Top Stories
AFP: "Iran has hanged eight men convicted of murder, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking, including five who were executed in public on Thursday, the official IRNA news agency reported. The report said 'serial killer' Mehdi Faraji, convicted of murdering five middle-aged women who boarded his minibus, was hanged in public in the city of Qazvin, northwest of the capital Tehran... The latest hangings bring to 139 the number of executions reported in Iran so far in 2011, according to an AFP count based on media and official reports. Iranian media reported 179 hangings last year. But international human rights groups say the actual number was much higher, making the Islamic republic second only to China in the number of people it put to death." http://t.uani.com/jQUloZ
Reuters: "Red-clad oil workers rallied in Venezuela on Wednesday to denounce 'imperialist' U.S. sanctions over its Iran ties, but the rising anger seemed unlikely to sink the OPEC member's huge oil trade with the United States. Venezuelan officials from President Hugo Chavez down criticized the moves against state oil company PDVSA, announced by the U.S. government on Tuesday as punishment for shipments to Iran of an oil blending component worth $50 million. 'President Chavez has already said it: imperialists, go to hell, your sanctions mean nothing to us,' yelled Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez at a rally in the sprawling Jose oil complex, from where many tankers leave for the United States. Thousands took part in similar events as workers showed support for Chavez and awaited clarity on what action, if any, the South American nation will take in response." http://t.uani.com/lFB1Yo
BBC: "Spanish police say they have prevented the illegal sale of nine military transport helicopters to Iran and have detained eight people. The operation, which took place in Madrid and Barcelona, led to the arrests of five Spanish businessmen and three Iranian nationals, reports say. As well as the Bell-212 helicopters, police also found spare parts for export to Venezuela, police said. Iran is banned from buying attack helicopters under UN sanctions. The five Spanish businessmen are suspected of trying to export the US-made aircraft, while the three Iranians are accused of negotiating the purchase of military material, the AFP news agency reports. As part of Operation Nam, police raided industrial sites in Madrid and Barcelona where they found the helicopters, reports say. The total value of the helicopters and spares was 100m euros ($140m), they said." http://t.uani.com/leszvE
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Bloomberg: "Venezuela said it may not be able to guarantee all future oil shipments to the U.S. after President Barack Obama imposed sanctions on South America's biggest oil producer for doing business with Iran... The sanctions prohibit PDVSA from competing for U.S. government procurement contracts, receiving financing from the U.S. Export-Import Bank and from obtaining U.S. export licenses. They don't prohibit the export of crude oil to the U.S. The sanctions won't affect the operations of CITGO Petroleum Corporation, the U.S. unit of PDVSA, said Paul Biszko, an emerging-market strategist at Royal Bank of Canada in Toronto... The relative leniency of the sanctions and the fact that PDVSA was targeted alongside other companies signals the U.S. doesn't want to pick a fight with Chavez, said Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Council of the Americas in Washington. 'It's a very clear signal that deeper connections between Venezuela and Iranian regime will have consequences in Washington,' Farnsworth said. 'It's symbolic, but it's not going to impact PDVSA's bottom line.'" http://t.uani.com/k0JCgU
Reuters: "The United States has sanctioned Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA for trading with Iran, prompting an outcry from the government of President Hugo Chavez. Both fierce anti-U.S. ideologues, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Chavez have become close political and commercial allies in recent years, to the irritation of Washington. Following are some facts about Venezuela-Iran ties." http://t.uani.com/il6DaP
Domestic Politics
LAT: "Throughout Iran on Wednesday, sports fans wore black shirts in mourning and shouted out the name of Iranian soccer hero Nasser Hejazi. who died of cancer on Monday... In addition to being considered by many as the best Asian goalkeeper of all time, the late soccer player's legacy included a history of opposition to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Hejazi nominated himself for the 2005 presidential election that eventually brought Ahmadinejad to power, but the athlete was rejected by the Iranian Guardian Council, a powerful 12-member constitutional watchdog, on the grounds that he lacked sufficient experience in the political sphere. The independent-minded athlete was an ardent supporter of the relatively moderate Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and the reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi during the presidential elections." http://t.uani.com/jMCJop
Opinion & Analysis
Michael Adler in Politico: "After months of being eclipsed in headlines by the Arab spring, the Iranian nuclear front came alive again Monday. For the first time, the United States imposed sanctions on companies selling gasoline to Iran. Members of Congress strongly advocated this step as a way of punishing Iran for allegedly seeking nuclear weapons. Iran may be one of the world's major oil producers - but it is vulnerable to a cut off of gasoline supplies since it lacks refining capacity. It needs to import more than a third of the refined petroleum it uses. The companies cited, however, had limited commercial dealings with the United States, a senior U.S. administration official said. The seven companies included the United Arab Emirates-based Royal Oyster Group, the Sepahan Oil Company, but also an Israeli firm, the Ofer Brothers Group. With U.S. dealings limited, 'the immediate practical impact' of the sanctions would be 'minimal,' the official said. The Venezuelan firm Petroleos de Venezuela, which was named, will still be allowed to sell crude oil to the United States - so it is not cut off from that income flow. This is still far from a dramatic development concerning Iran - certainly not one to match the surprises of the Arab spring. Washington's latest move is in the realm of scene-setting. It comes after the European Union widened its sanctions on Iran. Yet while there is no question U.N. sanctions and the kind of measures the United States and other countries are doing on their own are having an effect, the Iranian economy is not about to fold. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is even managing to push through a program reducing government subsidies in the Islamic Republic. It is hard to break Iran when it is getting $100 a barrel for oil - far above the price projected for its budgetary needs... The Iranian nuclear crisis remains in a standoff. Washington says there is time for diplomacy, since Iran lacks the ability to quickly make a bomb. But diplomacy is stillbound, and the clock is ticking. The last talks with Iran and international powers ended last January - with no new negotiations planned. Given this, the new U.S. sanctions are as much signs of frustration as effective action. There is no knockout punch in sight. The United States is ratcheting up pressure in a holding pattern, rather than closing in for the kill." http://t.uani.com/jgKMXe
Barbara Slavin in FP: "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is now discovering what his predecessors in Islamic Iran's unique dual system of government all learned to their sorrow: You serve at the pleasure of the supreme leader, and he prefers his presidents weak. In the aftermath of a failed attempt by Ahmadinejad to fire Iran's intelligence minister last month, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his surrogates have moved against supporters of Ahmadinejad and of his controversial chief aide, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. Two dozen people close to the president and Mashaei have been arrested, including Abbas Amirifar, the prayer leader and head of cultural affairs in the president's office, who reportedly attempted suicide in prison last week. Meanwhile, Ahmadinejad's top vice president, Hamid Baghaei, was suspended last weekend from holding political office for four years because of unspecified 'violations.' It now appears that Ahmadinejad will be forced to jettison Mashaei, a close friend of 30 years whose daughter is married to Ahmadinejad's son, if the president intends to remain in office through the end of his term in 2013. And even if he does get rid of Mashaei, Ahmadinejad will be a feeble lame duck, a pale shadow of the seemingly superconfident figure who has strutted the world stage since he was first elected in 2005. 'Everybody smells blood,' said Alireza Nader, an Iran analyst at the Rand Corporation. 'Ahmadinejad's fatal mistake was to challenge Khamenei head-on over the intelligence minister.' ... Ahmadinejad is hardly the first Iranian president to face challenges from the supreme leader, who has the final say on all policies under Iran's theocratic system. Reformist Mohammad Khatami, Iran's president from 1997 to 2005, endured repeated blows, including the arrest and imprisonment of his close aide and interior minister, Abdollah Nouri, and of other top supporters, including a mayor of Tehran, Gholamhossein Karbaschi. The latest developments, however, are striking in view of the fact that Khamenei so strongly backed Ahmadinejad after the disputed 2009 election, going so far as to call the president's reelection a 'divine assessment.' Since then, the regime has weathered unprecedented opposition protests and surmounted another major challenge by phasing out costly subsidies on consumer staples. Ahmadinejad has served the regime's purposes; his usefulness now appears at an end. As parliamentary elections approach next year, followed by a new presidential vote, Iran's conservative establishment appears intent on preventing Ahmadinejad from designating a successor and planning a possible Putin-esque comeback in 2017. The best way to block that is to weaken him now." http://t.uani.com/j45JQW
Benjamin Weinthal in JPost: "The European Union on Tuesday issued an updated list of sanctioned Iranian companies involved in Tehran's nuclear program, including the Hamburg-based Europäisch- Iranische Handelsbank (EIH). Since at least 2008, the Merkel administration had vehemently opposed the closure of EIH. What prompted the German government to shutter a main financial conduit for German businesses and Iran's economy? According to the EU statement, 'EIH has played a key role in assisting a number of Iranian banks with alternative options for completing transactions disrupted by EU sanctions targeting Iran.' EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton signed the 19-page order, which was reviewed on Tuesday by The Jerusalem Post. 'In 2009, EIH was used by [the Deutsche] Postbank in a sanctions evasion scheme which involved handling transactions on behalf of UN-designated Bank Sepah. EU-designated Bank Mellat is one of EIH's parent banks,' according to the EU sanctions list. (Both Bank Sepah and Bank Mellat are based in Tehran.) The Merkel administration had consistently ignored warnings from the French, American and British governments about EIH's nuclear and military activities. Last year, the US Treasury Department sanctioned EIH because it had served to advance Iran's nuclear and rocket programs... Nonetheless, the new decision to ban EIH, largely because of its strategic importance for Iran's drive to go nuclear, might very well be the crowning achievement of this EU sanctions round. The converging American, French and British pressure, particularly from the US Treasury's terror financing unit, prevailed over Berlin's desire to protect mid-size German firms - the main EIH customers - at the expense of international security." http://t.uani.com/kYLzyd
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