| For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.
Top Stories
NYT: "Iran announced the mass production of a new cruise missile on Wednesday, the latest in a series of belligerent-sounding proclamations from that country in the face of its increased isolation by a Western-led group of nations worried about Iran's nuclear program and avowed hostility toward Israel. Brig. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, Iran's defense minister, said the new missile, first unveiled a month ago and known as the Qader, which means Able in Farsi, had been mass-produced 'as quickly as possible,' the country's state-run media reported. The missile, designed to destroy warships and coastal targets, has a range of about 125 miles, the media said. The announcement coincided with front-page headlines in a number of Iranian newspapers quoting the head of Iran's navy, Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, as saying he intended to deploy Iranian warships close to the Atlantic coast of the United States to reciprocate for the patrols in the Persian Gulf by the United States Navy's Fifth Fleet. The patrols are a constant source of irritation to Iran... In another slap at the United States, General Vahidi also rejected any thought of creating a telephone hotline between Tehran and Washington." http://t.uani.com/oKpbEK
AFP: "A top US envoy said Wednesday that Washington could penalise China's four biggest state banks if they were found doing business with an Iranian insurance firm in violation of US nuclear sanctions. David Cohen, US Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, was in China to discuss measures to prevent Iran from obtaining financing for its nuclear weapons programme and means to spread its hardware. His China trip followed a stop in Hong Kong, where he met with representatives of the four banks -- Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Agricultural Bank of China. Speaking to journalists Wednesday, Cohen said he told the banks that if they accepted payment from Moallem, an Iranian insurer, they could be cut off from the US financial system under a 2010 US law promoting tighter sanctions on Iran. Moallem insures Iran's national bulk container carrier, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), a company with three subsidiaries, in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. Both Moallem and IRISL have been designated as violators of anti-nuclear proliferation rules set by the United States and the European Union." http://t.uani.com/nWx3ZB
AFP: "US House Speaker John Boehner urged Iran on Wednesday to spare the life of an Iranian pastor reportedly facing execution for refusing to recant his Christian faith and return to Islam. 'I urge Iran's leaders to abandon this dark path, spare Yusef Nadarkhani's life, and grant him a full and unconditional release,' Boehner, a Republican and the number-three US elected official, said in a statement. Nadarkhani, now in his early 30s, converted from Islam to Christianity at the age of 19 and became a pastor of a small evangelical community called the Church of Iran." http://t.uani.com/rkDCRB
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
CNN: "The White House on Wednesday dismissed an Iranian threat to deploy warships near the U.S. coast, and military experts said Iran lacks the naval capability to do so. Overnight Tuesday, Iranian state news quoted a commander as saying his country plans to have a 'powerful presence' near the U.S. border. In response, White House spokesman Jay Carney said that 'we don't take these statements seriously, given that they do not reflect at all Iran's naval capabilities.' Pentagon spokesman George Little echoed Carney's point, saying Iran has the right to send vessels into international waters, but 'whether they can truly project naval power beyond the region is another question.' 'I wouldn't read too much into what came out of Iran today,' Little said, adding: 'I think what is said and what is actually done can be two different things.' State-run Press TV in Iran said similar plans were announced in July. However, no Iranian warships ever deployed. In February, two Iranian navy vessels traversed the Suez Canal in the first such voyage by Iranian ships since 1979." http://t.uani.com/p1fXLs
Human Rights
AFP: "Foreign Secretary William Hague on Wednesday said he 'deplored' reports that Iran was about to execute a pastor after he refused to give up Christianity and return to Islam. Hague urged the Iranian regime to respect its international human rights commitments and overturn the ruling. 'I deplore reports that pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, an Iranian Church leader, could be executed imminently after refusing an order by the supreme court of Iran to recant his faith,' Hague said in a statement. The former Conservative party leader commented that the reports illustrated Iran's 'continued unwillingness to abide by its constitutional and international obligations to respect religious freedom.'" http://t.uani.com/qzmSwe
