Top Stories
NYT: "Iran's chief prosecutor on Wednesday called an opposition request to hold a rally in support of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt 'divisive' and 'political.' His comments suggested that officials would not grant permission for the rally, planned for Monday. 'If anyone really wants to support the people of Tunisia and Egypt, they should join the regime and the people and take part in the rally on Feb. 11,' the semiofficial news agency ILNA quoted the prosecutor, Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejehi, as saying. Feb. 11 is the date of the annual government-sponsored rally celebrating the Islamic revolution of 1979. 'Setting a different date means that these individuals are separating themselves from the people and creating divisions,' Mr. Mohseni-Ejehi said, apparently referring to the leaders of Iran's Green opposition movement, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi. They issued an open letter to the Interior Ministry on Saturday, invoking a provision in Iran's Constitution granting the right to peaceful assembly." http://t.uani.com/fEQZh2
AP: "The website of an Iranian opposition leaders says authorities have placed him under house arrest because of his calls for a rally in support of anti-government demonstrations in Egypt. Mahdi Karroubi's sahamnews.org says security officers are stationed at the entrance to Karroubi's house in Tehran on Thursday and are preventing relatives from meeting him. Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi have asked for permission to hold a rally on Monday in support of uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia." http://t.uani.com/fOJb3N
AP: "Iran's ambassador to Nigeria said Wednesday that a Gambia-bound arms shipment seized at Nigeria's busiest port three months ago did not breach sanctions imposed by the United Nations. Hussein Abdullahi told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the arms shipment seized Oct. 26 'was not conflicting with the U.N. sanctions' because Iran and Gambia had signed a secret agreement two years before the U.N.'s 2010 ban on Iranian arms exports. However, the U.N. had banned the country's arms exports in a 2007 resolution, before imposing more comprehensive sanctions in 2010." http://t.uani.com/gIud7K
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Daily Telegraph: "The United States and Israel warned that Mohamed ElBaradei, a key leader of the Egyptian opposition, was soft on Iran and was becoming 'part of the problem' in the Middle East, according to leaked diplomatic cables. Officials feared that Mr ElBaradei, who at the time was head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was 'just going through the motions' with Iran and was failing to investigate fully its suspected nuclear programme. In October, 2007, US diplomats were briefed by officers from Israeli Defence Intelligence that Mr ElBaradei saw himself as a 'peacemaker' who was surrounded by staff who 'do not wish to challenge him'. The cable states: 'ElBaradei sees himself as a peacemaker akin to the Dalai Lama. He urged the US to take measures to chip away at the staff bolstering his supreme confidence.'" http://t.uani.com/hnvnDs
AP: "Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour says Iran is the world's top threat to peace and stability. Barbour, who is a potential 2012 presidential Republican candidate, says world leaders should be judged by their success in responding to Iran's nuclear program and what he says is its support for terrorism and destabilizing governments abroad. The popular governor received a warm ovation from a prestigious security conference Wednesday in Israel - where Iran and its nuclear program are a major concern." http://t.uani.com/i6UG4S
Commerce
Reuters: "China has signed a $13 billion contract to build a railway network in Iran, where economic sanctions have hampered investment by western companies, Iran's state infrastructure company said on its website. 'The contract to build a railway network extending 5,300 km (3,300 miles) was signed when a Chinese delegation visited Tehran,' the Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructure Company said in a posting dated Monday. It did not say when the contract was signed or when work would start. China, the second biggest buyer of Iranian oil, after Japan, has long been involved in infrastructure projects in Iran, such as the building of Tehran's metro." http://t.uani.com/eaiuNZ
Human Rights
Radio Netherlands: "On Monday, the Iranian government contacted the daughter of Zahra Bahrami, the Dutch-Iranian woman executed in secret in Iran on 29 January. The news coincides with the discovery of an old audio recording featuring Ms Bahrami speaking out against Iran's regime. Human rights activist Sadegh Nageshkar, who lives in the Netherlands, says he spoke to Ms Bahrami's daughter, Banafsheh Najebpour in Tehran, later on Monday. She told him the Iranian regime had contacted her after the Dutch government recalled its ambassador from Tehran. The Dutch move led to major international publicity. Ms Najebpour spoke by telephone from Tehran to Mr Nageshkar who works for the HRADI Iranian human rights organisation. She said she had been told where her mother was buried and that she planned to visit the grave on Tuesday." http://t.uani.com/hZuAYz
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "The Egyptian uprising needs a leader like Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic revolution which toppled the US-backed shah, former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said in comments published on Thursday. 'A leader like Imam Khomeini is needed for Egypt,' Rafsanjani said in an interview with the Jomhuri Eslami newspaper, adding that only a leader like Khomeini can 'resist the cheating of America.' 'In the end, Americans do not want the Egyptian uprising to drag on, while Israelis are completely against the revolution in Egypt,' said Rafsanjani, who is a leading supporter of the opposition to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 'By coincidence, all things (in Egypt) are like Iran' in 1979, he added." http://t.uani.com/ef8XmO
Opinion & Analysis
Ahmad Majidyar in AOL News: "Almost as soon as protests in Egypt erupted, Iran tried to use the unrest to step up anti-American propaganda and project power in the region. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, said Friday that the popular uprisings against Western-backed regimes in the Middle East signified an 'Islamic awakening' that will lead to an 'irreversible defeat' of the United States. Khamenei also addressed the Egyptian people in Arabic to voice solidarity with them. Iranian leaders portray the protests as a natural extension of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. 'After the victory of the Iranian revolution, Imam Khomeini noted that Iran's revolution would be exported to all countries,' said senior cleric Ayatollah Nouri Hamedani. But despite the strong rhetoric, Iranian leaders are worried about the outcome of the wave of protests, because Arabs are protesting for democracy, and not against the West. 'The fundamental demand of the people in Egypt is to oppose and end despotism, dictatorship and chaos prevailing in the country. ... They are not saying, 'Death to America, they have not burned flags of America and Britain, and they have not set Obama's effigy aflame,' observed Sadegh Zibakalam, a lecturer at Tehran University. Indeed, the Arab uprisings resemble more the protests that engulfed Iran after the country's controversial 2009 elections than its 1979 revolution." http://t.uani.com/eoxCe5
Michael Mukasey in Fox News: "The Jasmine revolution in Tunisia and the ongoing tumult in Egypt and Yemen present a dilemma for United States foreign policy. The administration is concerned about not being responsive to the protesters in Cairo, but it is also alarmed over the possibility that change in the status quo in Egypt would empower Islamic fundamentalists in the most populous Muslim nation in the Middle East. Either way, the risks are enormous. Iran plainly is intent on taking advantage of these events... The Obama administration has been running hard, even if not always in a straight line, to make up for lagging behind when things began to unravel in Egypt, but it missed a great opportunity when Iranians rose up two years ago by resolutely taking the passive posture of a spectator - 'the world is watching' -no to the undoubted delight of the mullahs. Ironically, the recent wave of executions in Iran shows a regime in panic because of growing political dissent and worsening economic situation. In these circumstances, it would be both right and useful for administration to help empower the Iranian opposition. An Iranian regime preoccupied with its own population would cause far less harm thousands of miles away. Among the more significant and less noted decisions open to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that can actually affect the outcome of events is whether to remove the Iranian resistance organization Mujahedeen e Khalq (MEK) from the State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations." http://t.uani.com/ez45DQ
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