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Reuters: "Iran is directly supporting extremist Shi'ite groups that are killing U.S. troops in Iraq and any agreement to keep American forces there beyond the end of the year would have to address the problem, the top U.S. military officer said on Thursday. Admiral Mike Mullen, speaking at a luncheon with reporters, said Iranians -- with full knowledge of Iran's leadership -- were providing Iraqi Shi'ite groups with high-tech rocket-assisted weapons and shaped explosives effective at penetrating armor. 'Iran is very directly supporting extremist Shia groups which are killing our troops,' said Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 'And there's no reason ... for me to believe that they're going to stop that as our numbers come down.' He said Iran made a conscious decision in 2008 to curb its involvement in Iraq, but had now resumed sending supplies to extremist groups, evidently positioning itself to be able to say that it had helped to drive U.S. forces from the region. 'There's no question they want to influence, and particularly in the south,' Mullen said. 'They are shipping high-tech weapons in there ... which are killing our people and ... the forensics prove that.' Mullen said he believed any agreement to keep U.S. troops in Iraq beyond the end of the year 'has to be done in conjunction with control of Iran in that regard.' He said Baghdad was aware of U.S. concerns about the issue." http://t.uani.com/nIL69M
Guardian: "Iran has executed an average of almost two people a day in the first six months of this year, human rights groups have warned. The sharp escalation in the use of capital punishment comes at a time when the Islamic regime is fighting to prevent pro-democracy movements similar to those that have been sweeping across the Middle East from taking hold in the country. Human rights groups that have been carefully monitoring the rate of executions in Iran said the authorities had launched a fresh campaign of secret and mass hangings of prisoners in the provinces. According to Amnesty International, Iran has acknowledged the execution of 190 people from the beginning of 2011 until the end of June but at least 130 others have also been reported to have been executed. Iran Human Rights (IHR), an independent NGO based in Norway, told the Guardian it had recorded 390 executions since January, including two death sentences carried out on Thursday. The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran (ICHRI), a US-based non-government organisation, said its records showed 320 executions - a combination of those announced by the regime and those that have taken place in secret... Last year, 252 people were executed according to Iranian officials, but human rights groups say 300 more executions went unacknowledged by the state." http://t.uani.com/qMyDuG
Reuters: "Britain, the United States and Canada are increasing travel curbs on members of the Iranian government over Iran's disputed nuclear program, Britain's Foreign Office said in a statement. 'The UK is working closely with its partners to prevent a wide range of individuals connected with Iran's nuclear enrichment and weaponization programs from entering our countries,' Foreign Secretary William Hague said. 'These include scientists, engineers and those procuring components,' he added. Hague said the measures were being coordinated with partners such as the United States and Canada. 'Iran continues to seek equipment and components from around the world for its illicit nuclear program,' Hague added. Britain also plans to bar Iranians it believes are guilty of human rights abuses. It said more than 50 individuals would be targeted but it did not plan to name them." http://t.uani.com/nOYvNY
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Indian Express: "India has finally worked out the mechanism to pay for Iranian crude oil. The three-pronged disbursement would include opening a rupee account; paying a Turkish commercial bank as well as the UAE's central bank to clear the annual expense of nearly $12 billion. The scheme envisages opening a rupee account for 20 per cent of the annual buy, payments in lira through state-owned Turkiye Halk Bankasi in Istanbul and in Euro through the Central Bank of the UAE. What is left is to identify the Indian bank which would forward these payments as well as run the rupee account, said a Finance Ministry official. That too, he said, should be in place when the inter-ministerial panel meets for a review on Friday." http://t.uani.com/pB6YA6
Bloomberg: "Most of the wells at two phases of Iran's South Pars natural gas field, which were inaugurated over two years ago, still aren't operational, Arman reported, without saying where it got the information. About 75 percent of the wells in the gas field's phases 9 and 10 are still unable to extract gas, resulting in a loss of about $6 billion in potential revenue, the Tehran-based newspaper said. The 24 wells in the two phases were forecast to produce about 50 million cubic meters of gas a day, the newspaper said. The government officially inaugurated the site in 2008, it said." http://t.uani.com/pX3TTA
Foreign Affairs
WSJ: "Iran warned an increase in Saudi Arabia's oil output combined with price cuts may lead to a 'price war' if it isn't spurred by matching demand, as tensions between the crude producers deepen in the aftermath of a consumers' stockpile release and a disastrous OPEC meeting. The warning, reminiscent of age-old disputes between regional foes Iran and Saudi Arabia, follow the Kingdom's move to cut some of its official prices this week after pledging to raise production amid mounting demand. Speaking to Dow Jones Newswires, Muhammad Ali Khatibi, Iran's governor with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said 'one possibility is that they are trying to increase market share,' referring to Saudi Arabia and other producers increasing output. But if 'there is no extra demand but some insist on extra supply...at cheaper price...then there will be a price war,' Mr. Khatibi warned." http://t.uani.com/nu2qlH
