ly/hSTxK3 Human RightsAP: "Iran's top police chief envisions a new beat for his forces: patrolling cyberspace. 'There is no time to wait,' Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam said last week at the opening of a new police headquarters in the Shiite seminary city of Qom. 'We will have cyber police all over Iran.' The first web watchdog squads are planned in Tehran this month - another step in Iran's rapidly expanding focus on the digital world as cyber warfare and online sleuthing take greater prominence with the Pentagon's new Cyber Command and the secrets spilled to WikiLeaks." http://wapo.st/hWdzRZ Foreign AffairsNational Post: "The Harper government sent a diplomatic note to Iran Wednesday, as Heritage Minister James Moore lashed out at Tehran for its part in a campaign that cancelled the screening of a movie critical of the Iranian regime at Library and Archives Canada. On Wednesday morning, the Minister instructed Library and Archives Canada to show Iranium, a documentary critiquing Iran's nuclear program, after it cowed to numerous threats of protest and an official request from the Iranian embassy in Canada to not present the film Tuesday night, as scheduled. In its diplomatic note to Tehran, the government said Canada is a free country and that freedom of expression is a core value that won't be compromised." http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=hfdiftcab&t=5td46neab.0.5gg56neab.hfdiftcab.30860&ts=S0584&p=http%3A%2F%2Fbit.ly%2Ffb83yg%2520
Opinion & Analysis
Robert Tait in Radio Farda: "First domestic fuel became scarce, sending prices soaring just as winter began to bite. Then protesters took to the streets chanting, 'Death to Iran,' and, 'Death to [President Mahmud] Ahmadinejad.' Now President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is poised to call on his country's former enemy, Russia, to step in as an emergency fuel supplier after stocks from Kabul's hitherto friendly Iranian neighbors dried up over a dispute that Iran has not publicly explained and which few understand. These are challenging times for relations between Iran and Afghanistan, even if the authorities in Tehran are loath to admit it. It started in December, when Iran began preventing diesel tankers from crossing into Afghanistan. The result is a backlog that has seen nearly 2,000 Afghan-bound tankers stuck on the Iranian side of the border -- and shortages in Afghanistan that have prompted the closure of gasoline stations and triggered a 50 percent rise in fuel costs, along with price hikes in other basic commodities. Afghan officials have protested vocally and say their complaints have been met by promises from their Iranian counterparts to resolve the issue. But, so far, these have not been fulfilled. Despite Iranian insistence that the matter is close to being 'solved,' only around 40 tankers a day were being allowed to cross the border into the Afghan provinces of Herat, Farah, and Nimroz as of January 18 -- compared to around 250 to 330 before the hold-ups began, according to officials. For ordinary Afghans, the consequences have been painful." http://bit.ly/h2F898
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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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