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WSJ: "The United Nations' nuclear agency says it is 'increasingly concerned' that Iran has conducted experimental work to develop nuclear weapons, in particular on warheads to deliver nuclear payloads. In a report issued Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency also said Iran has begun deploying so-called second-generation centrifuges at its largest uranium-enrichment facility at Natanz, which could allow the country to produce nuclear fuel at three times its current rate. Tehran has concurrently begun installing centrifuge machines at an underground site near the holy city of Qom, according to the U.N. agency, potentially minimizing the ability of the U.S. or Israel to launch military strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities. U.S. officials said the report reflects heightened international concern that Iran is developing the technologies to build nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran has repeatedly denied. Washington also said Iran's actions point to a need for additional international financial pressure on Tehran's government to force it to comply with U.N. resolutions requiring it to suspend all uranium-enrichment activities." http://t.uani.com/plYQD2
WSJ: "Military commanders and intelligence officers are pushing for greater authority to conduct covert operations to thwart Iranian influence in neighboring Iraq, according to U.S. officials. The move comes amid growing concern in the Obama administration about Iran's attempts in recent months to expand its influence in Iraq and the broader Middle East and what it says is Tehran's increased arms smuggling to its allies. Compounding the urgency is the planned reduction in the U.S. military presence in Iraq by the end of the year, a development that many fear will open up the country to more influence from Iran, which also has a majority Shiite population. If the request is approved by the White House, the authorization for the covert activity in Iraq likely would take the form of a classified presidential "finding." But unlike the secret order that authorized the Central Intelligence Agency's campaign against al Qaeda in 2001, the current proposal is limited in scope, officials said. Still, such a step would reflect the U.S.'s effort to contain Iranian activities in the region." http://t.uani.com/ovNBMn
LAT: "Iran offered on Monday to open its nuclear program to five years of "full supervision" by the U.N. atomic energy agency if the world body lifts its sanctions, but made clear that it would forge ahead with its programs for uranium enrichment regardless. The offer from Fereydoun Abbasi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, came amid a new increase in warnings internationally over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program... 'By lifting the U.N. sanctions ... the International Atomic Energy Agency can have full supervision over Iran's nuclear work for five years,' Abbasi told the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency. Abbasi told the news agency that Iran would be developing production lines for a new generation of centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium. He said the IAEA's allegation that the work could be in pursuit of nuclear weapons was 'fabricated and baseless.'" http://t.uani.com/qfK9LW
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
AFP: "Iran's first nuclear power plant has been hooked up to the national grid supplying 60 megawatts of its 1,000 megawatt capacity, the country's Atomic Energy Organisation announced on Sunday. 'Last night at 11:29 pm (1859 GMT), the Bushehr power plant was connected with 60 megawatts to the national grid,' the organisation's spokesman Hamid Khadem Qaemi, told Al-Alam television. The connection of the Russian-built plant in southern Iran to the national grid was originally scheduled for the end of 2010. The Bushehr plant was started up in November 2010 but repeated technical problems delayed its operations, leading to the removal of its fuel rods last March. 'The capacity will gradually increase and it (is going through its) testing phase and on Shahrviar 21 (September 12) in a ceremony the power plant will reach its 40-percent capacity,' Khadem Qaemi said." http://t.uani.com/nSsYEX
Reuters: "India has paid off all oil debts to Iran accumulated this year due to a sanctions-related problem, Iran's Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani told the official IRNA news agency on Sunday. 'Although all the $5 billion of India's oil debt has been cleared, because of selling oil again Iran will always be a creditor of that country,' Bahmani said, adding the payment was received in cash and not in kind through a bartering system. 'So far, Iran has not had a bartering system with India for receiving oil debts but if it happens it would be for those products which are of a high quality and are needed by Iran,' he said. India, Asia's third-largest economy and Iran's second oil buyer after China, racked up the debt after the Reserve Bank of India scrapped a clearing house system last December -- a move welcomed by the United States which is trying to isolate the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program. Indian companies are making the payments in euros via Turkish state-owned Halkbank, Indian officials have said." http://t.uani.com/nEPtQc
Reuters: "Iran's air force began a 10-day exercise on Tuesday, the student ISNA news agency reported. 'Different types of aircrafts such as F7, F4, F5 and Sukhoi-24 ... will be active during the wargames,' said senior Air Force officer, Mohammad Alavi, adding that the domestically made Saeqeh (Thunderbolt) aircraft will be displayed firing ammunition for the first time. Iran often holds wargames or tests weapons to show its determination to counter any attack by the United States or Israel which have both said they do not rule out pre-emptive strikes to stop Iran developing nuclear weapons." http://t.uani.com/rgrL9R
