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AP: "Iran won't stop uranium enrichment activities the U.N. has demanded it halt, the country's nuclear chief said Monday. Iran says it needs stockpiles for a medical research reactor, and that the level of enrichment - up to 20 percent - is far below the more than 90 percent needed to build a nuclear weapon. But U.S. officials have expressed concern Iran is taking steps toward greater enrichment. Iran denies claims by the U.S. and its allies it seeks to build a nuclear weapon. The official IRNA news agency on Monday quoted nuclear chief Fereidoun Abbasi as saying that Iran will continue to enrich uranium to 3.5 percent in its main uranium enrichment plant in Natanz but will carry out 20 percent enrichment activities at its underground Fordo site. IRNA also quoted Abbasi as saying Iran had asked the International Atomic Energy Agency to provide documentation of accusations about its nuclear program 'so that we can examine them.'" http://t.uani.com/quTJzJ
AFP: "Iran will no longer negotiate a nuclear fuel swap with some of the world powers, its atomic chief said on Monday, adding however that it is ready for closer cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog. 'We will no longer negotiate a fuel swap and a halt to our production of (nuclear) fuel,' Iran Atomic Energy Organisation chief Fereydoun Abbasi Davani said in an interview with the official IRNA news agency. 'The United States is not a safe country with which we can negotiate a fuel swap or any other issue,' he said. The fuel swap plan was floated by Western powers who offered Iran the chance to swap its low-enriched 3.5 percent uranium for the nuclear material purified up to 20 percent to fuel a Tehran medical research reactor." http://t.uani.com/oiQq8c
AFP: "Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akabr Salehi has invited the head of the Libyan rebels' National Transitional Council (NTC) to visit Tehran, a foreign ministry statement said on Tuesday. 'In a phone conversation (Monday night) with the NTC head, Salehi congratulated the victory of the Muslim people of Libya and stressed (the desire) to deepen bilateral ties,' said the statement, a copy of which was received by AFP. Following an invitation by the rebel chief Mustafa Abdel Jalil, 'Salehi invited the NTC head for a visit at an opportune time,' it added. On Sunday, Salehi said Iran had 'discreetly' provided humanitarian aid to Libyan rebels before the fall of Tripoli on August 21." http://t.uani.com/nkwFrp
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Bloomberg: "Iran plans to send a monkey into orbit as part of a plan to eventually send humans into space, Iran's ISNA news agency reported, citing Hamid Fazeli, head of the country's space agency. A so-called life-capsule, carried by a Kavoshgar-5 carrier- rocket, will lift off with a rhesus monkey, Fazeli said, according to ISNA. The government is portraying Iran's technological and space achievements as a symbol of independence from the western world while the U.S. and its allies express concern that the projects may have military applications. The first Iranian-made satellite, called Omid, was launched as part of the country's space program in February 2009. In February 2010, Iran fired a domestically produced rocket into space with a satellite carrying two turtles, a rat and several worms." http://t.uani.com/nYrOyl
The Envoy: "When senior American officials confirmed Saturday that a senior al Qaeda operative, Atiyah abd al-Rahman, had been killed in Waziristan, Pakistan last week, familiar headlines proclaiming that 'al Qaeda #2 official killed' flashed around the world. But Atiyah abd al-Rahman was not a figure of global notoriety, like Osama bin Laden, who was killed by U.S. commandos in May, and bin Laden's designated successor Ayman al-Zawahiri. Nevertheless, counterterrorism analysts say that the significance of Atiyah's loss to al Qaeda has, if anything, been understated... For example: In 2006, the U.S. military declassified a December 2005 letter written by Atiyah to the then leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that it had obtained. The letter 'indicated not only that Atiyah had been an influential player in jihadi circles for years, but that he had a freedom of movement from Pakistan into Iran that was, if not unique, then very rare,' Fishman, who works at the New America Foundation, writes. Indeed, the U.S. Treasury Department officially designated Atiyah as a terrorist only last month, classifying him as a member of an al Qaeda fundraising/logistical support cell whose chief, Ezedin Abdel Aziz Khalil, resides in Iran." http://t.uani.com/pq3lKS
Domestic Politics
Guardian: "Security researchers are warning a web certificate is being used that could let hackers steal passwords and data from apparently secure connections to Google sites such as Gmail. Internet users in Iran are believed to be at particular risk from the rogue SSL certificate, which is used to digitally 'sign' HTTPS connections to any google.com site and was issued by a Dutch company called DigiNotar on 10 July. In particular, dissidents who trust Google's systems for their security may have been targeted in the attack. DigiNotar - which does not have any direct business relationship with Google - has not said who the certificate was issued to, but the effect would be that someone could think they were logged securely into a site and that their communication would be encrypted; but instead attackers controlling the network could eavesdrop on all their keystrokes, including passwords. This is known as a 'man in the middle', or 'MITM', attack... The discovery marks the second time in five months that rogue SSL certificates have been discovered circulating in the wild." http://t.uani.com/oUCJGR
