Eye on Iran: Iran Business Ties to Be Revealed Under U.S. Senate Legislation

For continuing coverage follow us on Twitter and join our Facebook group. Top Stories Bloomberg: "Senate Banking Committee leaders are proposing to tighten sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program and human-rights record. Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat, and senior Republican Richard Shelby of Alabama circulated a legislative draft yesterday that would require companies traded on U.S. stock exchanges to reveal any Iran-related business to the Securities and Exchange Commission... The measure would also extend U.S. sanctions to firms involved in joint ventures with Iran anywhere in the world involving uranium mining or new energy projects... The Johnson-Shelby plan also would penalize U.S. parent firms for certain Iran-related activities of their foreign subsidiaries, expand sanctions on Iran's energy and petrochemical sectors and mandate sanctions on those who supply Iran with weapons and other technology used to commit human rights abuses. The bill also requires intensified targeting of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps." http://t.uani.com/wfRSeT Reuters: "Lawmakers on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee plan to vote on a new round of sanctions targeting Iran's energy sector, aimed at choking off funds they suspect Tehran uses to develop nuclear weapons. The committee released details of its 61-page bipartisan bill late on Monday and lawmakers will consider the measures and vote on them at a hearing on Thursday... The draft legislation would require the administration to identify officials, affiliates and agents of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps within 90 days, and designate them for sanctions... The language could give the United States the legal authority to sanction foreign companies that buy oil from the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) or have it shipped by the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC)." http://t.uani.com/y9Gz2N AFP: "Officials from the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, were scheduled on Tuesday to wrap up a three-day visit to Iran seen as a chance to defuse an intensifying international showdown over Tehran's atomic activities... The IAEA has kept silent about which Iranian officials the six-person team -- led by chief inspector Herman Nackaerts -- was talking with or if it was inspecting any suspect nuclear sites, and media in Tehran well being kept well away. The UN agency has said the team was to focus on suspicions set out in a November 2011 report it issued strongly suggesting Iran was researching a nuclear weapon." http://t.uani.com/zoriYm Nuclear Program & Sanctions Reuters: "Iranian traffickers, trying to dodge an embargo imposed by Western nations over Iran's nuclear programme, are smuggling weapons on container ships owned by firms from the countries that imposed the sanctions, a think-tank said on Monday. Before 2008, when the United Nations toughened arms embargoes on Iran, the majority of arms and dual-use goods shipments to and from Iran were being transported aboard Iranian ships, or ships chartered by Iranian companies, it said. 'By using respectable mainstream European shipping companies in countries such as Germany and France, they make them their unwitting accomplices,' said Hugh Griffiths, a researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Container shipping companies generally cannot verify the cargo they transport in the sealed containers." http://t.uani.com/ArBXBR Reuters: "European Union sanctions have paralysed food import deals to Iran leaving about 400,000 tonnes of grain held up on at least 10 ships outside Iranian ports for as long as three weeks, trade sources say. The EU agreed last week to freeze the assets of Iran's central bank as part of further sanctions aimed at stepping up pressure on Iran's disputed nuclear programme. The tougher trade embargo has meant major EU banks have pulled back from financing grain shipments to Iran, a major importer of foodstuffs and animal feed. 'The myriad of sanctions have worked to the point where the Iranian banking system is virtually defunct, thereby not allowing international trade houses to receive workable letters of credit,' one European grain trader said. 'Their ships are stopped while people figure out how to get payment done, it's a mess.'" http://t.uani.com/xauggM AP: "India has joined China in saying it will not cut back on oil imports from Iran, despite stiff new U.S. and European sanctions designed to pressure Tehran over its nuclear program. 'It is not possible for India to take any decision to reduce the import from Iran drastically because, after all, the countries which can provide the requirement of the emerging economy, Iran is an important country among them,' India's finance minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters Sunday in Chicago. India and China together accounted for 34 percent of Iran's oil exports from January to September of 2011 -- slightly more than Europe, according to International Energy Agency data. The move is likely to be seen as a political victory in Iran, but it's unclear how Chinese and Indian companies will actually be able to pay for Iranian oil without running afoul of the sanctions, analysts said." http://t.uani.com/AtDHZk Foreign Affairs AP: "Iran's president on Tuesday lauded his country's newly launched Spanish-language satellite TV channel, saying it would deal a blow to "dominance seekers" - remarks that were an apparent jab at the U.S. and the West. The launch is Tehran's latest effort to reach out to friendly governments in Latin America and follows Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's four-nation tour of the region earlier in January, which included stops in Cuba and visits to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador... Iran's broadcasting company said Hispan TV - the first Spanish-language channel airing from the Middle East - will broadcast news, documentaries, movies and Iranian films 24 hours a day." http://t.uani.com/wvlFw2 Opinion & Analysis Maseh Zarif in AEI: "Iran is at the threshold of a nuclear weapons capability. Sanctions, direct action, and diplomatic tools have neither changed Iran's nuclear policy nor had a visible effect on the enrichment program, including the growing stockpile of 19.75% LEU. Obtaining weapons-grade high-enriched uranium (HEU) is the most difficult and technically challenging obstacle to acquiring a nuclear weapon. Assessing the 'breakout' time-the time required to convert low-enriched uranium (LEU) to weapons-grade HEU-is therefore a critical component of determining progress toward a nuclear weapons capability. AEI's Critical Threats Project has produced a capabilities assessment of the time required for Iran to acquire enough weapons-grade uranium to fuel one nuclear weapon if it proceeds to break out in 2012. It does not assess Iran's intentions to weaponize or to purse break-out scenarios, but rather focuses entirely on technical feasibility. The assessment also provides scenarios for the growth of Iran's 19.75% LEU stockpile, background data on processes involved in a nuclear weapons program and Iran's reported progress, and imagery of the primary enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow. This product is an exposition of the technical data contained in numerous International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports informed by the discussions of experts in the field of nuclear proliferation. It is a work in progress in that it will be revised continuously based on new information from the IAEA reports and other sources and on feedback from readers. We welcome your informed commentary on the technical considerations presented in this document." http://t.uani.com/zvvObW Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of nuclear weapons.