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AFP: "Iran's offer offer to halt production of low enriched uranium is not credible because the Islamic republic has a record of making 'empty promises,' the United States said Friday. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told The New York Times last week that his country had offered to stop its production of low enriched uranium, which can be a stepping stone to produce atomic weapons, provided the West gives it the nuclear material. 'Ahmadinejad makes a lot of empty promises,' State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told reporters. 'He knows exactly what has to happen. If Iran has a serious proposal to put forward, it has to put it forward to the IAEA.' The UN nuclear watchdog, or International Atomic Energy Agency, and the United States 'can study it and then we can respond, but from our perspective at the moment, this looks like a diversion from the real issue,' Nuland said. Ahmadinejad said Iran wanted 20 percent enriched uranium for a medical reactor that makes isotopes for cancer treatment. Western countries say Iran already has enough uranium for the reactor and that any additional uranium would be used to make weapons." http://t.uani.com/oWlg82
AP: "Iran's supreme leader assailed a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians on Saturday, saying the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations is doomed to fail. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the Palestinians should not limit themselves to seeking a country within the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip - which would implicitly recognize Israel - because 'all land belongs to Palestinians.' ... Khamenei, who spoke at a pro-Palestinian conference in Tehran, called Israel a 'cancerous tumor' that should be removed. Iran supports the militant Palestinian Hamas group, which rules Gaza and which does not back the statehood bid pushed by Abbas and his Western-backed Fatah movement. 'Our claim is freedom of Palestine, not part of Palestine. Any plan that partitions Palestine is totally rejected,' Khamenei told the gathering. 'Palestine spans from the river (Jordan) to the (Mediterranean) sea, nothing less.'" http://t.uani.com/nEAuKr
AFP: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday proposed a 'simple solution' to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict under which 'everyone should go home.' 'If the backers of the Zionist regime want to solve the issue... the solution is simple ... everyone should go home,' he told an international conference, as the United Nations mulls a Palestinian statehood bid. 'Some poor people were brought to Palestine on the promise of security and jobs while they made Palestinian people into refugees... So now Palestinians should go home and those brought here should go to theirs,' he said. Tehran's two-day International Conference on Palestine was attended by parliamentarians from some 20 nations and figures including Khaled Meshaal, exiled chief of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas. At the opening on Saturday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated the Islamic republic's opposition to the division of Palestinian lands... Ahmadinejad, who is known for making fiery anti-Israeli speeches, on Sunday dubbed the Jewish state a 'cancerous tumor' which had to be removed to save the region and the world." http://t.uani.com/nRTSPZ
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Bloomberg: "A Bloomberg Markets investigation has found that Koch Industries -- in addition to being involved in improper payments to win business in Africa, India and the Middle East -- has sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism. Internal company documents show that the company made those sales through foreign subsidiaries, thwarting a U.S. trade ban... Cohlmia says Koch fired the employees and sales agents involved in the illicit payments and strengthened internal controls. Regarding sales to Iran, she wrote, 'During the relevant time frame covered in your article, U.S. law allowed foreign subsidiaries of U.S. multinational companies to engage in trade involving countries subject to U.S. trade sanctions, including Iran, under certain conditions.' Koch has since stopped all of its units from trading with Iran, she says... Internal company records show that Koch Industries used its foreign subsidiary to sidestep a U.S. trade ban barring American companies from selling materials to Iran. Koch-Glitsch offices in Germany and Italy continued selling to Iran until as recently as 2007, the records show. The company's products helped build a methanol plant for Zagros Petrochemical Co., a unit of Iran's state-owned National Iranian Petrochemical Co., the documents show." http://t.uani.com/n460Bp
Human Rights
Fox News: "Iran state media put out a stunning report Saturday claiming that imprisoned Christian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani is facing the death sentence for rape and extortion, not for apostasy and refusing to renounce his religion, as his lawyer, human rights groups and Western news media have reported. 'His crime is not, as some claim, converting others to Christianity,' the deputy governor of the Gilan province, Gholomali Rezvani, told Fars, the semi-official state news agency. 'He is guilty of security-related crimes.' The Fars comments were part of a larger Iranian media push to counter reports that Nadarkhani was facing execution for refusing to recant his Christian faith." http://t.uani.com/qVKweB
AFP: "Lawyer Masoud Shafii who represented the now free US hikers held for two years in Iran on espionage and illegal entry charges was barred from leaving the country on Sunday, a source close to the case told AFP. 'This morning at around six o'clock (0230 GMT), after getting his passport stamped and as he was boarding the plane, his passport was confiscated by order of the judiciary,' the source said on condition of anonymity. The source added that Shafii 'could not proceed to his final destination which was the United States,' without elaborating on why his passport had been seized." http://t.uani.com/oW4oIu