AP: "Switzerland's ambassador to Iran says she was never shown evidence to back up Iranian convictions of two American men for spying, despite acting as their consular representative in the country. Iranian authorities permitted her four consular visits with Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer during their two-year detention. Each visit lasted about 45 minutes and Iranian officials were always present, the Swiss envoy, Livia Leu, said. After pressure from her embassy, the two men were able to move into the same cell, something that helped stave off what Leu described as the most difficult part of their incarceration: loneliness. They were also allowed eventually to meet fellow American Sarah Shourd, who had been arrested with them along the Iran-Iraq border in July 2009. Shourd was released on health grounds a year ago before facing trial. Other requests were denied by the Iranians." http://t.uani.com/o2ACVr
NYT: "Security forces on Tuesday raided the home of the lawyer who had represented the American hikers who were released last week, and they briefly detained him at Evin Prison in Tehran, where the hikers were held for 781 days. 'It was strange to see an arrest warrant issued for me, as arrest warrants are usually issued for murderers or fugitives,' the lawyer, Masoud Shafiei, told the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran a few hours after his release. Mr. Shafiei said the officers took his passport and a computer and documents from his office before returning them. Much of his interrogation, he added, concerned the two Americans, Joshua F. Fattal and Shane M. Bauer, who were sharply critical of the Iranian government after their release." http://t.uani.com/qrBCps
Domestic Politics
WashPost: "A leading Iranian banker has fled the country, the latest development in a $2.6 billion embezzlement scandal that opponents are linking to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mahmoud Reza Khavari, managing director of Bank Melli, Iran's largest state-owned bank, flew to Canada after the arrest of several top-level bankers in connection with a case described as the largest embezzlement in Iranian history, the semiofficial Mehr News Agency reported Wednesday. Khavari is among 22 people being sought by Iran's chief prosecutor in the case, and his bank stands accused of facilitating some of the fraudulent payments. The banking scandal revolves around wealthy businessman Mahafarid Amir Khosravi, who allegedly forged letters of credit with the help of high-level bank managers. The managers in turn were urged to participate by government officials, according to the Mashreghnews Web site, which is critical of Ahmadinejad. Khosravi is accused of using the money, the equivalent of $2.6 billion, to start a private bank called Aria Bank." http://t.uani.com/ra68Fu
Opinion & Analysis
Fredrik Dahl in Reuters: " Either Iran could build a nuclear bomb in a matter of months or it is unlikely to get such a weapon any time soon -- depending on which Western expert you talk to. The differing estimates show the difficulty in trying to assess how long it could take Iran to convert its growing uranium stockpile into weapons-grade material and how advanced it may be in other areas vital for any bomb bid. The answers to those questions could determine the major powers' room for manoeuvre in trying to find a diplomatic solution to a dispute over Iran's nuclear ambitions which has the potential to spark a wider conflict in the Middle East. Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes. Western-based analysts generally agree with their governments that Tehran is developing technology that could be used to make a bomb, but they disagree about just how close it is to success. U.S. defence analyst Greg Jones gave one of the more urgent warnings this month, arguing that if Iran decides to make a bomb it could produce enough highly-enriched uranium (HEU) in about eight weeks. 'The timeframe will shrink to only about four weeks by the end of next year as Iran's enriched uranium stockpiles and enrichment capacity continue to increase,' Jones, of the conservative Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said. Iran 'needs to be treated as a de facto nuclear power simply by virtue of being so close to having a weapon,' he added in an article in U.S. political magazine New Republic... Jones is not the only expert to suggest that Iran may be very close to producing the refined uranium material necessary for a weapon, should it decide to do so. A paper published by the U.S. Bipartisan Policy Center think-tank said Iran could make 20 kg of HEU -- a quantity it said would be enough for one device -- in two months. It said it remained unclear if Iran had mastered the technology to turn the HEU into a weapon, but that history suggested this could be achieved in less than six months. But another Washington-based think-tank, the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), said Jones's calculation method was 'unreliable' and a breakout in such a short time at Iran's Natanz enrichment site was not realistic. Other experts stressed that Iran would also need to turn any weapons-usable uranium into the core of a nuclear missile if it wanted more than a crude device, adding to the timetable. Mark Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), said he now believed Iran could make a nuclear weapon in less than two years' time. 'Suggestions that Iran will be able to produce weapons in a matter of months are irresponsible,' Fitzpatrick, a director of the IISS Non-proliferation and Disarmament Programme, said. But, 'just as exaggeration is irresponsible, so too is complacency,' he added." http://t.uani.com/pUyMve
