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AP: "The Obama administration has given in to legislation that would apply sanctions on Iran's Central Bank, despite weeks of opposition over concerns the measures may drive up oil prices or inflict severe economic hardship on American partners overseas. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Thursday that U.S. officials were looking at how to implement the sanctions in way that 'maximizes the pressure on Iran while causing minimum disruption for friends and allies of the U.S.' The administration had opposed the defense bill amendment, despite its unanimous Senate support. It also passed the House on Wednesday. Several U.S. allies in Europe and Asia import petroleum from Iran, and to do so their banks and companies must conduct transactions through the Iranian Central Bank. The new bill could compel U.S. punishment of foreign financial institutions that maintain such business." http://t.uani.com/sDFP8d
AFP: "South Korea Friday joined a fresh multinational effort to press Iran to scrap its suspected nuclear weapons programme, adding more than 100 names to a financial blacklist of Iranian firms and individuals. The measures announced by the finance ministry did not include a ban on imports of petrochemicals or crude oil, in what one analyst saw as an attempt to protect its economic ties with the Middle Eastern nation. The ministry said it has added 99 Iranian firms and six individuals to 24 individuals and 102 Iranian entities blacklisted by Seoul in September last year. Those on the blacklist will require approval from South Korea's central bank before conducting any foreign currency transactions. The ministry said it would alert domestic companies importing petrochemicals of the risks they face because of US sanctions." http://t.uani.com/tgXXEl
CSM: "Iran guided the CIA's 'lost' stealth drone to an intact landing inside hostile territory by exploiting a navigational weakness long-known to the US military, according to an Iranian engineer now working on the captured drone's systems inside Iran.Iranian electronic warfare specialists were able to cut off communications links of the American bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel, says the engineer, who works for one of many Iranian military and civilian teams currently trying to unravel the drone's stealth and intelligence secrets, and who could not be named for his safety. Using knowledge gleaned from previous downed American drones and a technique proudly claimed by Iranian commanders in September, the Iranian specialists then reconfigured the drone's GPS coordinates to make it land in Iran at what the drone thought was its actual home base in Afghanistan." http://t.uani.com/v5AseG
Nuclear Program & Sanctions AFP: "Iran is to insert its first domestically produced uranium fuel into its Tehran reactor by mid-February, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said in comments published by the IRNA state news agency on Thursday. 'Within the next two months the first fuel plate which is produced with the 20 percent enriched uranium will be placed in Tehran's research reactor,' Salehi, who previously headed Iran's nuclear organisation, was quoted as saying. His statement was an excerpt from a longer interview to be released 'soon,' IRNA said. The West -- which fears Iran's nuclear programme masks a push to build atomic weapons despite repeated denials from Tehran -- is sceptical that the Islamic republic has the technology to make fuel plates." http://t.uani.com/v3enR4
Reuters: "Russia's customs service said Friday it had seized radioactive sodium-22, an isotope that is used in medical equipment but has no weapons use, from the luggage of a passenger planning to fly from Moscow to Tehran. The service said in a statement that the material could be obtained only 'as a result of a nuclear reactor's operations' but did not say when it had been discovered at Moscow's Sheremetyevo international airport. The material triggered an alarm in the airport's radiation control system and a luggage search led to the discovery of 18 pieces of the radioactive metal packed in individual steel casings, it said." http://t.uani.com/vFOpjH
Foreign Affairs
NYT: "Iran escalated its confrontation with the United States on Thursday over the captured American spy drone launched from Afghanistan, warning the Afghan government to order a halt to such surveillance flights. Any further flights would be regarded as a hostile act, the Iranian foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said in an interview with Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency. His warning threatened to drag Afghanistan directly into the dispute over American aerial surveillance of Iran. There was no immediate response from the United States or Afghanistan to Mr. Salehi's admonition. But Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, visiting with Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, in Kabul on Wednesday, said that surveillance flights over Iran would continue despite the loss of the drone." http://t.uani.com/uLQzB2
Opinion & Analysis
Joe Lieberman & Susan Collins in CSM: "Yet despite sanctions aimed at a broad range of economic activities, Iran and other rogue regimes continue to find ways to thwart these restrictions and engage in activities that fund dangerous pursuits. One such tactic involves the complex labyrinth of international shipping. Iranian vessels are involved in importing nuclear material and exporting resources that provide the regime much needed currency, helping the country evade sanctions and further its development of a nuclear weapon. Multiple Iranian vessels have also been caught shipping weapons to terrorist groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah. The nature of the international shipping industry - with numerous and frequently changing vessel owners, lessees, charterers, and sub-charterers (often shell companies), coupled with the inherent mobility of vessels - can make effectively applying sanctions extremely challenging. One key aspect of the international shipping industry, however, is both controllable and vital to Iran's shipping activities: the certification of vessels by organizations known as classification societies. Without certification by a respected classification society, it is difficult - if not impossible - for a vessel to secure insurance or gain entry to a major international port. Certifications are also essential for conducting international trade. In short, without the endorsement of a classification society, a vessel does not have a 'license to trade' in the world market... The major classification societies - numbering only a dozen or so worldwide - maintain personnel in ports around the globe, which allows them to conduct certification-related work wherever a vessel arrives. A classification society might survey vessels of several different countries on any given day, acting as agents for multiple governments... This practice becomes troubling when one realizes that several prominent classification societies serve as recognized organizations for both Iran (and other rogue states) and the US, as well as states across Europe... We, along with our colleague Mark Begich, Democrat of Alaska, have introduced legislation to put an end to this practice. Our bill, 'The Ethical Shipping Inspections Act of 2011,' would prohibit the US from delegating representative authority to classification societies that simultaneously conduct inspection, certification, and related services for Iran, North Korea, North Sudan, or Syria. We believe Europe should take similar action to restrict the operations of classification societies that work in and on behalf of Iran and other rogue countries." http://t.uani.com/uZ6fLu |
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