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WSJ: "Moves by Iran to deploy more-advanced centrifuge machines for the production of nuclear fuel are raising new concerns that Tehran could significantly shorten the time it would need to produce nuclear bombs. In recent weeks, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has notified United Nations inspectors that it has begun deploying what are described as second- and third-generation centrifuges at its uranium-enrichment facility in the city of Natanz, according to diplomats briefed on the correspondence. Tehran has also said that it plans to set up these advanced machines at an underground uranium-enrichment site run by Iran's elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, near the holy city of Qom, said these officials. Iran denies it seeks to develop nuclear weapons. The more-advanced centrifuges, called IR-2Ms and IR-4s, are believed to be capable of enriching uranium at rates three times as fast as those Tehran currently uses, the IR-1s. Any significant deployment of these machines in the coming months, said U.S. and European officials, could significantly shorten the time, in the Obama administration's assessment, that Iran could produce the highly enriched uranium needed to create nuclear weapons. U.S. officials estimate that Tehran would now need 18 months to two years to convert its stockpile of low-enriched uranium-around 4,000 kilograms-into the weapons-grade material for a bomb. A successful deployment of new IR-2M and IR-4 machines could cut this time in half, if not by more, depending on their numbers and efficiency, said these officials. Nuclear experts estimate Iran has enough low-enriched uranium to produce nearly four bombs, if the material is enriched further to weapons-grade." http://t.uani.com/neme3S
AFP: "Turkish authorities seized an Iranian arms shipment meant for Syria, a German newspaper reported Thursday. The Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung quoted diplomatic sources as saying the weapons were meant for Hezbollah. According to the newspaper, Turkish security forces stopped a convoy of trucks carrying a large quantity of weapons and ammunition in the south-central city of Kilis, which is adjacent to the Syrian border. Ankara refused to either confirm or deny the report, which did not detail when the arms were intercepted. This was not the first time Turkey has been able to foil an Iranian arms shipment to Syria: In March Ankara informed the UN Security Council that it had seized an Iranian cargo plane headed to Syria with a cache of weapons in its belly." http://t.uani.com/r2eI1g
UPI: "Nearly half of the companies known to have worked in the Iranian energy sector recently halted commercial work there, a U.S. agency reported. Washington and its European allies have hit Iran with economic sanctions targeting its energy sector as punishment for its controversial nuclear program. Western allies say Iran is using its nuclear program to develop a weapon, though Tehran maintains it has peaceful intentions. The U.S. Government Accountability Office in a 26-page report found 16 companies ranging from the China National Petroleum Corp. to Italy's Edison remain active in the Iranian energy sector. Foreign firms, however, have pulled back significantly from Iran, the report said. Of the 41 companies listed in a 2010 report, 20 were moving out of the Iranian energy sector. Those that withdrew said it was becoming too difficult to do business in Iran." http://t.uani.com/qeMwb3
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Reuters: "Iran has no intention of making an atomic bomb and its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a television interview on Wednesday. 'When we say we don't want to build an atomic bomb it means we really do not want to build an atomic bomb,' Ahmadinejad, interviewed by the Euronews TV channel, said. 'If somebody is looking for an atomic bomb nowadays he's mad.' The United States and its allies accuse Iran of trying to develop atom bombs under cover of its nuclear program. Iran denies the allegation, saying it needs nuclear technology to generate electricity to meet its domestic demand. France on July 19 condemned Iran's announcement that it was installing new uranium enrichment machines to speed progress in its nuclear program, calling it a 'clear provocation.'" http://t.uani.com/qCUaR7
Bloomberg: "The U.K. government is determined to keep secret British companies that applied to sell goods with potential military uses to Iran, saying international banks are under U.S. pressure to drop them as clients. The disclosure of the companies may result in them losing access to bank services, Britain's Export Control Organization said in reply to a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by Bloomberg News. President Barack Obama signed a law almost a year ago broadening the scope of sanctions against Iran to stunt its nuclear development program. Even before then, U.K. banks were cutting off customers with links to Iran to avoid being targeted by American authorities or losing permits to do business in the U.S., said the export agency, which issues licenses to ship so- called strategic supplies with dual military or civilian uses, as well as torture equipment and radioactive material to other countries. 'Publicity in newspapers brings our members, who undertake legal trade with Iran, to the attention of the U.S. authorities, who pursue them, and to their own banks, who withdraw banking facilities,' Martin Johnston, the director general of the British-Iranian Chamber of Commerce, said in a filing supporting the U.K. government position." http://t.uani.com/nhIrpt