Yossi Melman in Haaretz: " At the International Atomic Energy Agency General Conference in Vienna last week, once again the focus of discussion was the nuclear program of Iran, which refuses to stop its uranium enrichment and cooperates only partially with IAEA inspectors. This sort of cat-and-mouse game, with its familiar rules, has been going on for almost a decade, while in the meantime, step by step, Iran advances its nuclear program, overtly and covertly. For their part, intelligence agencies around the world continue to gather information, and to monitor and attempt to sabotage, delay and disrupt this progress. The international community is having trouble interpreting the Iranians' actions and predicting when Tehran will actually have nuclear weapons (the current assessment in the Mossad, IDF Military Intelligence and the CIA is that that will be in 2015 ). At the same time, in Iran a bitter but secret debate is raging over whether to assemble nuclear weapons or make do with nuclear capacity - i.e., having the know-how and the means to manufacture such weapons within a short time, if necessary. The argument in Iran crosses ideological boundaries: Not all of the conservatives are in favor of a attaining nuclear option, and not all reformists are opposed to it. Furthermore, the dispute is not only political, military and economic in nature, but also religious. The religious dimension was the subject of an interesting analysis in a recent study by Michael Eisenstadt and Mehdi Khalaji, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Eisenstadt, a former military analyst with the U.S. Defense Department, and Khalaji, an Iranian-born specialist on Shi'a religious law, gave their study a provocative title: 'Nuclear Fatwa: Religion and Politics in Iran's Proliferation Strategy.' It is necessary to look at the religious side of the nuclear program, the authors say, because Iran is a theocracy, in which religion plays a key role in politics. Basically, their article takes issue with those who believe Tehran's claims that it is not aiming to develop nuclear arms because Islam forbids weapons of mass destruction." http://t.uani.com/oMsgfs
Ali Vaez & Charles Ferguson in IHT: " A nuclear research reactor in Tehran may hold the key to resolving the prolonged nuclear stalemate between Iran and the West. The Iranian government is running out of the 20 percent-enriched uranium it needs to operate the reactor, and that appears to be making it amenable to compromise. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently proposed that Iran suspend production of some uranium-enrichment activities in exchange for fuel supplies from the United States. Whether the offer is an olive branch or an act of necessity, it is an unprecedented opportunity for Washington and its allies. The proposal arose earlier this month amid the habitual bombast that surrounds Ahmadinejad's annual trip to the U.N. General Assembly. 'If you [the United States and Europe] give us uranium grade 20 percent now, we will stop production,' the Iranian president told The Washington Post and later, in basically the same terms, The New York Times. Ahmadinejad clarified that the offer did not apply to the production of 3.5 percent-enriched uranium, which it uses at the Bushehr power station to generate electricity. But the offer is significant nonetheless. While the 20 percent-enriched uranium is used to make medical isotopes in the Tehran Research Reactor, it lies at the perilous dividing line between low-enriched uranium and highly enriched uranium. Stockpiling 20 percent-enriched uranium significantly shortens the time then needed to make crude nuclear weapons. By seeking supplies in the West, Ahmadinejad's offer may lower concerns that Iran will make a dash toward developing atomic bombs in the near future. As a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium to 20 percent (and even more), so long as it uses the uranium solely for peaceful purposes and operates under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. But prompted by revelations that Iran was violating its treaty obligations, the U.N. Security Council has passed six resolutions since 2006 demanding that Iran suspend all enrichment activities." http://t.uani.com/pYQbKE
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment