Top Stories
WashPost: "As described by Iran's leaders, the uprising in Egypt has served as vindication of their country's Islamic revolution 32 years ago. But for the opposition here, the scenes on the streets of Cairo have brought stark reminders of their own unfinished quest for political reform. The divergent narratives illustrate the deep divide that separates President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters from a struggling opposition movement made up of middle-class urbanites and politicians who were pushed from power... Still, opposition leaders are hoping to use the events in Egypt as a new catalyst, and are seeking permission from the government to launch a demonstration next Monday in the center of Tehran." http://wapo.st/gPez8d
WSJ: "Iran's Revolutionary Court Sunday began a closed-door trial of three American hikers accused of illegally entering the country in order to conduct espionage. Iran released few details of the trial hearing on Sunday, but the hikers' lawyer, Masoud Shafii, reached by phone in Tehran, said the court had postponed a final verdict for another trial session to be scheduled within a few weeks. Mr. Shafii said the judge had upheld the indictments accusing the trio of trespassing into Iran illegally and conducting espionage. Judge Abolghasem Salavati-a known hard-liner who presides over nearly all the trials in the Revolutionary Court that prosecute political detainees and the opposition supporters arrested after the 2009 election-presided over the trial. Two of the hikers, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal, both 29 years old, have been held in Iran for 18 months, appeared in court wearing civilian clothes and looked 'healthy and well but anxious,' according to their lawyer." http://on.wsj.com/gA05w5
AFP: "Iran claimed to have the largest oil refinery in the Middle East after the inauguration on Saturday of an expansion to an existing facility by Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi, media reports said. The Imam Khomeini refinery in Shazand near the central city of Arak will have a refining capacity of 250,000 barrels per day by September, up from 170,000 bpd, making it the largest in the region, Mehr news agency said. It said the refinery when fully operational will also have a petrol production capacity of 16 million litres a day, a significant increase from four million litres at present. The refinery expansion cost $3.3 billion, 33 percent of which was financed by China's Sinopec and the rest by Iran, the report said." http://bit.ly/igEBPi
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
AP: "Iran says it has built four new domestically produced satellites as part of a space program that's worrying other nations. State TV showed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiling the satellites - Fajr, Rasad, Zafar and Amir Kabir-1 - on Monday at a ceremony in Tehran. State TV described them as research satellites but did not provide details. Iran says it has launched at least two satellites and has none in orbit now. Many nations in the West and Middle East fear Iran's space program could also bolster its ballistic missile program and ability to conduct space-based surveillance." http://wapo.st/ewdRr0
AP: "Russia made clear Saturday that it opposes slapping more sanctions on Iran in the standoff over its nuclear program, arguing that their effects would go beyond the international community's agreed aims. Iran has been hit with several rounds of U.N. sanctions over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment. Tehran again rebuffed U.N.-drafted proposals at talks in Istanbul in January, generating speculation about more economic pressures. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that 'any new proposals ... would basically be aimed at suffocating the Iranian economy.'" http://wapo.st/gXDace
AFP: "Iran on Sunday opened its first centre to receive satellite images, a new stage in its space programme that coincides with celebrations marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution. Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the equipment used in the centre located in the desert was 'manufactured by Iranian engineers,' state television's website reported. Iran does not have an operational satellite of its own but announced in December that it would launch two satellites -- Fajr (Dawn) and Rasad-1 (Observation-1) by the end of the Iranian year in March 2011." http://bit.ly/f3CKT0