Bloomberg: "Iran plans to increase its oil producing capacity by 150,000 barrels a day by March 20, 2012, with the launch of six new projects, state-run Mehr news agency reported. The projects includes desalination units at the Binak and Mansouri oilfields and projects at the Masjed Soleiman, Sarvestan, Khesht and Sa'adatabad oilfields in Iran's southern province of Fars, Ahmad Qalebani, National Iranian Oil Co.'s managing director, told Mehr. The Mansouri oilfield is located about 60 kilometers north of the Persian Gulf and near the southwestern city of Ahvaz. Iran has the world's second-largest crude reserves after Saudi Arabia and the second-largest gas reserves behind Russia." http://t.uani.com/pEDM0m
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "Iran 'discreetly' provided humanitarian aid to Libyan rebels before the fall of Tripoli, Jam-e-Jam newspaper quoted Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Sunday as saying. 'We were in touch with many of the rebel groups in Libya before the fall of (Moamer) Kadhafi, and discreetly dispatched three or four food and medical consignments to Benghazi,' Salehi told the daily. 'The head of the National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdel Jalil, sent a letter of thanks to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for having been on their side and helping,' he added. Since the Libyan uprising erupted in mid-February, Iran has adopted a dual approach -- criticising the Kadhafi regime for its violent assaults on the rebels while at the same time condemning NATO's military intervention." http://t.uani.com/mX75l6
Opinion & Analysis
Rania Abouzeid in TIME: "Syria's President Bashar al-Assad seems to have a knack for making enemies and losing friends. Although the lanky leader's dynastic dictatorship has had an on-again, off-again relationship with the West since he assumed power upon the death of his father in 2000, he could always count on the support of those other Western pariahs - Iran and the Lebanese Shi'ite militant group Hizballah - as well as the wheeling-and-dealing Turks. In fact, his stormy ties with the West were a point of pride, proof of his anti-Israeli and anti-American credentials, cementing his position in a 'resistance axis' stretching from Tehran through Lebanon's Hizballah and Hamas in the occupied Palestinian territories... The toothless Arab League has called for restraint and will send its new chief, Nabil al-Araby, to Damascus to seek an end to the bloodshed. But the most significant rebuke has come from Iran, Syria's staunchest ally. Iran's foreign minister has called on Damascus to recognize the 'legitimate' demands of its people, an ironic statement given Tehran's own crackdown against its indigenous pro-democracy, or 'green' movement in 2009 following disputed elections. It is, nevertheless, still harsh criticism. Even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for dialogue with protesters in Damascus, contradicting the Syrian state's narrative that the security forces are facing 'armed gangs' and 'terrorists,' but maintaining that there are 'foreign elements' fomenting the unrest. 'The government should answer to the demands of its people, be it Syria, Yemen or other countries,'' Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi was quoted by Iran's ISNA news agency as saying. 'The people of these nations have legitimate demands, and the governments should answer these demands as soon as possible.' Hizballah had echoed its sponsors in Iran, claiming that Syria is the victim of a 'foreign conspiracy,' a 'Zionist plot' to weaken it for its anti-Israeli stance. But the group's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, also mimicked Tehran's most recent advice to Assad: 'Everyone who is a friend of Syria and seeks to preserve the country and its unity should combine efforts to help push them toward dialogue and peaceful resolution,' he said last week. Tehran can't afford to lose Assad, its Arab lynchpin, but can Assad afford to lose Iran? Sunni Saudi Arabia has long sought to pry Damascus from Tehran's orbit to weaken what Jordan's King Abdullah has termed a creeping 'Shi'ite crescent' across the majority Sunni Middle East. It's an ancient schism in Islam, that has precipitated a low-level cold war for influence in the region between the Shi'ite Iranian state, and the Sunni monarchies, led by Saudi Arabia." http://t.uani.com/n4Rb7D
Geneive Abdo in Foreign Affairs: "The Iranian regime is one of the few remaining allies of the embattled Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad. For years, the United States has tried to sever the ties between the two countries, but the current crisis has only pushed them closer together... It should not be surprising, then, that Iran has taken significant measures to keep Assad in power. According to U.S. officials, as of April Iran was providing the Syrian security services with weapons, surveillance equipment, and training. Earlier this month, Ankara intercepted an arms shipment headed from Tehran to Damascus -- the second such shipment it caught this summer. The Iranian regime has also provided Assad with technology to monitor e-mail, cell phones, and social media. Iran developed these capabilities in the wake of the 2009 protests and spent millions of dollars establishing a 'cyber army' to track down dissidents online. Iran's monitoring technology is believed to be among the most sophisticated in the world -- second, perhaps, only to China. Shortly after Iran shared its know-how with Syria this summer, Assad lifted restrictions on social networking Web sties, presumably to lure dissents out into the open. In addition to sharing weapons and surveillance tools credible reports from Syrian refugees indicate that Tehran sent its own forces to Syria to quash the protests. A number of revolutionary guards from the elite Quds Force are also reported to be there, presumably to train Syrian forces. On May 18, the U.S. Treasury Department mentioned the role of the Quds Force directly, asserting that Mohsen Chizari, the Quds Force's third-in-command, was training the security services to fight against the protestors." http://t.uani.com/ohvsIA |
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