Top Stories
Daily Caller: "A Japanese company said it has ended contracts with the Iranian government following a report that its cranes have been used for public executions. Just days after United Against Nuclear Iran President Mark Wallace penned a July 6 opinion article in the Los Angeles Times stating that the Japanese crane company Tadano was one of several selling cranes to Iran, the company announced Tuesday it would cease making further Iranian deals. Crane-hanging has become a common practice in Iran. Tadano's cranes, as well as those produced by other international manufacturers, have been used to make a dramatic public scene of executions. In 2004, Iran garnered international attention for hanging a 16-year-old girl from a crane in public view for having promiscuous sex, a violation of Sharia law. While UANI communications director Nathan Carleton believes companies send their products to Iran without knowing the troubling consequences, he said the government has a dark history of misusing imported goods. 'No one should be having their products going to Iran, particularly given the Iranian regime's history of misusing products and money to fund terrorism,' Carleton said... UANI has launched a Cranes Campaign, publishing on its website a list of eight international companies that send crane resources to Iran, with photos of the cranes being used as execution devices. The Cranes Campaign has helped persuade Tadano to stop doing business with Iran and confirmed that the Texas based Terex corporation ended its business transactions with the country in 2010." http://t.uani.com/p2hath
Reuters: "Russia on Wednesday laid out a 'step-by-step' approach under which Iran could address questions about its nuclear program and be rewarded with a gradual easing of sanctions. The proposal, described by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after talks with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, seeks to revive negotiations to put to rest Western suspicions that Iran may be seeking nuclear arms. Talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus Germany, in Geneva in December and in Istanbul in January, failed to make headway on reining in Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran says is peaceful. Lavrov said Russia had proposed a 'phased' process in which Iran would take steps to address the concerns of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. 'The response to each specific step of Iran would be followed by some reciprocal step, like freezing some sanctions and shortening the volume of sanctions,' Lavrov said at a news conference with Clinton." http://t.uani.com/qXvpOC
Reuters: "Britain's publicly-funded broadcaster the BBC said on Wednesday its Persian television service was being deliberately jammed from inside Iran. The BBC said problems with BBC Persian on the Hot Bird satellite began on Tuesday morning. Eutelsat, owner of the satellite, confirmed the location of the source of the jamming as being in Iran, the BBC said. 'The BBC and Eutelsat condemn this deliberate interference that is clearly contrary to international conventions for the use of satellites,' the BBC said in a statement. BBC Persian TV continues to stream live online and on three other satellites." http://t.uani.com/qEW3mG
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
JPost: "Austrian Foreign Minister Michael Spindelegger's decision to meet with sanctioned Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Tuesday triggered criticism from the Austrian Green Party. While the EU lifted its prohibition against Salehi to allow him to travel, he has been placed on the EU sanction list because of his work on Iran's illicit uranium enrichment program. According to Austrian media reports, the US and the EU agreed to allow Salehi to travel to Vienna. Spindelegger said he wants to maintain 'open channels of communication' with Iran, saying human rights in Iran and the country's nuclear program are topics of discussion. After the meeting, the Austrian Foreign Ministry expressed disappointment with the talks with Iran." http://t.uani.com/owWqsb
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "Iran's ambassador to Iraq was slightly injured in an accident at a checkpoint outside Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, a security official said on Thursday. 'The incident occurred Tuesday at the main entrance to the Green Zone, when a bomb detector reported a problem but the driver of the vehicle (carrying the ambassador) did not notice and continued on his way. The barrier then hit the vehicle,' he said. An Iranian embassy spokesman said that the ambassador, Hassan Danaie-Far, sustained slight injuries to his face but was able to continue on his way." http://t.uani.com/ntlqke
Dow Jones: "Crescent Petroleum expects an arbitration tribunal to issue a decision in February 2012 on its natural gas dispute with the National Iranian Oil Co., or NIOC, Crescent's chief executive said Wednesday. 'The hearing has been set for February 2012 in The Hague and the tribunal decision is internationally binding,' Majid H. Jafar told Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of an Iraqi oil conference here. Crescent Petroleum and NIOC signed a 25-year contract worth up to $1 billion in 2001, under which the Islamic Republic of Iran agreed to pipe some 500 million cubic feet a day of natural gas from the Salman offshore field to Sharjah, UAE." http://t.uani.com/qNoq9I
