Top Stories
WSJ: "Iran and Egypt's new government signaled Monday they were moving quickly to thaw decades of frosty relations, worrying the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia that the overtures could upset the Mideast's fragile balance of power. Iran said it appointed an ambassador to Egypt for the first time since the two sides froze diplomatic relations more than three decades ago, the website of the Iranian government's official English-language channel, Press TV, reported late Monday. Also Monday, officials at Egypt's Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that new foreign minister Nabil Elaraby is considering a visit to the Gaza Strip-an area controlled by Hamas, a militant Palestinian Islamist group backed by Tehran and until now shunned by Cairo. The announcements follow a rare meeting earlier this month between a high-level Iranian diplomat and Mr. Elaraby, after which the foreign minister told reporters that Egypt has 'opened a new page' with Iran." http://t.uani.com/euKe72
TIME: "For much of the past decade, the Iranian government has tolerated what it considers a particularly depraved and un-Islamic vice: the keeping of pet dogs. During periodic crackdowns, police have confiscated dogs from their owners right off the street; and state media has lectured Iranians on the diseases spread by canines. The cleric Gholamreza Hassani, from the city of Urmia, has been satirized for his sermons railing against 'short-legged' and 'holdable' dogs. But as with the policing of many other practices (like imbibing alcoholic drinks) that are deemed impure by the mullahs but perfectly fine to many Iranians, the state has eventually relaxed and let dog lovers be. Those days of tacit acceptance may soon be over, however. Lawmakers in Tehran have recently proposed a bill in parliament that would criminalize dog ownership, formally enshrining its punishment within the country's Islamic penal code." http://t.uani.com/i1SlgR
WT: "The head of Iran's central bank warned that oil prices will rise above $150 a barrel if economic sanctions against the Islamic theocracy are not lifted soon. 'Iran can have an effect on world energy and fuel. Fuel prices will go up dramatically,' Mahmoud Bahmani said in a recent interview with The Washington Times at a meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington. 'If sanctions are not removed, particularly sanctions against banks and other economic sanctions, the price of oil will go above $150 a barrel.' A top Federal Reserve official predicted last month that such a price could drive gasoline above $4 a gallon and throw the U.S. economy into another recession. The last time oil came close to that price was in the global recession that began in 2008, when a barrel of crude hit more than $147 in July of that year." http://t.uani.com/h9G6jB
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
UPI: "Iran has successfully tested some missiles, including the world's fastest cruise missile, the defense minister said Monday. At Army Day ceremonies in Tehran, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi told the official Fars News Agency: 'We have recently test-fired Shahin and Shalamcheh air defense missiles successfully and these missiles are now stationed in our air defense units.' He said the Zafar, also tested, is 'the fastest cruise missile in the world.' At a parade past Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's tomb, the military displayed a new generation of Zolfaqar tanks, a new cannon that fires 6,000 bullets a minute and new artillery, the news agency said." http://t.uani.com/eoFDZt
Daily Mail: "Looking more like characters out of Star Wars, these soldiers were among the many thousands who paraded past Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran to celebrate national Army Day. The ceremony, which showed the country's military might with hardware and troops marching past the top brass, is held annually and features ground, air and naval forces. In addition to the heavily-camouflaged soldiers, the parade also featured soldiers with flowers inserted into the barrels of their weapons." http://t.uani.com/gdrl5R
Commerce
AFP: "Iran, which chairs the oil producers' cartel OPEC, said on Tuesday it expects global crude prices to further rise by the end of 2011 while the secretary-general urged wealthy G8 countries to cut fuel taxes. 'The price of oil depends on two things. First, the fundamentals, including supply and demand and then the political, psychological and unforseen elements. Based on these factors, oil prices should increase again by end of the year,' Iran's representative to OPEC, Mohammad Ali Khatibi, told reporters in Tehran. He said oil demand in 2001 will be high, between 1.3 million barrels per day to 1.6 mbpd." http://t.uani.com/gimjOB
Human Rights
FT: "Governments all over the world are increasingly restricting internet freedoms as penetration spreads and activists turn to the still-evolving medium, according to a comprehensive analysis of practices in 37 nations... The most repressive internet policies were found in Iran, with Burma, Cuba, China, and Tunisia coming in behind it. Iran, China, and Russia were among those covered in both surveys that displayed increased repression." http://t.uani.com/gGSWyK
Domestic Politics
AP: "Iran's intelligence minister was caught in an apparent high-level political dispute yesterday after offering his resignation from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government but later being ordered to remain by Iran's top leader, news reports said. The conflicting signals over Heidar Moslehi suggested another point of friction between Ahmadinejad and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over control of key posts. Khamenei, who has the last word on all important decisions, is considered a supporter of Ahmadinejad's government but has stepped in before to overrule him on political appointments." http://t.uani.com/hp4bXq
Foreign Affairs
