| For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group.
Top Stories
Reuters: "Iran is unlikely to be able to make atomic bombs before 2013, a former senior official of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday, dismissing suggestions it could happen in months if Tehran decided to pursue such mass-destruction weaponry. Olli Heinonen, head of U.N. safeguards inspections worldwide until last year, said he believed Iran would need a couple of years to develop a capability to manufacture nuclear-armed missiles, based on what is now known about its activities. 'Then you still have to build them and that will take time. I don't think it is immediate,' Heinonen told Reuters. 'But Iran certainly has the elements in place and has built up its capabilities.' ... Heinonen, now a senior fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, said Iran was on the 'way to no good' with its nuclear work but it did not appear to have taken a political decision yet to actually build bombs." http://t.uani.com/nNtu5u
Reuters: "The European Union is set next week to consider blacklisting the Syrian central bank as well as imposing sanctions against more Iranian individuals, according to sources on Wednesday familiar with the situation... In addition the EU's foreign affairs council was likely on Monday to add 29 people to the list of 32 Iranians targeted by asset freezes and visa bans because of serious human rights violations, an EU official said. The official said the EU was increasingly worried about use of the death penalty in Iran, including against minors... The U.S. State Department has said that Iran executed about 312 people in 2010, many after trials conducted in secret. In many cases people who were executed for supposedly criminal offences were actually political dissidents, the department said in a report." http://t.uani.com/nK4FmY
WSJ: "India Wednesday said it has agreed on a mechanism with Iran to resolve issues related to trade settlement and that both countries will continue talks on the matter. The announcement came after two days of talks between the countries concluded in New Delhi Wednesday. 'The two sides held detailed and constructive discussions on the various options for resolving the issues relating to settlement of payments. Both sides agreed on the mechanism to be put in place for the purpose, including for the payment to Indian exporters and project exporters,' a statement issued by the Indian federal government said. It didn't give any details. Trade settlement between the two countries was hit after India's central bank in December barred Iran-related payments from being processed through the Asian Clearing Union, a regional clearing house, which the U.S. says is opaque and could be used by Tehran to finance its alleged nuclear-weapons program." http://t.uani.com/pn61w8
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Bloomberg: "A model of the Antonov-158 airliner jointly built by Iran and Ukraine's Antonov Co. may be in use in Iran as early as 2013, said Iran's state-owned Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Co. The Persian Gulf country will buy two Ukrainian-made Antonov-158s, after a test flight of the aircraft earlier this month, Mohammad-Ali Sirati, managing director of the Iranian aircraft company, was cited as saying by the official Islamic Republic News Agency. The countries then will start to jointly build the aircraft next year, Sirati, whose company will be in charge of the project, said in Tehran yesterday. Some 30 percent of each plane will be made in Iran, state-run media reported. Iran has been trying to modernize its foreign-built fleet of jetliners amid international sanctions that block purchases from suppliers such as Chicago-based Boeing Co. and Toulouse, France-based Airbus SAS." http://t.uani.com/psiClg
Human Rights
Radio Farda: "Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi and several other prominent activists and intellectuals, including religious scholar Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari, exiled journalist Akbar Ganji, and former student leader Ali Afshari, have condemned the death sentence given to an Iranian Christian-convert pastor. In their statement, issued on Iranian news websites, the activists describe reports that the pastor, Yusef Naderkhani, has been asked to give up his faith as 'unbelievable and shocking.' ... The statement says the 'inhumane and violent' behavior of Iran's judiciary toward Naderkhani, who converted to Christianity when he was 19 years old, is a clear example of the violation of the rights of an Iranian citizen." http://t.uani.com/pLM7yh
Domestic Politics
Reuters: "Twenty-one-year-old Iranian Farnoush has her own job but no longer her own telephone. When her father looked at her text messages and discovered she had a boyfriend, he confiscated the cell phone, saying her behavior was not proper in an Islamic republic. 'You have no idea. It's the worst feeling, the pressure, when your father finds out you have a boyfriend,' Farnoush said, while plucking a customer's eyebrows at a Tehran salon. Iran is governed by a version of sharia law which in theory prohibits any mingling between members of the opposite sex outside marriage or close family. While social rules were relaxed under reformist former President Mohammad Khatami, who was first elected in 1997, things have tightened up again since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad succeeded him in 2005." http://t.uani.com/qFgHUq
