Top Stories
Reuters: "Sanctions
imposed on Iran over its nuclear program have pushed the country into
recession, a global association of financial services said on Monday.
Crude oil exports have dropped sharply, the Iranian rial has plummeted
and inflation has soared in 2012, the Washington-based Institute for
International Finance said in its report on the Middle East and North
Africa. GDP in 2012 is expected to shrink by 3.5 percent, from 1.2
percent positive growth in 2011, it added... During the 2012/2013 fiscal
year 'with crude oil prices holding at around $110 per barrel, government
revenues from oil (which accounted for about half of its total revenues
in previous years) could drop by at least 40 percent,' it said. The
Iranian government has started consolidating public spending to offset a
fall in revenues, it added. The rial has been 'steadily depreciating this
year as foreign currency inflows have been garnered by the central bank
for use in payment for government imports and to meet essential import
needs,' it said. Inflation will average around 50 percent this year, up
from 26.5 in 2011... 'As the economy enters a recession, the regime faces
pressures from rising public unrest and discontent within Parliament,'
the report said." http://t.uani.com/SNvSnI
Bloomberg:
"HSBC Holdings Plc, Europe's largest bank, agreed to pay $1.92
billion to settle U.S. probes of money laundering in the largest such
accord ever. The settlement includes a deferred prosecution agreement
with the U.S. Department of Justice, the London-based bank said in an
e-mailed statement today. HSBC also said it expects to complete an
undertaking with the U.K. Financial Services Authority soon, without
giving details. Chief Executive Officer Stuart Gulliver's attempts
to reduce costs and improve profitability have been hurt by the U.S.
probes and by compensation claims from U.K. clients. A Senate committee
said in July that lax oversight by top HSBC executives gave terrorists
and drug cartels access to the U.S. financial system. The settlement is
the biggest reached in the U.S. over such allegations, topping the $619
million in penalties paid in June by the Netherlands' ING Groep NV...
HSBC has been in talks with U.S. regulators over allegations it laundered
funds of sanctioned nations including Iran and Sudan, prompting Standard
& Poor's to question whether the lender is too big to be managed
effectively. In a deferred prosecution agreement, the government allows a
target to avoid charges by meeting certain conditions -- including the
payment of fines or penalties -- and by committing to specific reforms,
either under the guidance of a monitor, or the creation of an internal
compliance panel. 'We accept responsibility for our past mistakes,'
Gulliver said in the statement. 'We have said we are profoundly sorry for
them, and we do so again. The HSBC of today is a fundamentally different
organization from the one that made those mistakes.'" http://t.uani.com/SOexLi
Reuters:
"Standard Chartered Plc agreed to pay $327 million to resolve
allegations that it violated U.S. sanctions against Iran, Sudan and two
other countries, capping months of legal headaches for the British bank.
The U.S. Justice Department and the New York District Attorney's office
said on Monday the bank moved millions of dollars through the U.S.
banking system on behalf of customers in the four sanctioned countries.
The fine came on top of a separate payment of $340 million made in August
by Standard Chartered to New York's state banking regulator over Iranian
sanctions. Taken together, the two penalties could almost wipe out the
bank's profit growth this year... The Justice Department and the New York
District Attorney both agreed to defer charges against the bank, and drop
the charges if the bank improves its sanctions compliance and forfeits
$227 million. Standard Chartered entered into a separate $100 million
agreement with the U.S. Federal Reserve to resolve allegations that the
bank provided 'inadequate and incomplete responses' to bank examiners and
provided insufficient oversight of its sanctions compliance program. Adam
Kaufmann, the chief of investigations for the New York District
Attorney's office, said the $227 million forfeiture was based on Standard
Chartered's conduct and did not take into account the $340 million the
bank already paid to Lawsky's agency... In similar settlements over
sanctions violations, Lloyds TSB Bank Plc has forfeited $350 million,
Credit Suisse AG $536 million, Barclays $298 million and ING Bank NV $619
million." http://t.uani.com/VA69NM
Nuclear
Program
Reuters: "Iran is getting ever
closer to being able to build a nuclear bomb and the problem will have to
be confronted in 2013, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on
Monday. Israeli officials would like the United States to take the lead
in a military assault on Iran's nuclear sites, but say in private they
would go it alone if necessary, describing a nuclear-armed Iran as an
existential threat to the Jewish state. Speaking to foreign journalists,
Netanyahu said Israel was sticking to the red line he laid down in
September, when he told the United Nations Iran should not have enough
enriched uranium to make even a single warhead. 'I made clear that once
Iran crosses that enrichment threshold, the chances of us effectively
stopping Iran's nuclear weapons program would be reduced dramatically,'
he said. 'Iran is two and a half months closer to crossing this line and
there is no doubt that this will be a major challenge that will have to
be addressed next year.'" http://t.uani.com/X3UiJa
AFP:
"Iran is ready to discuss issues of 'concern' about its disputed
nuclear programme with UN atomic watchdog experts during their planned
visit to Tehran this week, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday. The
visit by International Atomic Energy Agency experts on Thursday will
focus on discussions regarding 'Iran's nuclear rights as well as its
peaceful nuclear activities,' ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told
a weekly briefing. But 'certain issues that have possibly become a source
of concern for (IAEA) officials can also be discussed,' Mehmanparast
said, without elaborating. The IAEA has urged Iran over the past year to
clarify a number of issues that could point to a possible covert military
dimension in Iran's nuclear activities. The watchdog has also tried in
vain to gain access to Parchin military base near Tehran, where it
suspects that experiments with explosives capable of triggering a nuclear
weapon could have been carried out." http://t.uani.com/125lZXr
AP:
"Iran's Revolutionary Guard on Monday said it has decoded all of the
data from an advanced CIA spy drone captured last year. The Guard's
aerospace chief, Gen. Ami Ali Hajizadeh, told state-run Press TV that
that the RQ-170 Sentinel craft had not carried out missions over nuclear
facilities before it went down in December 2011 near the eastern border
with Afghanistan. Tehran had previously said it recovered information
from the top-secret stealth aircraft, but Monday's announcement suggests
technicians may have broken encryptions." http://t.uani.com/UyXxs6
Sanctions
WSJ:
"Washington warned Moscow that the activities of a sanctioned
Iranian bank in Russia could affect Russian banks that do business with
the U.S., a Treasury official said. The bank, Moscow-based Mir Business
Bank CJSC, has become a conduit for Iranian businessmen looking to keep
trade flowing despite severe restrictions on Iran's financial system,
according to trade records and Iranian businessmen who use the bank.
'Treasury is concerned about Mir's operations in Russia,' the Treasury
official said. 'We have raised concerns about the risk that the presence
of this bank poses to Russian financial institutions.' The U.S. has
sanctioned Mir Business Bank's parent company, state-owned Bank Melli
Iran, the country's largest commercial bank, because, the U.S. says, the
bank is aiding the development of the Iranian nuclear program. Bank Melli
denies it is aiding the program. 'Since Mir is a designated bank as a
subsidiary of Bank Melli, financial institutions that choose to do
business with it could face sanctions...which include being cut off from
the U.S. financial system,' a second U.S. Treasury official said... In
the first quarter of 2012, Mir Business Bank registered a 150% rise in
net assets to 36.4 billion rubles ($1.1 billion)-faster growth than any
other of Russia's 200 largest banks, according to the Interfax Centre of
Economic Analysis. For the first time, Mir joined the ranks of Russia's
top 100 lenders, at No. 96 during that period." http://t.uani.com/VOWOrp
Reuters:
"Turkish authorities have shut down a small pipeline built by
smugglers to carry illegal oil from Iran, officials said on Monday, a new
twist as Western sanctions against Tehran bite. Along with the 3-km
(1.9-mile) pipeline, Turkish security forces dismantled a rudimentary, hillside
refinery with storage capacity of 25,000 liters of crude near the town of
Semdinli in Hakkari province, the governor's office said in a
statement... 'A 3,000 meter pipe was installed to the facility from
Iranian territory,' it said. 'Rooms with generators behind the storage
facility were discovered.'" http://t.uani.com/Uvs8oa
Human Rights
AP:
"The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a report Tuesday that
a record-number 232 journalists are imprisoned worldwide and that Turkey
has the highest number with 49 journalists behind bars... CPJ said the
second-worst jailer of the press is Iran, with 45 behind bars. The group
cited news reports that said Iranian blogger Sattar Beheshti was arrested
in October and died after being beaten and hung by his limbs from the
ceiling." http://t.uani.com/UyXoF5
AP:
"Tehran's chief prosecutor says authorities have arrested 28
Iranians for alleged links to foreign-based TV networks advocating the
Baha'i religion, which is banned in the Islamic Republic. A Tuesday
report by semi-official Mehr news agency quotes Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi
as saying intelligence officers arrested the members of
'counterrevolutionary networks' in 10 buildings across the city of
Tehran. The detainees were in close contact with TV networks that
advocate the Baha'i faith, Dowlatabadi said. Baha'i practitioners are
frequently prosecuted in Iran, prompting outcry among international human
rights groups." http://t.uani.com/T4Arts
Opinion &
Analysis
Chicago Tribune
Editorial: "Sen. Mark Kirk, who has been recovering
from a stroke, is expected back at the Capitol in January. That's welcome
news. We're also happy to report that Kirk hasn't let his focus slip on
one vital national security issue: stopping Iran from building a nuclear
weapon. For years, Kirk has led the effort in Congress to impose
crippling sanctions on Tehran. Kirk and Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.,
recently filed an amendment to tighten significantly the economic squeeze
on Tehran. The sanctions would cover many companies linked to Iran's
government, even if they are not involved in nuclear work. Iran's energy,
port, shipping and shipbuilding industries would be blacklisted. Such an
embargo would tell the world: If you want to do business with the U.S.,
you can't do business with Tehran. A popular move in Congress? We'd say.
The amendment cleared the Senate on a 94-0 vote and is likely to find
broad support in the House. But the Obama administration is balking. 'We
do not believe additional authority to apply more sanctions on Iran is
necessary at this time,' the National Security Council legislative
affairs office said in a recent email to Senate Democrats. 'We are
concerned that this amendment is duplicative and threatens to confuse and
undermine some of the (existing) provisions.' The White House apparently
believes sanctions included in the amendment could undermine its
overtures to Iran for direct talks on its nuclear program. Never mind
that Iran has stalled negotiations for the better part of a decade. Last
week, Iran's foreign minister hinted that direct talks between the U.S.
and Iran were possible, but that the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, would make that decision. In other words: We'll get back to
you. Don't wait by the hotline. President Barack Obama, like his
predecessors, bristles when Congress tries to tell him how to conduct
foreign policy. But 94-0 is a loud, bipartisan message to increase the
chokehold on Iran's economy. The president should welcome this." http://t.uani.com/W1TZ2x
Abbas Milani in
Advancing a Free Society: "Dear President Obama:
Congratulations on winning a second term. Iran, as you have often said,
will present a major challenge to your foreign policy in the coming
months. Two follies have long haunted US policy on Iran. Some critics of
the Islamic regime have offered 'no negotiation with the regime' as
policy. The other side is the view that just negotiating with the regime
is the panacea for the nuclear issue, and also for an end to all the
regime's shenanigans. And if past attempts at negotiation have not
worked, it is only because American policy makers have not tried hard
enough. The second folly has been the view that 'solving' the nuclear
impasse should be the sole goal of US policy. This view misjudges the
nature of the regime by assuming that it will actually abide by any
promises it makes. This is a regime that has broken virtually every
promise it made to its own people, one whose theology is founded on the
notion of Tagiyeh-where an expedient lie to 'infidels' is the duty of the
Shiite faithful. Focusing only on the nuclear issue has played into the
hands of the regime, allowing it to rally nationalist sentiments, and
shifting the focus of US policy away from the no less important issues of
human rights and democracy in Iran. For almost two decades, Ayatollah
Khamenei has said that America's 'soft power' and its 'culture war'-the
power of its ideas, its defense of the right of religious freedoms for
all Iranians, whether of Bahai faith, or Muslims wishing to convert to other
religions, equality for women, and the power of its information
technology to breaking what you called a new Iron Curtain of ideas-is the
most serious threat to his regime. And for almost as long, the US has
surprisingly not fully played in the field the regime is in fact most
vulnerable. Carrying the anti-American and anti-Israeli banner had been
the sole tool of the Shiite, non-Arab clerics of Iran to claim the mantle
of leadership of the proverbial Arab or Muslim Street. Another obstacle
to serious negotiations with the US has been the IRGC's realization that
tensions with America have been instrumental in its success in becoming
an economic and political juggernaut, dominating directly or indirectly
an estimated sixty to seventy percent of the economy. But in spite of the
regime's designs and desires, the regime is left with little alternative
but to negotiate with the US. For America, the policy foundation of any
negotiations should be that only a more democratic, transparent and
law-abiding power in Iran can solve the nuclear issue. I know you have
long believed that the US can't, and should not, export democracy to
Iran; but it is no less true that America can help create a more
favorable context for transition to democracy. Another corollary to this
policy is that military action on Iran to retard the regime's nuclear
program will be the best gift to the troubled Islamic regime. Its recent
bellicosity in claiming to 'hunt down' at least three US drones is sure
proof that at least some in the regime are pining for such an
attack." http://t.uani.com/URM8G8
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