WSJ: "Indian Oil Corp. expects to make payments to Iran later this month to clear its unpaid bills for crude oil purchases, the chairman of the state-run refiner and retailer said Thursday. R.S. Butola declined to disclose the amount Indian Oil owes Iran or the methods that will be used to make the payments. Indian refiners haven't been able to regularly pay Iran for crude supplies since December, when the south Asian nation's central bank scrapped a longstanding clearing mechanism, which the U.S. said Tehran could use to finance its alleged nuclear weapons program. A subsequent effort to pay through an Iranian-controlled German bank was also thwarted. Tehran had threatened to halt supplies to India from August due to the outstanding payments, which have risen to more than $5 billion. Three people familiar with the matter said Monday that Indian refiners have started making payments to Iran through Turkey to clear their arrears. That included state-run Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd. and private refiner Essar Oil Ltd. MRPL, which sources about 60% of its total crude from Iran, is the largest buyer of Iranian crude in India." http://t.uani.com/rhQSBR
Human Rights
AP: "Iran's ambassador to Iraq said Thursday he expects two Americans who have been charged with espionage and held in Tehran for more than two years will be released 'very soon.' Hassan Dannaie Fir said he doesn't have any specific details about when Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal would be freed from Evin Prison in northern Tehran. But he described a general sympathy for the two men, both 29, especially during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that began Monday. 'We hope and expect that very soon they will be released,' Fir said during an hour-long interview with The Associated Press at the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad. In Tehran, 'the general atmosphere is that they will be released,' Fir said. Pardons are traditionally handed down during Ramadan. Bauer, Fattal and a third American, Sarah Shourd, were arrested in July 2009 after straying off an unmarked road in Iraq's northern Kurdish region. Shourd was released last September on $500,000 bail but still faced the espionage charge." http://t.uani.com/ruz0mA
Radio Farda: "Yet again, a number of young people have been arrested in the Iranian capital. Their crime: engaging in a water fight. The evidence: water guns and bottles. The accusations against them: violating Islamic principles and norms. It sounds absurd, but sadly it's the reality in the Islamic Republic of Iran where, among other things, having a bit of fun can also land one in prison. The young women and men had gathered last week in a Tehran park, ironically named the Garden of Water and Fire, and splashed water at each other. The event, planned and organized on Facebook, had reportedly attracted around 800 people. Pictures of the event show happy girls and boys soaked with water, carrying colorful water guns... Not everyone was happy, though. Conservative websites used the 'incriminating' photos to accuse the young people of immorality and corruption. On July 31, Tehran's police chief, Hossein Sajedinia, said a group of young Tehran residents were arrested for splashing water at each other. Sajedinia warned that the police would act against others who disrupted 'public order and security.' He provided no details on the number of arrests." http://t.uani.com/mZateC
AFP: "The UN's newly appointed human rights investigator to Iran called Wednesday on Tehran to allow him to visit the country to examine alleged rights violations there. 'I issued a written communication to the Iranian authorities to introduce myself and express my interest in visiting the country,' Ahmed Shaheed, the UN's special rapporteur on the situation in Iran, said in a statement. 'It is my hope that the Iranian authorities will... take steps to comply with its international human rights obligations,' said Shaheed, a former Maldives foreign minister. Shaheed, who officially commenced his duties on August 1, said he was also asking to meet with the Iranian ambassador to the UN in Geneva, and planned to engage with activists." http://t.uani.com/orJCfo
CNN: "Iran's president is lauding a woman for pardoning a man who blinded and disfigured her in an acid attack, a gesture of forgiveness reflecting the spirit of the Muslim month of Ramadan. 'The act of altruism that occurred is an honor for us and the Iranian nation and caused many to learn a lesson from this move and to change,' Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told acid victim Ameneh Bahrami on Wednesday, the president's office reported on its website. An Iranian court convicted Majid Movahedi in 2008 of pouring a bucket of acid on Bahrami, after she had rejected his unwanted advances for two years. She had asked for retributive justice and the court ruled the attacker should be blinded with acid." http://t.uani.com/n2KZoV
Domestic Politics