AP: "Iraq's prime minister told a senior Iranian envoy yesterday that their economic bonds can expand as Baghdad signaled deepening ties with its anti-American neighbor despite worries from Washington and Arab allies. The growing ties between Baghdad's Shi'ite-led government and Shi'ite powerhouse Iran highlight one of the region's major political shifts after the US-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein, whose Sunni-dominated regime fought an eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s. US-allied Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbors, worry about expanding Iranian influence as Washington draws down forces in Iraq. Iran is also being accused of encouraging opposition uprisings in Bahrain and other Gulf states." http://t.uani.com/o0coyQ
Bloomberg: "Saudi Arabia's activities in the crude market appear like rivalry and Iran's oil officials need to be wary, Shargh reported, citing Iran's OPEC governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi. In the worst-case scenario Saudi Arabia would have an additional output capacity of up to 2 million barrels and 'can harm the balance by producing this amount,' Khatibi told the Tehran-based newspaper in an interview." http://t.uani.com/onQMK2
Opinion & Analysis
Simon Tisdall in The Guardian: "Factional infighting, paranoia, economic ineptitude and deepening confrontation with the west have characterised Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's leadership of Iran. But a second-term presidency launched amid bloodily suppressed protests in 2009 now appears to be assuming an even more vicious character as reports accumulate of ongoing, secret mass executions and new waves of political repression. Hard facts are hard to come by in a country where independent reporting is all but a fond memory. But Iranian human rights groups, international watchdogs and country experts all suggest the regime is embarked on what in effect is a judicial killing spree. Ostensibly, it is cracking down on drug trafficking and other criminal activity. In truth, campaigners say, Tehran is pursuing a campaign of public intimidation and covert killing to subdue political opposition and quell turbulence caused by the Arab spring revolts. According to Amnesty International, Iran has admitted executing 190 people between January and the end of June this year; an additional 130 reported executions have gone unacknowledged. These figures put Iran on course for a record year for capital punishment. In 2010, 252 people were executed, according to official figures, with 300 more also believed to have been killed. Iran Human Rights, an independent monitoring organisation, claims the true picture is much worse. It says 25 people were hanged in one day - 3 July - in Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj, west of Tehran. The hangings, supposedly all drug-related, were not reported by official media. The same report said another seven people were hanged the same day in Evin prison in Tehran. It alluded to further uncorroborated mass executions in prisons in Khorasan province in 2010... The number of public hangings is also on the increase. Since the start of 2011, up to 13 men have been executed in public, eight of them since 16 April, an Amnesty report this year stated. Iran meanwhile reportedly defied international law by executing two juveniles offenders, in Bandar Abbas on 20 April. Overall, Iran's execution 'average' is running at almost two people per day in 2011, making the regime the world's number two executioner after China. Public executions are typically carried out by hanging the victim from a tall industrial crane and hoisting him high into the air. Decrying Iran's execution 'binge', Mark Wallace, a former US ambassador and president of the United Against Nuclear Iran action group, said Tehran must be forced to stop. 'The international community needs to call for an end to this kind of barbarism and highlight more broadly the deteriorating human rights situation,' he wrote in the Los Angeles Times. Wallace said political factors were at work. 'It is no coincidence that Iran's increased staging of public executions came at the same time protest movements were gaining steam through the Middle East. What better way to keep Iranians from having dangerous ideas like those of their neighbours? And it should come as little surprise that Iran is now aiding other governments in the region, notably Syria, in their efforts to suppress domestic uprisings.' This latter claim was recently corroborated by the US treasury department." http://t.uani.com/p2VBNm
Lauren Wolfe in CPJ: "As I read the account of Saeeda Siabi in an Iranian prison it became hard for me to breathe. Her descriptions of being raped in front of her 4-month-old son stopped the air in my chest. 'They took me to a torture room and tied me to a bed,' she said. 'I was wounded and injured, but I forgot about wounds and injuries. I thought I was fainting.' The depiction of the violence endured by Siabi--an Iranian housewife imprisoned for more than four years because of her politically active family--must be read in its entirety to fully appreciate. But it also must be read to understand what has happened to thousands of women and men held, like her, in fetid Iranian jails over decades. Journalists, activists, bloggers--these political prisoners have suffered torture on a nightmarish scale. There was a line in my June report, 'The Silencing Crime: Sexual Violence and Journalists' about the use of rape to humiliate and control detainees in Iranian prisons. A new study by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, a nonprofit based in New Haven, Conn., fleshes out that assertion in compelling human detail, describing the lives that have been damaged or destroyed. The report contains the testimonies of five former prisoners who suffered or watched as others were raped. Most say that years later they are still suffering the effects of what they endured and witnessed. Siabi reports that she takes 50 to 60 pills a day to cope with her physical and psychological injuries." http://t.uani.com/q4Iu7C
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