Top Stories
NYT: "A powerful Iranian clerical body appointed a candidate backed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as its new chairman on Tuesday to replace Ayatollah Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, state media reported, strengthening the president's hand in his continuing effort to crush opposition. While the maneuver is unlikely to have a far-reaching practical effect, it will nonetheless bolster the hardliners around Mr. Ahmadinejad who have moved persistently and forcefully to quash dissent that surfaced in huge demonstrations after disputed presidential elections in 2009. Mr. Rafsanjani, a former president and Parliament speaker, was widely perceived as having tacitly supported Mir Hussein Moussavi, a challenger to Mr. Ahmadinejad, in that vote and remains a powerful opponent of the president within Iran's complex and secretive elite. The setback for Mr. Rafsanjani came in a vote for the leadership of the Assembly of Experts, a body of religious scholars entrusted with monitoring the country's supreme leader and choosing a successor at his death, offering it potentially wide power to mold Iran's political direction. The Press TV satellite broadcaster said 63 members of the 86-member assembly voted in favor of Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, 80, to replace Mr. Rafsanjani, who was Iran's president from 1989 to 1997 and is generally perceived in the West as a pragmatic moderate." http://t.uani.com/g5TWmx
AFP: "The UN atomic watchdog said Monday it had information that Iran may have been engaged in weaponisation studies more recently than previously thought. Nevertheless, Tehran was continuing to refuse to answer any questions on the issue, effectively blocking a long-running investigation into the matter, the watchdog's chief Yuikya Amano said... When asked whether the information concerned possible weaponisation work beyond 2004, Amano replied: 'I cannot specifically say up to when. But we can say there is some information that indicate the existence of activities beyond 2004.' The Japanese diplomat insisted the IAEA was not saying that Iran still had an active nuclear weapons programme. 'We have concerns and we want to clarify the matter,' he said. But Iran was refusing to answer any questions about the allegations, Amano complained... Among the many unresolved issues about Iran's atomic drive are allegations that the Islamic republic was involved in weaponisation studies -- work which included uranium conversion, high explosives testing and the adaptation of a ballistic missile cone to carry a nuclear warhead." http://t.uani.com/gxjUXr
AFP: "Iran is the country seen as having the most negative influence in the world, according to an annual survey by BBC World Service published on Monday. The Islamic Republic was followed by North Korea and Pakistan in the survey of negative and positive views of people in 27 countries based on events in 2010. Iran saw its negative rating rise three points to 59 percent since the previous study, which was based on events in 2009. Unfavourable ratings for Iran showed a marked year-on-year increase in Britain, Canada, the United States, Australia and the Philippines." http://t.uani.com/e1uJh4
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Bloomberg: "A shattered cooling pump at Iran's only civilian nuclear-power reactor, forcing a shutdown during its initial start-up phase, has renewed safety concerns about the hybrid Russian-German power plant on the Persian Gulf coast. The 1000-megawatt power plant at Bushehr combines a German- designed plant begun under the rule of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in the 1970's and Russian technology installed over the last decade. Safety questions have raised concern among some nuclear-power experts and in neighboring countries such as Kuwait, which is vulnerable in the event of a radiation leak since it is downwind about 170 miles (275 kilometers)." http://t.uani.com/gWyu04
Bloomberg: "La Caixa and Banco Santander SA closed the accounts of Iran's embassy in Madrid to comply with financial sanctions against the country over its nuclear program, Press TV reported, without citing anyone. Banco Santander earlier requested embassy officials withdraw their funds within a month, the Iranian state-run news channel said. The bank closed the account after the money was pulled out, Press TV said. Embassy officials subsequently opened an account with La Caixa, which halted all banking transactions last week and shut the account yesterday, the channel said late yesterday." http://t.uani.com/fy6phF
AFP: "Nigerian prosecutors on Monday amended the charges against an alleged Iranian Revolutionary Guard member on trial over a shipment of rockets, explosives and grenades seized in the West African nation. The court was supposed to hold a bail hearing for Azim Aghajani and Nigerian suspect Ali Abbas Jega on Monday, but prosecutors instead replaced the three existing charges against them with four new ones. The new charges read out in court are similar to the old accusations, but provide more specifics on the types of weapons involved in the October seizure, naming bombs, grenades and rockets. They accuse the two suspects of illegally importing them and say the weapons were under their control. They are also accused of having falsely declared the 13 containers seized at a Lagos port as building materials." http://t.uani.com/ikcz6Y
AP: "A Nigerian accused of importing illegal arms from Iran says he was deceived into thinking that the shipment contained building materials. Ali Usman Abbas Jega said in a statement read in court Tuesday that he gave his name as a consignee because Iranian citizen Azim Aghajani and a businessman whose name was given as Masud did not tell him that the 13 containers carried weapons. The manifest for the consignment also said that the containers had building materials." http://t.uani.com/f8pEM2
AP: "Iran says a report by the UN nuclear watchdog criticizing the country's nuclear program resulted from political pressure by Western nations. Yukiya Amano, who heads the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Monday that he cannot guarantee that Iran is not trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran has always denied that." http://t.uani.com/fuCFoS
Foreign Affairs
AP: "Iran urged the U.S. on Tuesday to provide new information about a retired FBI agent who disappeared inside the country, and says it will keep trying to discover his fate. 'On a humanitarian basis, we will continue our efforts,' to find Robert Levinson, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said at a weekly briefing. 'If there is reliable information, relaying it to Iranian officials can turn this into a collective effort,' he said." http://t.uani.com/eQfgQE
AP: "An epic French documentary about the Holocaust, dubbed into Farsi, is to be broadcast on a satellite channel in Iran as part of a campaign to promote understanding between Jews and Muslims and to fight Holocaust denial. Filmmaker Claude Lanzmann's renowned 9-plus-hour film 'Shoah' includes testimony from concentration camp survivors and employees about the slaughter of millions of Jews in Europe during World War II. He worked for 11 years on the film, which was released in 1985. The Aladdin Project, a Paris-based group, says the film will be shown starting Monday over the next several days on the large Los Angeles-based satellite channel Pars." http://t.uani.com/fDOiyj
Opinion & Analysis
Shirin Ebadi in The Guardian: "Not so long ago, my colleague Nasrin Sotoudeh was the lawyer so many of us human rights defenders in Iran would call when our government harassed us or put one of us, or one of our family members, in jail. Sadly it is now Nasrin who is in jail. The government's accusations against her include acting contrary to 'national security', 'propaganda against the state', and 'membership' of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, an organisation I founded in 2001. The government has also accused her of failing to wear hijab, the traditional Islamic covering for women. On some of these trumped-up charges she has been sentenced to 11 years in jail, and is now banned from practising law for 20 years. This courageous 45-year-old mother of two young children is one of many in Iran who are targeted - and punished - for speaking up for the rights of others. Women are all too frequently on the receiving end of the Iranian regime's wrath - as we know from the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, sentenced to be stoned to death for allegedly committing adultery. But what makes Nasrin's case especially poignant is that it raises a fundamental question about Iran's future. If the people who come to the defence of people whose human rights are violated cannot do their jobs, who will ensure that such values as equality and justice are upheld in Iran? Iranian authorities arrested Nasrin at Tehran's notorious Evin prison last September, during a visit to a client who is a political prisoner. Since then Nasrin has spent most of her time in solitary confinement. To protest against her illegal arrest, Nasrin has gone on several hunger strikes. Iranian officials have denied her access to a lawyer, and for the first month she was not allowed to talk to her family, even on the phone. At one point authorities detained her husband for speaking publicly about his wife's case. Why is the Iranian government so afraid of Nasrin Sotoudeh? It is clearly frustrated that an Iranian woman's work is shining a light on the deplorable human rights situation in Iran." http://t.uani.com/eejZ9l
NY Daily News Editorial Board: "A full four years after he disappeared while visiting an Iranian island, there's suddenly cross-your-fingers word that former FBI agent Robert Levinson may be alive. Levinson retired in 1998 and became a private investigator. One avenue of inquiry on cigarette smuggling took him in 2007 to an Iranian island called Kish that is a combination resort and free-trade zone where anything goes, including organized crime on a global scale. Just before he vanished, he reportedly had a conversation with an American fugitive believed to have killed an Iranian diplomat in Maryland in 1980. That man, Dawud Salahuddin, said he last saw Levinson being grilled by Iranian officials. Another witness said Levinson was arrested by the Quds Force, an arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, after he came upon a link between the guard and the Russian mob during a money laundering probe. Many had feared that Levinson, 62, suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, had not survived. But the Associated Press revealed that late last year his family in Florida received proof he was alive. On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton confirmed the report and said there was evidence Levinson was being held in southwest Asia - perhaps Afghanistan or Pakistan. She asked the Iranians for help. Pray that Iran will be so merciful. Pray for Levinson's swift return to these shores." http://t.uani.com/hUgPh1
Fareed Mohamedi in The Iran Primer: "The sudden rise in oil prices amid uncertainty and upheavals in the Middle East could create a political cushion for Iran. Prices are likely to remain high and volatile as long as protests, and concerns about supply disruptions, continue across the region. The global economy has limits on what prices it can handle. But Iran will clearly benefit multifold from higher prices, especially given its own economic problems. A year ago, Iran's oil was priced at less than $80 per barrel, which produced revenues of over $53 billion during the course of the year-with extra revenues of an estimated $9 million per day for every $5 per barrel increase this year. The supply interruption out of Libya has helped increase the oil prices to over $110 per barrel. This is in stark contrast to the prices that dropped below the $40 per barrel lows in late 2008, but still well below the peak of almost $150 per barrel in mid-2008. There has been no change in the volume of Iran's oil production. Physical disruptions in the Middle East-such as the current supply interruption in Libya-can potentially enhance Iran's sales program through both increased prices, and the ability to sell crude that it has stockpiled owing to it being overpriced by the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC). Longer term, Iran is unlikely to increase its crude oil production, since sanctions have made it more difficult to secure the requisite technology and expertise." http://t.uani.com/eyvKZw
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