WSJ: "The International Monetary Fund gave a rosy portrayal of Iran's economy in a report issued Wednesday, saying it grew by 3.2 % in 2011, contradicting its earlier assessment and surprising Iran analysts who contend that the economy is shrinking. The new IMF report is based mainly on official Iranian data, independent economists said-rather than on a second set of economic statistics in Iran that is made by independent economists. The IMF's April regional report on the Middle East and Central Asia, which was based on the independent analyses, predicted a 0% growth rate for Iran. The country's central bank, a government entity, hasn't issued an economic growth report since 2008, prompting criticism from Iranian lawmakers recently that the bank was hiding the data under the order of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran had blasted the April report, calling it 'politicized' and saying the IMF was acting under Western influence. After the criticism, the IMF sent a group of experts to Iran to review its report and 'correct' it, Iran's deputy economy minister Mohamad Reza Farzin said in June after part of the new report was released. The IMF wasn't available for comment. The fund didn't say how much of the new report was based on official statistics and how much it had obtained independently." http://t.uani.com/nh9mQx
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "Venezuela has signed a deal with Iran to build over 10,000 homes in three central states of the South American nation in a billion-dollar investment package that signals the two country's increasingly close ties. The two governments signed the agreement on Wednesday, the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry said in a statement, without detailing how much each country would contribute to the effort that it said would benefit some 45,000 people. The Venezuelan government in April kicked off a project to build two million homes over the next seven years, with cooperation agreements already signed with Russia, Cuba, Brazil, Argentina, China and Belarus." http://t.uani.com/qKDYPH
Opinion & Analysis
Ray Takeyh: "For years it was assumed that economic sanctions and diplomacy would produce a pliable negotiating partner in Iran. But Iran's truculence has effectively undermined the once-popular notion, while a degree of confusion and consternation has gripped the international community. The often-unstated hope is that denial of critical technologies and sabotage can slow the Islamic Republic's nuclear program until, somehow, an alternative strategy, or an agreement, emerges. The thinking has been that time is on our side and that Iran's weak scientific foundation can be further derailed through such pressure. Contrary to such presumptions, however, Iran's scientific infrastructure has grown in sophistication and capability in the past two decades. Iran is an outlier in the history of proliferation; nearly every middle power that obtained the bomb has had substantial assistance from an external patron... Although Iran received Russian assistance for completion of a light-water reactor that cannot be misused for weapons purposes, and, more ominously, rudimentary centrifuges from the A.Q. Khan network, Tehran never enjoyed the type of external patronage that other proliferators garnered. Moreover, no other state has confronted such systematic attempts to place stress on its nuclear program through denial of technology and computer virus penetration... That Iran has crossed successive technical thresholds, has managed to sustain an elaborate and growing enrichment network, and is about to unveil a new generation of centrifuges are all indications of its scientific acumen. What made this possible? The 1980s were a calamitous decade for science in Iran as a revolutionary assault on the universities and the prolonged war with Iraq deprived the educational sector of funds and state support. But this changed in the 1990s, despite sanctions and export controls that were imposed on Iran after the 1979 revolution, as the political elite - conservatives and reformers - sought to revive scientific research... Rather than suffering shortfalls or inhibitions from curtailed funding as a result of sanctions, the state has proved a generous patron of sciences. Iran's scientists have emerged as strong nationalists determined to transcend fractious politics and provide their country the full spectrum of technological discovery, including advances in nuclear science. Iran's pariah status has ironically engendered an esprit de corps within its scientific community. Researchers resent being shunned by their international colleagues, are annoyed at being excluded from collaborative efforts with Western centers of learning and are angered at the targeted killing of their colleagues. In today's Iran, rulers and scientists have crafted a national compact whereby the state provides the resources while the scientists furnish their expertise. A dedicated corps of scientific nationalists is committed to providing its country with the capacity to reach the height of technological achievement and, in the process, provide the mullahs with the means of building the bomb. Exact estimates vary, but in the next few years Iran will be in position to detonate a nuclear device. An aggressive theocracy armed with the bomb will cast a dangerous shadow over the region's political transition, but the consequences will not be limited to the Middle East. An Iranian bomb is likely to unleash the most divisive partisan discord in this country since the 1949 debate about who lost China. In the end, neither the turbulent order of the Middle East nor the partisan politics of Washington can afford an Islamic Republic armed with nuclear weapons." http://t.uani.com/og8ZbF
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