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Top Stories
Mail &
Guardian: "A major US lobby
group's shock advertising campaign, alleging that MTN is 'profiting from
torture' in Iran, has been blocked by local agencies.
But it claims that South African advertising companies have refused to
erect the billboards because of the influence of the telecoms giant.
United Against Nuclear Iran, an organisation founded by the late United
States ambassador Richard Holbrooke, claimed this month that MTN, which
has a 49% stake in Iran's second-biggest cellphone network, has provided
the regime with the means to suppress and track dissenters, some of whom
are later tortured... This week, Nathan Carleton, spokesperson for the
lobby group, told the Mail & Guardian that, since early May, artwork
and an initial undisclosed budget was offered for the erection of
billboards opposite MTN's headquarters in Gauteng. The advert shows a
picture of Iranian plain-clothes officers beating a civilian with clubs,
alongside the words: 'MTN helps the Iranian regime terrorize and oppress
its citizens.' But, at least half a dozen South African advertising
companies have refused to print and erect the advert, including Adreach,
which called the campaign 'distasteful', Media24, which cited a conflict
of interest in its business with MTN, and Outdoor Media, which said it
even feared for its staff's safety, owing to 'potential retaliation from
other parties'. Only Alliance Media is still considering running the
campaign." http://t.uani.com/Nfv9v3
CNBC:
"Already pinched by sanctions, Iran's oil revenues dropped sharply
in July to possibly less than a third of what it took in a year ago. Iran
exports dropped off sharply in the first month after new U.S. and EU
sanctions took effect, and its oil revenues plummeted in July to $2.9
billion from $9.8 billion in July, 2011, estimates Rhodium Group partner
Trevor Houser. Houser also estimates, after studying partner trade data,
that customer receipts of Iranian crude were about a third the amount of
last July, and half the amount of June... Houser said the economic
sanctions are working more quickly than some had expected, and the lack
of impact on Iran has prompted calls in Washington for even tougher
financial sanctions. 'I don't think we'll see Iranian exports decline any
further for the next couple of months, but the upside for Iran is pretty
limited as well-maybe 1.1 or 1.2 million in August and not much more in
September,' he said." http://t.uani.com/Qqe8OH
Daily Telegraph:
"Iran is intensifying its support for the regime of Bashar al-Assad
by sending 150 senior Revolutionary Guards commanders to Syria to help
repel opposition attempts to overthrow the government.Western
intelligence officials say that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
has personally sanctioned the dispatch of the experienced officers to
ensure that the Assad regime, Iran's most important regional ally,
survives the threat to its survival. In addition, Iran has shipped
hundreds of tons of military equipment, including guns, rockets, and
shells, to Syria through the regular air corridor that has been established
between Damascus and Tehran." http://t.uani.com/Qqe8OH
Nuclear
Program
Reuters: "Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blew up at the U.S. ambassador last month
because he was 'at wits' end' over what he sees as the Obama
administration's lack of clarity on Iran's nuclear program, a U.S.
congressman who was at the meeting said. House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican, made his first public comments about
the late August meeting in Israel in an interview with Michigan's WJR
radio on Tuesday... 'Right now the Israelis don't believe that this
administration is serious when they say all options are on the table, and
more importantly neither do the Iranians. That's why the program is
progressing,' Rogers said." http://t.uani.com/Rj3Kdq
AP:
"Israel's defense minister said differences remain with United
States over Iran's dispute nuclear program, despite efforts by Israel and
the U.S. to come to an agreement on the issue. Ehud Barak told a meeting
of his Independence Party that "the clock is ticking at a different
pace" for the U.S. and Israel, suggesting disagreements remain on
the timeline for any attack on Iran's nuclear facilities... Barak, who
spoke hours after meeting the U.S. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, Adm. James A. Winnefeld, reiterated that Israel reserves the right
to carry out a strike unilaterally. He added, however, that there was 'no
doubt' about Washington's 'readiness to face the challenge on every
level.'" http://t.uani.com/Rt0y9y
Sanctions
WSJ:
"When European Union foreign ministers meet today in Cyprus, their
most consequential discussion may well be on efforts to increase the
pressure on Iran over its nuclear program. With nuclear talks essentially
having gone nowhere for months - and no prospect of fresh top-level
negotiations - in the offing, diplomats say a group of member states will
push for new sanctions on Iran which would be ready in a month's time.
'There have been talks about new sanctions already, not among the 27
(member states) but in smaller circles,' said one diplomat. He said
Friday's EU-wide talks would not get into specifics but would ask member
states to back the idea of a new round of sanctions. 'As there has been
no progress in the talks with Iran it is necessary to continue with the
pressure against Iran. So we think that new sanctions will be necessary,'
the person said." http://t.uani.com/RsVLoy
Reuters:
"Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague urged the European Union
on Friday to impose new sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, as
Israel continues to threaten military action. 'It is necessary to
increase pressure on Iran, to intensify sanctions, to add further to EU
sanctions that are already enforced,' Hague told reporters before a
meeting of EU foreign ministers in Cyprus. He did not specify what form
any new sanctions would take or whether the ministers would discuss the
issue in detail." http://t.uani.com/OVDNNj
Human Rights
Guardian:
"In January of this year the parents of the exiled Iranian actor Golshifteh
Farahani took a call at their apartment in Tehran from a man who said he
was an official of the supreme court of the Islamic Republic. He began
shouting at her father, telling him that his daughter would be punished,
that her breasts would be cut off and presented to him on a plate... The
day the video was posted, when what she calls the 'fire' started, the
official Fars news agency in Tehran issued a communique lacerating her,
saying that the pictures showed the 'hidden, disgusting face of cinema'.
This kind of opprobrium had never before been poured on an artist,
however much they had upset the regime. Her exile was now a
banishment." http://t.uani.com/NXoyBd
Domestic
Politics
Reuters:
"Iran will hold presidential elections on June 14 next year, the
Interior Ministry said on Friday, the first such vote since a violent
crackdown on protests over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in
2009. The 2013 presidential vote is expected to be a contest between
candidates representing Ahmadinejad's allies and his more conservative
opponents. Ahmadinejad himself cannot run for a third term due to a
constitutional limit. 'The next presidential election will be held at the
same time as municipal elections,' the official IRNA news agency said,
citing the Interior Ministry." http://t.uani.com/P7GVYt
Opinion
& Analysis
UANI President
Amb. Kristen Silverberg & UANI Senior European Advisor Dr. August
Hanning in Reuters: "The case of Standard Chartered
Bank has demonstrated that there are still gaps in the international
sanctions regime concerning Iran. In the financial sector, the existing
regime can be improved. However, the European sanctions targeting the
Iranian oil and gas sector also have significant weaknesses. It is
necessary to identify these weaknesses and to close them as
quickly as possible. In January and in July the European Union
implemented an important new sanctions regime prohibiting the importation
of oil from Iran. These sanctions are significant, and provide a real
opportunity to increase pressure on Iran to make meaningful concessions
on its nuclear program. However, past experience with Iran has
demonstrated that government's skill at evading international sanctions.
To make these sanctions meaningful, the international community needs to
continue to work to close off any avenue that would allow Iran to support
its nuclear program through oil revenues... Another way to limit Iranian
oil sales is to focus on efforts to disrupt Iran's tools for oil
deliveries - its tankers. Earlier this summer, the U.S. Treasury
announced sanctions against the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC)
and the vessels that it controls. This is a positive step, however,
concentrating on tankers will only be partially effective. Iran has
already begun the process of reflagging, repainting, and renaming the
ships to disguise their origin, then transferring their official
ownership to Iranian and non-Iranian front companies. As a consequence,
these vessels will continue to operate in large parts of the globe while
the international community is trying to catch up. This is a difficult
and expensive endeavor, delivering only partial success at best. As long
as these tankers are allowed to operate, they continue to serve as the
financial lifeline of the Islamic Republic. To fully enforce the EU
sanctions, and cut off avenues for Iranian deception and circumvention,
UANI-ISD Iran Initiative advocates measures to ban sales of spare parts
for Iranian tankers. By denying access to spare parts, Europe can make it
considerably more difficult and certainly more expensive for Iran to sell
its crude. The majority of Iranian tanker engines are manufactured by a
small group of European companies. The highly specialised nature of these
engines, along with the fact that multiple tankers are often ordered and
produced at once, means that many of the vessels share the same diesel
engine design. The Sulzer RTA84T engine for example, powers at least nine
different Iranian tankers. This means that targeting even a small number
of engine spare parts could impact on a comparatively large proportion of
Iran's oil transport fleet. Measures against tanker spare parts will
result in substantial, sustainable pressure on the oil flow of the
Iranian regime, potentially cutting it off from billions of dollars in
proceeds and compelling Iran to at last agree to meaningful and concrete
concessions on its nuclear programme. If the current negotiations were to
make some progress they could open the way to a peaceful solution. If
they fail, the Persian Gulf is likely to be further, dangerously
destabilised. It is in Europe's interest to do everything possible to
ensure a successful conclusion of the talks with Iran." http://t.uani.com/NSbnS9
UANI Advisory
Board Member Olli Heinonen & Simon Henderson in WSJ:
"Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei claimed last week that his
government isn't interested in nuclear weapons: 'Our motto is nuclear
energy for all and nuclear weapons for none,' he said. A better
perspective was provided almost simultaneously from the world's nuclear
watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which on Aug. 30
released its latest report on Iran's nuclear activities. The report,
written in a mix of bureaucrat-speak and obscure science, nevertheless
conveys a worrying message. It shows that Iran continues to expand its
capacity for enriching uranium. There are now two new groups of
centrifuges installed at Fordow-the hardened site built under a mountain
near the holy city of Qom-which signals a doubling of the site's capacity
since May. Crucially, Iran continues to stockpile uranium enriched to
3.5% and 20% purity-levels for which Iran has no immediate use unless it
is planning to make an atomic bomb. (Its stockpiles of 20% uranium far
exceed Tehran's claimed needs for a reactor making medical isotopes.)
Iran is now operating around 11,000 centrifuges categorized as 'IR-1,'
which are based on a Dutch design acquired by the Pakistani scientist
A.Q. Khan. This means that, despite international sanctions and
surveillance, Iran has acquired (and perhaps continues to acquire)
important supplies from abroad, particularly maraging steel and
high-strength aluminum. Alternatively, and no less worrying, is the
possibility that Iran is now able to produce such special metals
domestically. A piece of apparent good news is that Iran's IR-1
centrifuges are performing at half their design potential, producing less
enriched uranium than they might otherwise. This indicates quality
problems, perhaps due to the manufacturing process or to the raw materials
used. It also appears that Iran remains slow in developing more advanced
centrifuge types. This could be because of design and manufacturing
problems. Or Iran could be saving the advanced centrifuges for another
secret, yet-to-be-revealed facility. We can only speculate. Judging from
this report, Iran seems determined to achieve the capability of producing
nuclear materials suitable for nuclear weapons. Whether it has made a
decision to produce a fully operational nuclear weapon is unclear. (The Obama
administration says it hasn't, according to its latest declared
intelligence on Iran's government.) Going forward, the matter of advanced
centrifuges will be important to watch. If Iran acquires or develops
them, it could pursue a "fast break-out"-moving within months
to 90%-enriched uranium, which is weapons-grade-using its already sizable
and growing inventories of 20%. Once it has five or six bombs-worth of
90% enriched uranium, it would essentially be a latent nuclear-weapon
state-whether it has actually tested a bomb or not. Indeed, given the
intelligence uncertainties involved with monitoring whether such a
secretive program moves to "break-out," even a stockpile of
five or six bombs-worth of 20%-enriched uranium would effectively make Iran
a nuclear-weapon state." http://t.uani.com/NPGjZ7
Michael Rubin in
Commentary: "On Tuesday, The Washington Post
published an article headlined, 'In Iran, Sanctions Take Toll on the
Sick.' The headline and the story trumpet the human suffering U.S.
banking sanctions have reportedly visited upon the Iranian people.
Correspondent Najmeh Bozorgmehr, reporting from Tehran, interviews the
parents of a boy with hemophilia who had to travel 400 miles to Tehran in
order to find the drugs necessary for his treatment. Ahmad Ghavidel, the
head of Iran's Hemophilia Society said, 'This is a blatant hostage-taking
of the most vulnerable people by countries which claim they care about
human rights. Even a few days of delay can have serious consequences like
hemorrhage and disability.' Bozorgmehr also talked to the heads of the
Tehran Province Thalassemia Association and an adviser to the Iran
Charity Association to Support Kidney Patients. The story would be tragic
if sanctions really were to blame. In 1999, when I was studying in Tehran,
I met a couple from the southwestern province of Khuzistan who were in
the city because they could not access the facilities or medicine
necessary to treat their cancer-stricken daughter in their home province.
Such stories were common. Corruption and the regime's perverse priorities
took their toll on Iranian health. Not surprisingly, those with chronic
and rare conditions suffered most. If the same problems afflicted Iranian
society years before U.S. banking sanctions as after U.S. banking sanctions,
then it stands to reason that sanctions are not to blame. Perhaps,
rather, the regime is. If those who are most opposed to sanctions truly
cared about Iranians living in Iran, they would be as active if not more
in seeking an end to what truly has been and become an odious regime, not
through foreign force but rather by encouraging aid to independent labor
unions and civil society organizations seeking to restore the legacy of
Iran's brief period of constitutional and parliamentary democracy. The
episode, of course, recalls accusations of mass deaths resulting from
international sanctions on Iraq. Iranian officials are savvy, and they
know how to craft effective propaganda." http://t.uani.com/Ng1O3R
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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
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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.
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