Dow Jones: "Italian luxury sports car maker Maserati plans to open a dealership in Tehran, Iran, next year, as it expands its international network, not only to enhance its independence as a brand within Fiat SpA (F.MI) but also to tap demand from a new, wealthy elite in emerging markets. Maserati won't own the dealership, preferring to import cars to a representative, a spokeswoman for the brand said Friday, confirming a report in Il Sole 24 Ore, an Italian business daily... Fiat is majority owner of Chrysler Group LLC, whose country, the U.S., has a trade embargo on Iran." http://t.uani.com/oJygbh
AP: "Iran's central bank governor says the country's annual inflation rate climbed to 17.3 percent in August. Iranian state television's Web site on Monday quoted Mahmoud Bahmani as saying the increase from 16.3 percent in July came after the Islamic Republic began cutting food and energy subsidies at the end of last year. When the subsidies went into effect, the official inflation rate stood at 10 percent, though analysts said the real figure was closer to 20 percent. Analysts had warned that slashing subsidies - a measure President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad enacted to cut costs - would propel inflation to as high as 40 percent. Iran - under sanctions over its controversial nuclear program - has suffered from double-digit inflation for years." http://t.uani.com/rjyGMn
Human Rights
BBC: "Iranian officials say 60 people have been arrested in protests calling for the government to save a shrinking lake in the north-west of the country. Lake Orumiyeh, one of the world's largest salt lakes, has lost more than half its surface area in 20 years due to drought and the damming of rivers. A local MP says if the lake disappears it will leave behind 10bn tonnes of salt and displace millions of people. An emergency rescue plan for the lake was rejected by parliament last month. Correspondents say the government has yet to take a position on the future of the lake. Officials quoted by the official Fars news agency said about 200 people took part in protests in Orumiyeh on Saturday and at least 60 were arrested." http://t.uani.com/qhYWMm
Reuters: "Two Iranian publications which carried articles critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's policies were shut down on Monday, the official Irna news agency reported. Shahrvand-e Emrouz, a weekly reformist news magazine, was shut down for violating press laws, Irna reported without giving further details. The daily Rouzegar was temporarily closed down for publishing propaganda, it said. Both publications have had their licenses revoked in the past and subsequently reopened under their current names. The latest closures come ahead of parliamentary elections in the Islamic Republic next March." http://t.uani.com/oHMq7u
Domestic Politics
WSJ: "Iran has raised pressure on activists and opposition members in the past two months in an apparent move to preempt antigovernment protests, as regional uprisings gained momentum in Syria and Libya, according to activists and human-rights organizations. The scope of the government's crackdown has broadened to include not only political activists but such groups as environmentalists and participants in social gatherings, activists say. In July and August, security forces raided environmental demonstrations, Ramadan dinner feasts, youth playing in parks and activists' private homes. The government has arrested dozens of people, from Tehran to Tabriz in the northwest, accusing them of conspiring to overthrow the Islamic Republic's regime and of spreading information online and on social networking websites such as Facebook, human-rights groups and opposition members say. Analysts say that Iran is tightening its grip on power mostly because of events in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of Iran, is facing domestic and international pressure to step down. The development in Iran underscores the mutual inspiration and reinforcement between activists in uprisings across the Arab world." http://t.uani.com/o1O5JG
AFP: "The trend of water fights in the Islamic republic has been 'orchestrated from abroad,' Iran's prosecutor general said on Monday, referring to confessions of people arrested. 'This is not simply a game with water. This is a campaign which is being orchestrated from abroad,' Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie told a press conference, ISNA news agency reported. 'Some of those arrested have admitted that they were deceived, with some saying they had responded to calls by anti-revolutionary' groups, he added. The remarks came a day after deputy police chief Ahmad Reza Radan said 'a handful of people' who tried to take part in water fights at a park in central Tehran were arrested last Friday. Water fights by young Iranians -- using balloons, plastic guns and water bottles -- have angered the Islamic regime, which is wary of unofficial gatherings, particularly in large cities, over fears they could ignite demonstrations." http://t.uani.com/oJK9OA
AFP: "Iran's total area is larger than previously thought by some 14 percent, Defence Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi was quoted by the website of state television as saying Monday. 'The actual area of Iran is 1,873,959 square kilometres (723,539 square miles),' Vahidi said, adding: 'The area given so far for Iran was lower, and now this new figure should be used.' Most international documents and atlases, especially the geography text books used in Iranian schools, give 1,648,195 square kilometres (636,371 square miles) as the area of Iran. Vahidi, speaking at the unveiling of new mapping software designed by the Iranian military, did not explain how this sudden gain of 225,764 square kilometres (87,167 square miles) in Iranian territory was calculated." http://t.uani.com/n6NgLb
Foreign Affairs
Reuters: "The Dutch government said on Sunday it was investigating whether Iran may have been involved in hacking Dutch state websites after digital certificates were stolen. Dutch Interior Ministry spokesman Vincent van Steen declined to say whether Iranian authorities in the Netherlands or Iran had been contacted, and said more details would be published in a letter to the Dutch parliament early next week. But van Steen confirmed the veracity of a report by the Dutch news agency ANP saying the cabinet was looking into whether the Iranian government played a part in breaking into Dutch government websites. Such web sites may no longer be safe after the digital theft of internet security certificates from Dutch IT company DigiNotar, the Interior Ministry said in a statement." http://t.uani.com/pdODNR
AP: "Iran's parliament speaker has postponed a visit to North Korea and China because of an unspecified illness, state media reported Sunday. The U.S. has accused North Korea of providing Iran with advanced missiles capable of targeting European capitals. The report by Jam-e Jam daily quoted Hossein Sobhaninia, a member of parliament, as saying a visit by Ali Larijani to Pyongyang and Beijing has been postponed. He did not elaborate. State TV later on Sunday quoted parliament's public relations department as saying 'illness' kept Larijani from making the trip. It did elaborate. But another member of parliament told The Associated Press that Larijani was postponing the trip because he was not scheduled to meet with sufficiently high-ranking North Koreans. The lawmaker spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the trip. Last week the Iranian parliament's website had said Larijani would be in Pyongyang for a three-day visit beginning Sunday. He was to visit Beijing afterward. The visit to North Korea would have been the first visit by an Iranian parliament speaker since the 1980s, when Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani visited Pyongyang." http://t.uani.com/pb0Xrv
AFP: "Iran has yet to decide on a call by Kurdish rebels for a ceasefire in a major offensive it launched along the Iraqi border last week, the elite Revolutionary Guards said on Monday. The Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) announced earlier it would observe a truce from Monday and called on Iran to reciprocate to prevent further bloodshed. 'The heavy fire has prompted this terrorist group to call for a ceasefire, but Iran has yet to make a decision in this regard,' Guards operations officer Colonel Hamid Ahmadi told Fars news agency. 'More than 30 PJAK rebels were killed and 40 wounded until noon (0730 GMT) yesterday according to our reports,' he said, adding the full death toll could well be higher as Iranian forces did not have complete access to the targeted areas. Ahmadi did not specify whether any Iranian ground forces had crossed the border during the offensive." http://t.uani.com/nIiwy2
AFP: "The separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has battled Turkey for years, said on Saturday it will aid another north Iraq-based Kurdish rebel group in fighting against Iranian forces. Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards said earlier they had resumed operations against Kurdish rebels in northwestern Iran along the Iraqi border, inflicting 'heavy blows.' 'From now on we will fight on the side of the fighters of PJAK (Party of Free Life of Kurdistan) against the Iranian attacks, that are trying to enter the Kurdistan region of Iraq, especially in the Qandil area,' PKK spokesman Dozdar Hammo told AFP. 'We are a force to protect the people of Kurdistan. We see it is our duty to protect the achievements of the people of Kurdistan in any part,' Hammo said. 'There have been clashes that are continuing until now, and we see that the goal of Iran is eliminating the Kurdish people, and not the PJAK party, and these are the reasons that led us to take this decision,' he said." http://t.uani.com/oPfCs6
AP: "A young Kurdish shepherd was killed Saturday by an Iranian sniper, local officials said Saturday amid concern about a spike in violence along the Iraq-Iran border. Both Iranian and Turkish forces have increased shelling and airstrikes this summer against Kurdish rebels with bases in Iraq who for years have battled for autonomy in Iran and Turkey. The shepherd was killed early in the morning, said Maghdeed Ahmed, the mayor of Haj Omran, a town in northern Iraq's self-ruled Kurdish region. The mayor of a nearby village of Choman, Abdul-Wahid Gwani, confirmed the death." http://t.uani.com/ppDS19
Bloomberg: "Iran and Tajikistan started a $220- million hydro power station jointly built in the Central Asian country, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was on the second day of his trip to Tajikistan, and his counterpart Emomali Rakhmon attended the ceremony today for the start of the first unit of the Sangtoudeh-2 plant, IRNA said. Tajikistan is one of the most vulnerable economies in Central Asia as it doesn't have the energy resources of other countries in the region, the International Monetary Fund said in April. Iran will invest $180 million and Tajikistan $40 million in the plant, which has two units with an output capacity of 110 megawatts each, according to IRNA." http://t.uani.com/pZ1e1j
Opinion & Analysis
Mark Fitzpatrick in The National: "Given that both Iran and North Korea are pursuing nuclear weapons capabilities in defiance of UN mandates, it would seem logical for the two outlaw programmes to share their respective know-how. After all, each is prevented by UN sanctions from legally acquiring the material and technological wherewithal needed to develop nuclear weapons that can be reliably delivered. With a long history of bilateral cooperation in the development of ballistic missiles dating back to the late 1980s, it would not be hard for Pyongyang and Tehran to put those well-practised trade deals and transfer routes to use in the nuclear-weapons field. It is therefore a mystery why the world has seen few signs of nuclear cooperation between the two charter members of the rogue nation club. It is not for lack of looking. Western intelligence agencies are intensely targeting nuclear acquisition efforts by Iran and North Korea. More than 90 states have signed the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative that is designed to interdict nuclear and missile-related trade to and from those two regimes. Yet finding nuclear weapons-related trade is akin to the proverbial needle in a haystack. In the vastness of ocean and sky routes, most forms of nuclear-related cargo are so minute as to be almost undetectable. Moreover, nuclear weapons work in any country is conducted with utmost secrecy. UN expert panels set up to monitor the implementation of sanctions have explained the ways in which Tehran and Pyongyang evade sanctions by using intermediaries in China and long-distance cargo aircraft. The UN panels have documented several instances of missile-related illicit trafficking between Iran and North Korea but nothing about nuclear trade... The media coverage of Iran-North Korea nuclear cooperation has usually been based on unidentified intelligence sources. Unsubstantiated claims include the alleged presence of Iranian scientists at Pyongyang's 2006 nuclear test and a 2005 Reuters report of North Koreans lecturing during a specialist nuclear training course in Tehran. Last December, Mohammad Reza Heydari, who defected from his diplomatic post in Oslo earlier in 2010, said that from 2002 to 2007, when he headed the foreign ministry's office for airports, he saw many North Korean technicians arriving to collaborate on the Iranian nuclear programme... Late last month, two new reports of a North Korea-Iran nuclear connection emerged. On August 24, the Munich-based Sueddeutsche Zeitung said North Korea had in the spring delivered dual-use US software that could simulate neutron flows. The unclassified computer programme has many civilian applications, but its export is strictly controlled because it can be used to calculate chain reactions for the development of nuclear explosives. A North Korean delegation reportedly travelled to Iran in February to train 20 defence ministry employees in the software. The newspaper vaguely attributed its information to western intelligence sources. And on August 26, an article published in Israel collected various strands of information to suggest that Iran may have financed the North Korea-Syria deal to construct a plutonium-producing reactor near the town of Deir Al Zour (a site also known as Al Kibar), which Israel bombed in September 2007. Like the previous reports, neither of the latest stories is confirmed. They should not be dismissed out of hand, however. The well-credentialed Sueddeutsche is no tabloid and the information it reported is generally consistent, at least in terms of developmental level, with other reports that the International Atomic Energy Agency has assembled about what strongly appears to be nuclear weapons-related work by Iran. The IAEA's extensive reports on Iran's nuclear programme, however, have never mentioned anything about a North Korea connection. In sum, I am less sceptical about the evidence of an Iran-North Korea nuclear connection than I was several months ago. But confirmation is needed before anyone can draw any conclusions." http://t.uani.com/qa37NG
Louis Rene Beres in JPost: "For a variety of reasons, neither Israel nor the US has exercised its lawful right of anticipatory self-defense against Iran. As a result, Iran's entry into the Nuclear Club is effectively a fait accompli. In Israel, remaining self-defense options will necessarily be limited to inherently fallible programs and expanded active defense. Unlike a no-longerviable preemptive option, these programs would come into play only after an Iranian nuclear force has been deployed, or after an Iranian nuclear attack. There is also a vital antecedent question. Should Washington and Jerusalem expect a newly-nuclear Tehran to be fully rational? What could happen to Israel if certain Iranian leaders with nuclear weapons value certain presumed religious obligations more highly than their own state's survival? Ironically, and notwithstanding growing hopes for democracy, a regime change in Tehran could yield a heightened likelihood of irrationality. There can be no assurances that any post-Ahmadinejad regime would be 'better.' IRRATIONALITY is not the same as madness. Even an irrational Iranian leadership could retain a distinct hierarchy of preferences. This would likely be less dangerous than facing a genuinely mad adversary, or one that is entirely unpredictable. In any event, as it is not up to Israel to decide which type of adversary it would prefer, Jerusalem needs to plan carefully for all three contingencies. Whether rational, irrational or mad, any Iranian leadership that slouches toward major conflict with the 'Zionist entity' could, perhaps in less than three years, unleash regional nuclear war. This could be deliberate or inadvertent, as a 'bolt from the blue,' or as a fully unintended result of an inexorable religious commitment to Jihad against 'unbelievers,' let alone for much more mundane reasons such as miscalculation, accident or coup d'état." http://t.uani.com/q4JNZX
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