AP: "Armed assailants kidnapped 12 Iranian engineers building a road in western Afghanistan, said Iranian and Afghan officials Monday. Iran Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the Iranian engineers were working for a construction company in the western Farah Province and the incident was under investigation by Iranian and Afghan authorities. Militants in the area claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and threatened to kill the hostages if work on the road is not halted, said Gen. Sayed Mohammad, the police chief for Farah province." http://t.uani.com/e2IFnM
AP: "A 2,500-year-old Babylonian artifact sometimes described as the world's first human rights charter was returning to the British Museum Monday after a seven-month loan to Iran. Hundreds of thousands of people viewed the Cyrus Cylinder while it was on display at Iran's National Museum. The clay cylinder carries an account of how the Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 B.C. and restored many of the people held captive by the Babylonians to their homelands. The British Museum said the artifact would go back on display in its ancient Iran gallery on Tuesday. The cylinder caused a spat between the two nations when Iran's government threatened to cut ties with the British Museum if it did not lend the object. A four-month loan was eventually agreed, and extended because the exhibition was so popular." http://t.uani.com/fGbdok
Opinion & Analysis
Amb. Mark Wallace in The Baltimore Sun: "In his column ('Not even cake sprinkles for Iran' April 12), Dan Rodricks questions the wisdom of the decision by the spice company, McCormick, to stop doing business in Iran and argues that more good than harm would come from young Iranians being exposed to 'cake sprinkles.' His argument is based on two erroneous assumptions. First, there is no evidence to support the argument that exposing Iranians to American goods is exposing them to American values and freedoms we cherish so dearly. Indeed, there is strong evidence that many Iranians both young and old support the pressure companies are putting on the Iranian regime by pulling out of Iran. A number of leading corporations including General Electric, KPMG, and Toyota have stopped doing business in Iran precisely because they want to support the democratic opposition in Iran. As more companies like McCormick make the responsible decision to pull out of Iran, more pressure is put on the regime. Second, the argument that McCormick was able to find a legitimate distributor not involved with blacklisted entities in Iran is one that must be subject to ongoing scrutiny and evaluation. Iran is notorious for creating shell corporations and companies with different names in order to circumvent sanctions. Rather than conduct ongoing investigations about the distributors and their various, often murky, relations with government entities in Iran, McCormick chose to follow the simplest and most prudent course of action. Corporations can play a powerful role in supporting and bolstering the impact of government-imposed sanctions. Already, we see democracy and human rights activists in Iran calling on the current regime to change its behavior precisely because so many governments and responsible corporations are pulling out. To stop applying pressure now would validate and legitimate President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's brutal repression against his own people and his illegal nuclear weapons program." http://t.uani.com/fcR8z5
Saeed Kamali Dehghan in the Guardian: The wave of uprisings sweeping across the Middle East has prompted Iran to voice support for anti-dictatorship movements in the Arab region - except in Syria, an allied country where the Islamic republic has found itself in a very peculiar situation. When Tunisian and Egyptian protesters overthrew their dictators, many speculated that Iran would stay quiet, so as to avoid potential copycat activities at home. To the surprise of many observers, though, Iran reacted very publicly by supporting pro-democracy movements in the region while playing down any resemblance to unrest in Iran following the disputed presidential election of 2009. Similarities between Mubarak and Iran's former dictator, the shah (such as long-term American support and the corruption of their families) allowed the regime in Tehran to liken the Arab uprisings to the Islamic revolution in 1979 rather than the green movement. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, even labelled the Arab uprising as 'an Islamic awakening' inspired by Iran's 1979 revolution. 'Today's events in the north of Africa, Egypt, Tunisia and certain other countries have another sense for the Iranian nation. They have special meaning. This is the same Islamic awakening which resulted in the victory of the big revolution of the Iranian nation,' he told the crowd at his Friday prayer sermon in February. In response, Iran's opposition accused the regime of hypocrisy by praising pro-democracy movements abroad while refusing to allow a single anti-regime demonstration at home. In reality, Iran not only stayed outspoken over the Arab uprising by publicising its "Islamic awakening" scenario, but also used the opportunity - with media attention focused elsewhere - to place its opposition leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, under house arrest in mid-February without much international protest... By highlighting US hypocrisy in dealing with the unrest in Bahrain and Yemen and the American failure to publicly condemn the violence used by both governments in suppressing their own people, Iran has won some recognition within the region. Yet Syria clearly exposes Iran's own hypocrisy. Iran has portrayed the Syrian pro-democracy demonstrators - unlike others in the Arab world - as 'agitators' and 'terrorists' hired by Israel to create disturbance and insecurity. Iranian state media, which initially ignored the unrest in Syria, later reported the broadcast of 'confessions' of a group of 'Syrian agitators' who appeared in front of the Syrian state-run television cameras... Iran has always been ready to compromise its principles when that serves its purposes." http://t.uani.com/fA3L6C
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