Opinion & Analysis
Karim Sadjadpour in WashPost: "While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's demagoguery and Holocaust revisionism on the world stage have earned him alarmist comparisons to Adolf Hitler, his recent, ignoble fall from grace reveals the Iranian president for what he really is: the dispensable sword of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The marriage of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad should be understood in the context of Iran's internal rivalries. Since the death in 1989 of the revolution's father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - whose austere nature and anti-Americanism set the tenor for Iran's post-monarchic order - Tehran's political elite has been broadly divided into two schools. Reformists and pragmatists argued that ensuring the Islamic Republic's survival required easing political and social restrictions and prioritizing economic expediency over ideology. Hard-liners, led by Khamenei, believed that compromising on revolutionary ideals could unravel the system, just as perestroika did the Soviet Union. Given the youthful Iranian public's desire for change, Khamenei seemed to have lost the war of ideas by the early 2000s. No one anticipated that his saving grace would arrive in the person of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hitherto unknown mayor of Tehran. Ahmadinejad's pious populism resonated among Iran's working classes, and his revolutionary zeal and willingness to attack Khamenei's adversaries endeared him to the supreme leader, whose backing of Ahmadinejad in the 2005 presidential election proved decisive. The balance of power between the two was exhibited during Ahmadinejad's inauguration, when the new president prostrated himself before Khamenei and kissed his hand. Under the supreme leader's approving gaze, Ahmadinejad's first term as president was spent bludgeoning Khamenei's domestic opponents, taking a hard line on the nuclear issue and taunting the United States. Ahmadinejad's newfound fame abroad, however, confused his true position at home. What Khamenei failed to realize was that Ahmadinejad and his cohorts had greater ambitions than simply being his minions... For Washington, the best outcome of Iran's conservative fratricide is only that the fight continues. Authoritarian collapses tend to have three prerequisites: grass-roots protests, fissures among the elite and a regime's loss of will to use sustained brutality to retain power. While Iran has the first two, the regime remains quite willing to rule by terror." http://t.uani.com/ngocNo
ISIS: "On July 12, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi announced that Iran would improve its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in return for the IAEA dropping its investigation of Iran's nuclear weapons-related activities. His announcement followed a meeting with IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano. Not surprisingly, based on recent IAEA safeguards reports on Iran, Amano said no. The IAEA's investigation into Iran's nuclear weapons-related work follows a work plan developed four years ago with Iran's agreement. Iran claims that it has answered the work plan's questions on evidence of past or ongoing nuclear weaponization and missile delivery system activities. Salehi said that these issues should instead be addressed 'within the framework of a new mechanism ... based on the fact that the IAEA should say the first stage is over and those outstanding issues have been answered.' Amano rejected this suggestion, since Iran has not answered key IAEA questions or addressed its concerns in this critical area. Iran suggests that the IAEA effectively ignore its own assessments of Iran's alleged nuclear weaponization efforts. Iran's expectation of a clean bill of health could signal a further widening of the gulf between the positions of the IAEA and Iran over its nuclear program. Is Iran testing the mettle of Amano to stick to the IAEA's mandate to investigate such activities? Is it trying to start a game of quid pro quo with the IAEA where Iran offers more cooperation in one area in return for a major concession in another? More troubling, does Iran intend to further reduce its cooperation with the IAEA since its suggestion has been refused? Director General Amano rightly rejected the suggestion that the IAEA abandon its inquiry into Iran's nuclear weapons-related work, and the international community should support his stance. Abandoning the IAEA's investigation would undermine any hope of solving the nuclear issue. It would convey to Iran that it is not required to comply with its safeguards agreements under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and send a message to other would-be proliferant states that they too could press for partial compliance with their commitments." http://t.uani.com/nCSo7r
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