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CNN: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out Monday at 'the powers of arrogance,' saying that both Sudan and Iran were subject to 'pressures' from the West because of their political positions. 'They pressure Sudan and Iran; why? Because we stand against the powers of arrogance,' Ahmadinejad said during a visit to Khartoum. Speaking to a crowd of cheering youths, students and supporters in Khartoum's Friendship Hall, Ahmadinejad criticized Europe and the United States for what he described as the 'stealing' of Africa's wealth. 'They stole the riches of Africa,' he said. 'Despite this wealth, we see poverty and deprivation.' Ahmadinejad arrived in Khartoum Monday morning on his way back to Iran after speaking to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and after a brief stop in Mauritania." http://t.uani.com/ozbd2b
Reuters: "Coordination within the European Union isn't always easy, but the bloc stayed on message this year when all 27 EU delegations left the U.N. General Assembly to protest the Iranian president's speech. The moment came on Thursday, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used his speech to the 193-nation U.N. General Assembly during its annual session in New York City to once again question the Holocaust and suggest that the U.S. government might have been behind the September 11, 2001 attacks. After listening to a few minutes of Ahmadinejad's speech, the European, U.S., Canadian and other Western delegations marched out of the General Assembly hall to register what one delegate described as their 'disgust at his views.' The Western walk-out has become an annual ritual in response to Ahmadinejad's speeches, which one Western diplomat said have become 'stale and predictably offensive.'" http://t.uani.com/pZ1A5H
USA Today: "Counterterrorism operations conducted by U.S. and Iraqi forces have interrupted the flow of sophisticated Iranian weapons to militants, including powerful rockets that hammered American bases this summer. Col. Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said there is 'a clear trend' in recent weeks of fewer attacks by Iranian-backed militant groups against U.S. bases. The last rocket attack happened in July, he said. Johnson credited the decrease to joint counterterrorism operations by U.S. and Iraqi forces following a spate of attacks over the summer. The Pentagon declined to say how many attacks against U.S. bases have occurred, saying it is classified. However, the Triton Intelligence Report, an analysis of insurgent threats put out by British consulting firm Allen-Vanguard, says its investigation shows there have been several attacks this year." http://t.uani.com/p277Jr
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
AFP: "A top US Treasury official will visit Hong Kong and China this week to discuss measures to prevent Iran from obtaining financing for its illicit nuclear and weapons program, the Treasury said Monday. David Cohen, Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, will travel Monday through Wednesday to meet with senior government officials and private-sector lenders. 'His visit will highlight the importance of close cooperation and coordination with China on efforts to combat the financing of weapons proliferation and other measures to protect the integrity of the international financial system,' the department said in a statement. Cohen is to discuss the international community's 'shared interest' in preventing Iran from tapping the global financial system for weapons programs." http://t.uani.com/nIIJ8E
Human Rights
AFP: "Organizers of the Toronto film festival, the largest in North America, on Monday decried the arrest of six filmmakers in Iran 'whose work should be seen and their voices heard.' In a statement, they expressed 'deep concern' over the arrest last week of Mojtaba Mirtahmasb, Katayoun Shahabi, Hadi Afarideh, Nasser Saffarian, Shahnama Bazdar and Mohsen Shahrnazdar by Iranian authorities on espionage charges. Mirtahmasb is the co-director of banned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi's latest film 'This Is Not A Film,' which was screened earlier this month at the Toronto film festival. 'We are extremely concerned by the arrest of these six filmmakers, whose work should be seen and their voices heard,' the organizers said." http://t.uani.com/p1uQxA
Daily Telegraph: "Iran's supreme court upheld a sentence to be borne by the 26-year-old waiter, identified by his first name, Mohammad, Shargh newspaper reported Monday. Mohammad had confessed he was hired to throw acid at the victim, Vali, in return for around one million rials (less than £64), the report said. Vali, who was injured and blinded in one eye, asked for 'qesas' - an eye for an eye style of justice - and that Mohammad be blinded in retribution. After much deliberation, the panel of judges presiding the case ordered the attacker to be blinded without acid in one eye and pay blood money for Vali's other injuries, the report said." http://t.uani.com/qSHRfW
Fox News: "A Florida lawmaker hopes the release of two American hikers from an Iranian prison last week will spur the return of a retired FBI agent missing since 2007. Robert Levinson, a married father of seven from Florida, has been missing since March 9, 2007, after checking out of a hotel on Kish Island, a Persian Gulf resort off the southern coast of Iran. Levinson, who retired from the FBI in 1998, had traveled there to meet an American fugitive accused of murdering a former Iranian official in Maryland in 1980. He was last seen checking out of the Maryam Hotel for the meeting. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sept. 22, asking her to press the issue during last week's opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York." http://t.uani.com/pwmx0j