Bloomberg: "Venezuela's top oil official says the country is not selling gasoline to Iran. Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez says he understands Iran 'has solved its problem' and does not currently need fuel. Iranian state TV reported in 2009 that Venezuela agreed to export 20,000 barrels of gasoline a day under an agreement signed during a visit by President Hugo Chavez. While Iran has large oil reserves, it has limited refining capacity. Ramirez said at a news conference Friday that cuts in subsidies have allowed Iran to bring down domestic consumption and that Iran has also expanded 'petrochemical capacities.'" http://bit.ly/hPDVQJ
Commerce
AFP: "Iran and Turkey plan to triple two-way annual trade to $30 billion by 2015, officials of the neighouring states said on Monday ahead of a visit by Turkish President Abdullah Gul to the Islamic republic. 'Without doubt, the signing of mutual agreements can achieve the objective of the leaders of both countries to increase the level of trade to 30 billion dollars,' said Iran's Commerce Minister Mehdi Ghazanfari at a meeting with Turkish Planning Minister Jodat Yilmaz, state news agency IRNA reported. Yilmaz agreed, saying the 'leaders of both the countries have set a clear target for future trade.' 'This goal is easily achievable given the current capacity,' he said, while Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the target was 'not out of reach over five years.' Ghazanfari and Yilmaz also hoped that a tariff pact would be signed during Gul's visit next week. Annual trade between the two countries has already surged from one billion dollars to 11 billion over the past decade." http://bit.ly/ifdaLr
Human Rights
AFP: "The Netherlands said on Monday it had summoned Iran's ambassador in The Hague in protest against the hushed burial of a Dutch citizen, after she was executed by the regime in Tehran. A foreign ministry spokesman said the Dutch ambassador to Tehran was also being brought back to The Hague for consultations after Zahra Bahrami was buried in the absence of her family who had wished to be present. 'We were taken aback by the manner in which Mrs Bahrami's remains were treated, and we want to protest the lack of respect shown to her family,' the spokesman Bengt van Loosdrecht told AFP. The Iranian ambassador, Kazem Gharib Abadi, was summoned to the Dutch foreign ministry in The Hague, where he met a senior official on Monday morning, said the spokesman." http://bit.ly/fhsKn5
AP: "A state-owned news website says Iran's broadcasting authority has banned Iranian TV channels from showing cooking programs that present recipes for foreign cuisine. Jamejamonline reported late Saturday that the deputy head of Iran's state broadcasting company, Ali Darabi, announced the ban during a visit to one of the country's 30 state-run TV channels. Some cooking programs on Iranian stations present recipes for foreign cuisine, such as Italian and French. The ban is seen as part of a nationalistic campaign increasingly pushed by Iran's government in recent years." http://wapo.st/hqcGKl
AFP: "Iran's conservative-dominated parliament plans to implement a new dress code for woman journalists who cover its proceedings, the ILNA news agency reported Saturday. 'Some woman reporters do not dress appropriately for the atmosphere of the parliament,' conservative MP Fatemeh Rahbar told ILNA. 'It has been provisioned to prepare clothes with regard to the reporters' taste and by observing Islamic codes,' she added, without elaborating." http://yhoo.it/fM2ghJ
Domestic Politics
AP: "A pro-government web site says Iran has executed two prison officials convicted of the 2009 torture deaths of three anti-government protesters. Sunday's report by the Khabarnameh Daneshjooyan web site says the executions were reported by Abdolhossein Rouhalamini, the father of one of the victims and a prominent conservative figure. The torture deaths had sparked an outcry even among influential government supporters." http://wapo.st/ibhO5s
Reuters: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad hit back at Iran's parliament on Saturday for sacking one of his most loyal ministers, branding the impeachment unlawful and calling the competence of the legislature into question. The spat is the latest evidence of serious rifts between Ahmadinejad and other prominent members of the ruling elite, infighting which has become more apparent since reformist protests that followed the June 2009 vote were suppressed." http://reut.rs/eL0Egu
Foreign Affairs
AP: "Egypt's foreign minister has told Iran to mind its own business after Iran's top leader praised the Egyptian uprising as an appropriate response to dictatorial rule. Ahmed Aboul Gheit told reporters Saturday that Iran's Ali Khamenei seems to have forgotten about the crushing of widespread protests in Iran two years ago. Aboul Gheit said Khamenei should be more attentive to calls for freedom in Iran rather than 'distracting the Iranian people's attention by hiding behind what is happening in Egypt.'" http://wapo.st/dXsoCr
AP: "Iran's foreign minister and nuclear chief says he is too busy to attend an international security conference where his country's suspected nuclear weapons ambitions featured prominently in the past. Ali Akbar Salehi's decision was reported Saturday by the semi-official Iranian news agency Isna. It came several days after Britain's defense secretary said Tehran might be able to develop nuclear weapons by next year." http://wapo.st/fRsbAF
AFP: "Iran said on Sunday it has reached an agreement with Afghanistan to supply it with Iranian fuel and that it has started delivering the products to the neighbour's private sector. Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi said 'Afghanistan's private sector buys all its needed products from Iran,' the oil ministry news service Shana reported. 'Oil products were already transited to Afghanistan and we hope from now on this country makes all its (fuel) purchases from Iran as there has been an agreement with Afghan officials,' Mirkazemi said. About one-third of Afghanistan's fuel needs, imported from Russia, Turkmenistan and Iraq, transit through Iran." http://bit.ly/ec95Rq
Opinion & Analysis
Omid Memarian & Roja Heydarpour in The Daily Beast: As protests sweep the Middle East, the Iranian government has launched a brutal wave of executions in what many see as an intimidation tactic aimed at discouraging fresh uprisings. During the month of January, Iran executed at least 73 people, an average of two to three hangings each day. The numbers are alarming, even in a country second only to China for the most executions in the world. The killings have sent a bone chilling message to members of Iran's pro-democracy Green Movement about the deadly risks of following the lead of frustrated citizens in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. Many of those executed in Iran in recent weeks were political prisoners originally rounded up during the protests that swept Tehran in 2009, after the alleged fraudulent election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 'The executions, for those who live in close quarters with death-row inmates, have dealt a severe emotional blow,' said a family member of a political prisoner in Farsi. The hanging of a Dutch-Iranian prisoner, Zahra Bahrami, last week was particularly shattering for the inmates, according to the family member. Bahrami's hanging sparked outcry from the international community, though drowned by the massive uprisings in the region. She was initially arrested for participating in the protests in 2009, but was later charged with possessing 400 grams of cocaine and opium-a crime punishable by death. Her fellow inmates knew she was originally a political prisoner. They also knew that she had been severely tortured. So the news of her execution was particularly shocking." http://bit.ly/iiM6eT
Abigail Esman in WSJ: "While Egyptians raise their voices in a call for democracy and freedom, another woman has been executed in Iran. Her crime: speaking out, too, for freedom. For this, Zahra Bahrami, a Dutch-Iranian who had been imprisoned since November, 2009, was hanged late last month in Tehran. She was 45 years old. According to Iranian officials, Bahrami, a Dutch-naturalized citizen who had been visiting family in her birthplace of Iran at the time of her arrest, was a member of a drug-smuggling ring... As egregious as all this is, one has to ask why Tehran acted with such insouciance in Bahrami's case. A related question is why Europe did not make a louder fuss over her earlier. Would the Netherlands have reacted quite so passively had Bahrami been Dutch-born, and of European (and not Middle Eastern) ancestry? It is equally difficult to fathom how this woman could have suffered for over a year in an Iranian prison unnoticed by the international press. Has no one been paying attention? Are there more Zahra Bahramis awaiting a similar end in the Islamic Republic? How many? Bahrami's death brought the total number of executions in Iran to at least 66 in January alone. At this rate, Tehran is set to exceed its reported 2010 tally of 179 before the end of March. It is clear enough from everything we know, both about Iran and about Bahrami, that the charges against her were false from start to finish. Like too many others, she spoke out for democracy, and died for it. The West must do better than simply issue platitudes of 'condemnation.' We must keep Zahra Bahrami's voice alive." http://on.wsj.com/f3yyZ6 |
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