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Reuters: "The U.N. atomic watchdog is expected to spell out in more detail soon the reasons for its growing concern that Iran may be working covertly to develop a nuclear missile, diplomats say. Such a move by the International Atomic Energy Agency, possibly in a new quarterly report on Iran due early next month, could raise pressure on Tehran and offer more arguments for Western powers to tighten sanctions on the major oil producer. The United States and its allies have urged IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano to declare plainly whether he believes that there have been military aspects to Tehran's nuclear activities and whether such work may still be going on. It remains to be seen whether the report's conclusion will be sufficiently clear-cut to prompt the agency's 35-nation board of governors to take action at a Nov. 17-18 meeting, possibly by reporting Iran once again to the U.N. Security Council." http://t.uani.com/qYMDiq
AFP: "Iran's national airline, Iran Air, Monday blasted the International Air Transport Association for suspending its ticket payment transactions due to US-imposed sanctions. IATA 'is not obliged to implement US laws and sanctions,' Iran Air's chief executive, Farhad Parvaresh, said, according to ISNA news agency. 'I have talked to the IATA secretary general and have written a letter to him in protest,' he said. IATA said Monday it had suspended the processing of Iran Air ticket payments because of the US sanctions, which target financial transactions by specific Iranian organisations including Iran Air. 'The ramifications of not complying with this would have wider effects on the industry,' a Geneva-based spokesman for the association, Chris Goater, told AFP." http://t.uani.com/o3wTkd
CNN: "Iran's top cop has offered to quit his job if anyone verifies the results of a recent survey that says 80% of Iranian students drink alcohol and have friendships with the opposite sex, the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency reported. 'These findings have no basis and if such things are true, I will resign from my post,' Ahmadi Moghadam said, according to ILNA. Drinking alcohol and relations between men and women who are not related are forbidden in Iran and other conservative Muslim countries. According to ILNA, the survey was conducted by a university professor in Tehran. The report didn't reveal the number of students surveyed or their age range but the study was enough to provoke the police chief's ire. 'The report that 80 percent of males and females have relations goes against the moral fabric of our society,' ILNA quoted the police chief as saying." http://t.uani.com/nRJDI6
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Bloomberg: "Iran said all the phases of the South Pars natural-gas field will come on stream by October 2015, Shana reported, citing Mousavi Souri, the managing director of the South Pars Gas and Oil Co. Iran will complete phases 15 and 16 by April 2012 and phase 11 will be the last, Souri said, according to the oil ministry's news website. The Persian Gulf nation in January said that it plans to complete the development of South Pars, which together with Qatar's North Field forms the world's largest known deposit of the fuel, by March 2015. Iran's plans to develop South Pars have been hampered by international economic and financial sanctions over the state's nuclear program. The field's development consists of 28 phases, Iranian officials have said." http://t.uani.com/qb2Qk1
FT: "In the production hall of the Khouzestan Steel company near Ahvaz in south-western Iran, workers in orange helmets and khaki uniform contend with broiling heat and stifling humidity as they turn molten steel into finished billets. Nearby, a sign points to happier days of international investment and co-operation. The sign, showing long bars of steel moving slowly on rollers, belongs to Danieli, a leading Italian supplier of industrial technology and equipment. Workers at the plant - Iran's biggest producer of steel billet and one of the three largest in the country in terms of crude output - say the other production lines were supplied by German, US and Japanese companies over more than three decades. But they say the Italian group was the last on site - back in 2007. International sanctions imposed because of Iran's nuclear programme do not directly target the industrial sector but have affected many industries, such as steel, by imposing financial restrictions." http://t.uani.com/mYt7hu
UPI: "South Korea signed a deal with Tehran to help the country build an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Gulf of Oman, an Iranian official said. Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said Iran and South Korea aim to build the $3 billion pipeline in Iran that could transfer more than 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day, the semiofficial Mehr News Agency reports. Iran faces obstacles in exporting its natural resources because of Western economic sanctions targeting its energy sector." http://t.uani.com/mWpLh3
Human Rights
AFP: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke out Tuesday against the weekend flogging of a student convicted of insulting him, saying other, more powerful people criticised him with impunity, the presidency website said. 'Since influential people can freely defame us, I disapprove of flogging a young man for insulting the president,' Ahmadinejad said during a meeting with regional governors. Peyman Aref, a student activist close to an opposition group, received 74 lashes on Sunday before leaving the prison where he had served a year-long term. He was sentenced in 2010 to one year in prison for political activities and to the whipping for insulting the president. He has also been banned from participating in any journalistic activities or membership in political parties. Aref said the flogging stemmed from a letter he had sent to Ahmadinejad." http://t.uani.com/pX9jxM
AFP: "Canberra urged Iran to respect the human rights of its citizens Tuesday after an actress in the country was sentenced to 90 lashes for appearing in an Australian film with her head uncovered and shaven. Australia's Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd expressed 'deep concern' at reports that Marzieh Vafamehr had been sentenced to a year in prison and the lashes for her role in the film 'My Tehran for Sale'. 'The Australian government condemns the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and is deeply concerned by reports that Ms Marzieh Vafamehr has been sentenced to one year in jail and 90 lashes for her role in an Australian-produced film,' a spokesman for Rudd told AFP." http://t.uani.com/p3Atrt
Domestic Politics
AFP: "Iranian officials have arrested 14 more people as part of a probe into a vast, recently uncovered bank scandal and announced they had recovered a quarter of the 1.6 billion dollars allegedly embezzled, reports said on Monday. 'In the past three days, 14 more people, including bank managers and others linked to the case, have been temporarily detained,' Iran's prosecutor general, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei, was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency. Mohseni Ejei also called on the former head of the state-run Bank Melli, Mahmoud Reza Khavari, to return to Iran from Canada where he had flown after resigning as the scandal became public." http://t.uani.com/pnMv6H
Opinion & Analysis
Roxana Saberi in WSJ: "Just after my release from a Tehran prison in May 2009, an Iranian prisoner wrote an open letter entitled, 'I wish I were a Roxana.' Haleh Rouhi, a follower of Iran's minority Baha'i faith, was serving a four-year sentence for antiregime propaganda, although she said she was simply 'teaching the alphabet and numbers' to underserved children. She was happy I was released but wondered how her case differed from mine and why she had to remain in prison. 'What kind of justice system condemned [Roxana] to such punishment,' Ms. Rouhi asked, 'and which justice freed her at such speed?' I asked myself the same question. Why was I released after 100 days, having appealed an eight-year prison sentence for a trumped-up charge of espionage? What is clear is that as a foreign citizen, I was fortunate to receive international support, while the plights of other innocent prisoners were less known outside Iran. Last month, two American men incarcerated in Iran on accusations of espionage and crossing the border illegally-charges they contested-were freed after being sentenced to eight years in prison. Their release is welcome news and cause for relief. At the same time, ordinary Iranians are suffering mounting abuses and prolonged imprisonment for exercising their basic human rights, making Haleh Rouhi's question as valid today as it was two years ago. Officials from several countries have called for the release of a handful of Iran's wrongfully imprisoned men and women, but this pressure is rarely consistent-and most of Iran's hundreds of prisoners of conscience have never gained the attention of foreign governments or mainstream news media. The international community needs to apply the same pressure on Tehran to release these prisoners as it has for high-profile Western citizens. At least 28 of Iran's prisoners of conscience are journalists, according to the media rights group Reporters Without Borders, which ranks Iran the third largest jail for journalists in the world after Eritrea and China. In addition, six Iranian filmmakers were recently arrested for allegedly cooperating with BBC Persian." http://t.uani.com/obPbnV
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