NRO: "The American interfaith delegation - Catholic cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Episcopal bishop John Bryson Chane, and Council on American Islamic Relations director Nihad Awad - who made headlines when they traveled to Tehran and secured the release of the two American hikers last week should pack their bags again. They need to make a return trip. And they better hurry. As early as this week, the British-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports, Iran may execute Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani for refusing to recant his Christian faith. As my colleague Paul Marshall recently wrote, evangelical Pastor Nadarkhani was sentenced to death for apostasy because he converted to Christianity. He had been tried and found guilty a year ago, even though the court also found that he had never been a practicing Muslim as an adult. Nadarkhani, from Rasht, on the Caspian Sea, converted to Christianity as a teenager." http://t.uani.com/qD0OXn
Domestic Politics
AP: "Cities in Iran, India, Pakistan and the capital of Mongolia rank among the worst on the planet for air pollution, while those in the U.S. and Canada are among the best, according to the first global survey by the World Health Organization. The southwest Iranian city of Ahvaz walked away with the unfortunate distinction of having the highest measured level of airborne particles smaller than 10 micrometers. WHO released the list Monday to highlight the need to reduce outdoor air pollution, which is estimated to cause 1.34 million premature deaths each year." http://t.uani.com/oTAajD
Bloomberg: "Iran is building its first refinery able to process so-called heavy crude in the southern Qeshm Island, the Oil Ministry said, citing an official at the Research Institute of the Petroleum Industry. The refinery, with capacity to produce as much as 30,000 barrels a day of light oil products, will be operational by early 2013, Mansour Bazmi, the head of refinery research at the agency, said in a report on the ministry's news website, Shana. Crude will come from Iran's Soroush and Norooz fields, Bazmi said, without giving details on its content." http://t.uani.com/nPfZwN
Foreign Affairs
UN News Centre: "The United Arab Emirates (UAE) today called on Iran to either enter into serious, direct talks over three islands which it says are an integral part of UAE territory or refer the issue to the United Nations International Court of Justice (ICJ). 'Since the illegitimate occupation of these islands in 1971, the UAE has adopted a flexible diplomatic approach to resolve this matter through peaceful means, through direct bilateral negotiations, or by referring the matter to the International Court of Justice,' UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan told the General Assembly. 'The actions taken by the Islamic Republic of Iran with the aim of changing the legal, physical and demographic situation of the islands are null and void and have no legal effect whatsoever,' he said, referring to Abu Musa, and the Greater and Lesser Tunbs islands." http://t.uani.com/ovOaof
Opinion & Analysis
Abbas Milani in The Daily Beast: "In Shiism, there is a strange concept called 'Mohallel.' If a man divorces his wife in earnest-'thrice-divorced' in the parlance of Shiite Sharia-he can't remarry her unless she has married and divorced another man. Rich men who divorce their wives in a fit of madness and then feel remorse and want them back often have to pay a reliable man a sum to be their Mohallel-'marry' the thrice-divorced wife with due discretion and then divorce her. There is a usually a retinue of 'reliable' Mohalells in each pious community. Russia and Iran are both ruled by men seeking absolute power-Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Ayatollah Khamenei in Iran. And both are now shedding any vestige of a democratic appearance. Putin's Mohallel, Dmitry Medvedev, will be back in his old job of prime minister and his boss, Putin, will again take the reins of power. In Tehran, Khamenei is making his own powerplay-and all of this is likely to help the clerics achieve their dubious nuclear aims. In the past four years, if there has been an obvious area of difference between Putin and Medvedev, it has been on Iran's clerical regime. Medvedev has been more willing to work with the United States and the European Union on pressuring Iran to give up troubling aspects of its nuclear program. He even decided not to sell the clerical regime the S-300 missiles that would have substantially increased Iran's ability to protect its nuclear sites from air attacks. In Iran, more than six years ago, Ayatollah Khamenei handpicked Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be his political Mohallel-Ahmadinejad was meant to play the role of the pliant president and permit Khamenei to consolidate his power grab even further. (The clerical quest for control over society is so notorious and brazen at this point it has even reached the realm of literature. A few years ago, Khamenei ordered the death of a writer named Saidi Sirjani who had dared to write a brilliant satire about a venerable man of devotion exchanging his pious soul for profane power.) Ahmadinejad was picked to hide Khameni's insatiable appetite for more power. But as it sometimes happens in the topsy-turvy world of professional Mohallels, Ahmadinejad ended up having a passionate desire for power himself. He increasingly proved unwilling to play his expected role. He continued to challenge Khamenei." http://t.uani.com/oT2T5z
WINEP: "As the various threats posed by Iran's nuclear efforts become increasingly clear to the international community, most published assessments of the regime's strategy continue to overlook the role of religion. Because Iran is a theocracy, any attempt to fashion an effective policy toward its nuclear program must account for the religious values, beliefs, and doctrines that shape the country's decisionmaking. In this Washington Institute report, Michael Eisenstadt and Mehdi Khalaji scrutinize popular assumptions regarding Ayatollah Khamenei's longstanding fatwa banning nuclear weapons. Examining the process by which fatwas are issued and modified, they discuss the often contrary forces that could pull Tehran in unexpected directions as the nuclear program advances: the pragmatic doctrine of regime expediency, which often trumps religion, and the less-flexible doctrines of resistance and Shiite messianism that have been embraced by certain hardline factions." http://t.uani.com/no1UQO
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