AFP: "Iran on Sunday hanged a convicted rapist in the northern city of Sari, the ISNA news agency reported. The man sent to the gallows had threatened and raped his victim while claiming to be a law enforcement agent, the report added without giving further details. The latest hanging brings the number of executions, reported in Iran so far this year, to 207." http://t.uani.com/o2yoVW
Domestic Politics
AP: "Iran's supreme leader has called for 'cutting off the traitorous hands' of those implicated in a fraud case described as the biggest financial scam in the country's history. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state in Iran, said on state TV Monday that there should no mercy for corrupt bank officials and others involved in the $2.6 billion scam. The defendants allegedly used forged documents to obtain credit to purchase assets including state-owned companies." http://t.uani.com/pQo835
Foreign Affairs
Bloomberg: "Iran may purchase Antonov-158 passenger planes from Ukraine after one aircraft completed a test flight in the Iranian capital yesterday, state-run Press TV reported, without citing anyone. If Iran purchases the aircraft some 30 percent of each plane will be made in Iran, according to a report published late yesterday on the news channel's website. The twin-engined regional airliner can carry as many as 99 passengers, Press-TV said." http://t.uani.com/oLfv2J
Opinion & Analysis
Melanie Phillips in The Daily Mail: "The brutal regime in Iran continues to inflict appalling levels of barbarity upon its own citizens. A Christian pastor, Youcef Nadarkhani, aged 35 and the father of two children, has been sentenced to death for apostasy, a crime for which he was jailed two years ago. But this savage punishment is far worse even than it seems. For Nadarkhani is deemed to have committed apostasy merely because he has Islamic ancestry. Whether he was ever actually a practising Muslim was not even established... Now the Iranian authorities have claimed he is to be executed not for apostasy at all but for a slew of other crimes... It is obvious that, faced with mounting outrage around the world - there have been protests from the White House, for example -- the Iranian regime has resorted to trumping up spurious accusations against a man they are persecuting on account of his Christian faith. By seeking to deny the verdict of apostasy that was handed down two years ago, they are trying to conceal above all that Pastor Nadarkhani has been imprisoned for two years and is sentenced to hang because of an Islamic religious precept. In other words, this barbarism is yet another religious crime being perpetrated by the regime against an Iranian citizen for no reason other than he has transgressed the laws of Islam enforced by a fanatical regime of religious zealots. Pastor Nadarkhani is but the latest victim of outrages against Christians and other faiths inside Iran. He has twice refused to recant his Christian belief; apparently he is to be asked to do so for a third time on Tuesday, and if he again refuses he could be hanged any time after that. It is still possible to save this man's life if enough protest is made. British political leaders should be making their voices heard very loudly against this barbarity by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Have you been hearing them? No, nor have I." http://t.uani.com/r9T51c
Afshin Molavi in The National: "The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not much of a student of American history. It might be useful, however, if he heeds the words of the late American Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who once said: 'Propaganda, to be effective, must be believed. To be believed, it must be credible. To be credible, it must be true.' President Ahmadinejad is a prolific propagandist. In his world, Iran is on the march; the Western world is in decline; his administration is 'the most pure and uncorrupted' in history; protesters are 'dirt and dust' or 'CIA spies'; the United States killed its own people on September 11, 2001; the Iranian economy is among the strongest in the world; there are no political prisoners in Iran; and the people love him. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Mr Ahmadinejad's inner circle are embroiled in the biggest banking scandal in Iranian history, a $3 billion (Dh11 billion) embezzlement scheme that has led to the sacking of several bank managers and prompted one to flee to Canada. Mr Ahmadinejad often flaunts his humble origins and modest home, but many of his top advisors seem to prefer the lavish life of first-class travel and multi-million dollar villas purchased by shady privatisation deals. The bank scandal has exacerbated the increasingly ferocious attacks on the president by his former hard-line foes and an increasingly restive parliament, chomping at the bit to launch impeachment proceedings but held back by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (who has his own problems with Mr Ahmadinejad, but has chosen not to give the green light to impeachment). Mr Ahmadinejad has been under sustained fire from the conservative and hard-line camp for six months. The origins of the conflict lie in a dispute over the Intelligence Minister, Heydar Moslehi. Mr Ahmadinejad sacked him. The Supreme Leader ordered him to be re-instated. Mr Ahmadinejad refused, sulked for 11 days, and refused his government duties. But the Supreme Leader's power is, well, supreme, and Mr Ahmadinejad relented. But the damage had been done: Mr Ahmadinejad had defied the Supreme Leader publicly." http://t.uani.com/nWpdCM
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