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "A Saudi Shiite village where protesters clashed with police was calm on Wednesday as a prominent cleric urged his followers to avoid the use of firearms and fingers of blame were pointed at Iran... The interior ministry of the predominantly Sunni Muslim kingdom blamed the unrest on a 'foreign country', in apparent reference to Shiite Iran across the Gulf... Shiite activists in Arab states of the Gulf are regularly accused of links with their co-religionists in Iran. 'Iran is trying to export its problems to avenge what happened in Bahrain, and reduce pressures on Syria,' Tehran's Arab ally, said Anwar Eshki, director of the Saudi-based Middle East Institute for Strategic Studies... Abdulaziz Sager, chairman of the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center, referred to 'concrete evidence of Iran's involvement' in this week's unrest, including 'telephone calls from Tehran that were intercepted' by Saudi Arabia." http://t.uani.com/o7Le7O
Opinion & Analysis
Mitchell Belfer in WSJ: "When the history of the 2011 Arab uprisings is written, Bahrain's chapter will likely be the most unexpected for a casual reader. Though military rule was lifted in June and widespread public protests have not been seen since March, Bahrain's place in the region's upheavals remains deeply misunderstood. Bahrain is not just another falling domino in the Arab Spring. Nor is it experiencing a surge of spontaneous resistance by its people against their rulers. Rather, Bahrain is the victim of a long cycle of intrigue and interference aimed at replacing the moderate and modernizing Khalifa regime with a theocracy under Tehran's thumb. This spring, as protesters camped out in Manama's Pearl Square by night and hurled stones by day, Iran mobilized its public-relations teams, which read scripted newscasts denouncing the Khalifa family. Meanwhile, Tehran's military drafted intervention plans. Western observers and governments took the bait and shied away from addressing the true origins of the violence, instead urging Bahrain to show restraint. The misreading was doubly disappointing given Tehran's long history of working to upset Bahrain's domestic stability. Since Iran's 1979 revolution, the country's leaders have assumed that their revolution represents the aspirations of Shiites throughout the Mideast. That is why they have worked to undermine the Sunni Khalifa family's legitimacy in Bahrain by promoting an ideology of Shiite empowerment. When Nateq Nuri, advisor to Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claimed Bahrain as Iran's '14th province' in 2009, he was only restating well-worn rhetoric from the revolution 30 years prior. Today there is an intimidating imbalance of power between Iran and Bahrain. Iran's standing military numbers 510,000-roughly two-thirds of Bahrain's entire population. Bahrain would have little to worry about if Iran were content merely to grandstand and make threatening noises. But Tehran has taken concrete steps over the last 30 years to destabilize and de-legitimize Bahrain's leadership, both directly and through proxies... Thirty years of intransigence reveal the extent of Tehran's determination to turn Bahrain into an Iranian satellite. So Iran's machinations during this year's protests should have had the international community rushing to support Bahrain, not ostracize it. Instead, too many decision makers were still lost in the rhetoric of the wider Arab Spring. The specifics of each country are whitewashed in favor of one simplistic mantra: that the Arab peoples have been oppressed by their leaders and want democratic reform. This is only partially correct in some cases and fundamentally erroneous in Bahrain. Instead of simply reading demonstrator's placards, leaders need to understand the country's history. Bahrain is in the midst of an existential struggle against a vastly superior foe. Meanwhile, in Iran, the international community is content to listen to calls for moderate reforms coming from immoderate ayatollahs." http://t.uani.com/o8mOCw
Barbara Slavin in Asia Times: "As Iran continues a slow march toward potential nuclear weapons capability, diplomatic action to contain the program is likely to shift to the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), whose director general, Yukiya Amano, has taken a harder line than his predecessor about alleged military research by Iran's nuclear scientists. Experts on the Iranian nuclear program are looking toward the IAEA's November 17-18 board meeting in Vienna for new criticism of Tehran, including a possible finding that Iran has not complied with its obligations to be open about alleged nuclear studies with a military dimension. Since he took office in late 2009, Amano, a non-proliferation specialist and Japan's former representative to the nuclear watchdog organization, has spoken much more explicitly and insistently than his Egyptian predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei, about alleged Iranian studies of warhead designs and ways to initiate nuclear explosions. Amano told the IAEA board on September 12, 'The agency is increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed nuclear-related activities involving military related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile, about which the agency continues to receive new information.' Amano added, 'In the near future, I hope to set out in greater detail the basis for the agency's concerns so that all member states are fully informed.' A Western diplomat in Vienna told Inter Press Service (IPS) that that comment by Amano triggered speculation that he would provide significant new information about Iran in the next report to the board, due out around November 9. The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that member states, led by Western countries, might use the material as a basis to find Iran in non-compliance with its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Such a finding was first reached in 2006 and resulted in the issue being taken up by the UN Security Council, which has passed six resolutions against Iran, including four that specify sanctions. Another resolution seems unlikely now, given Russian and Chinese resistance." http://t.uani.com/qfY9Sa
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment