|
|
Top Stories
Reuters: "Inspectors
from the U.N. nuclear watchdog were in Tehran on Thursday for talks on
Iran's disputed nuclear program, but there was no sign they would gain
access to the Parchin military complex as requested. The Iranian
Students' News Agency (ISNA) said 'no plans were announced yet for
inspectors to visit Iran's nuclear facilities or other sites', without
giving a source." http://t.uani.com/ZkwEgY
Roll Call: "After
successfully diluting the Iran sanctions provision that senators attached
to the defense policy bill, the Obama administration is now seeking
several additional, more modest changes to the language in the final
bill, including an extension of the amount of time it has to implement
the penalties. The White House and Senate Democrats worked hard behind
the scenes to strip some of the broader elements of the sanctions package
before it was introduced as an amendment to the defense bill (S 3254)
last month, a process spearheaded by the chairmen of the Armed Services,
Foreign Relations and Banking committees, according to senior
congressional aides. Now, according to the administration's revised or
'red-lined' version of the sanctions language, obtained by CQ Roll Call,
the White House has proposed that the conference of lawmakers putting
together the final defense authorization legislation extend the deadline
for enforcing the new sanctions - which would blacklist Iran's energy,
shipping and shipbuilding sectors as well as its ports - from 90 to 180
days after the bill is signed into law. The administration is also
seeking to limit the targets of some of the new sanctions restrictions to
a subset of sanctioned Iranian parties who have been singled out as
terrorists, weapons proliferators or human rights abusers under previous
sanctions programs. Those who do business with those parties would also
risk sanctions." http://t.uani.com/129MvyI
Trend.az: "Three
foreign currency printing companies have decided to discontinue their
businesses in Iran, UANI (United Against Nuclear Iran U.S. group),
Communications Director Nathan Carleton told Trend. ... The U.S. dollar
cost some 24,500 rials in the last week of September and went sky-high to
37,000 rials on October 2 and 40,000 rials on October 3. As a result of
such jumps in rates, tensions arose in Tehran, as earlier local Iranian
sources indicated police arrested some 30 people who might have been
involved in currency manipulations on Iran's free markets." http://t.uani.com/12aB1ev
Sanctions
Bloomberg:
"The U.S. and its partners have hammered out a revised deal to offer
Iran, aimed at persuading the Islamic Republic to curtail nuclear
activities that might be used to produce an atomic bomb. The amended
proposal, agreed to in recent days by the six world powers involved in
the negotiations, would be put on the table at the next round of talks
with Iran, according to a U.S. official who spoke yesterday on condition
of anonymity because Iran hasn't yet seen the plan. The official
described it as an updated proposal from the one discussed in Baghdad in
May, and not a dramatic new plan or grand bargain to address all of the
international community's concerns at once. What the six powers had
previously proposed 'is not close enough to being a realistic offer that
the other side will take seriously,' said Pickering, a former U.S.
ambassador to the United Nations and former No. 3 official at the State
Department." http://t.uani.com/XgKWd6
WSJ:
"OPEC decided to keep its oil-production ceiling unchanged as
expected on Wednesday, but failed to agree on a new leader for the group
and instead extended the term of its current secretary-general for one
year after highly charged discussions... Despite the failure to agree on
a new secretary-general, most ministers expressed satisfaction as they
left the meeting. 'We all agreed that Badri should stay for another
year,' said Samer Kamel, Libya's delegate, referring to the current secretary
general, Abdalla Salem el-Badri... Iran, previously seen as Saudi
Arabia's chief rival within the group, supported Iraq's candidate for
secretary-general after its own candidate failed to secure the
recommendation of an OPEC committee, delegates said. Western sanctions on
Iran's oil exports have slashed Iran's production over the past year, and
it lost its position as OPEC's second-largest producer to Iraq in June...
The outcome illustrates a power shift within OPEC, said Jamie Webster,
senior manager of the markets and country strategies group at consultancy
PFC Energy. 'This is no longer Iran versus the Saudis,' this is about
Iraq now, he said. As the two largest oil producers in OPEC, Saudi Arabia
and Iraq 'need to come up with a serious accord in terms of how they
manage production,' he said." http://t.uani.com/TWdECB
AFP:
"Mitsubishi UFJ, Japan's biggest bank, must pay US authorities a
fine totaling some $8.6 million for flouting US sanctions on Iran, Sudan,
Myanmar and Cuba, the US Treasury Department said. Bank of
Tokyo-Mitsubish-UFJ (BTMU) circumvented the sanctions between April 2006
and March 2007, Treasury said in a statement. 'BTMU's Tokyo operations
engaged in practices designed to conceal the involvement of countries or
persons subject to U.S. sanctions in transactions that BTMU processed
through financial institutions in the United States,' the US government
authority said in its statement. Washington said the bank's 'egregious'
conduct 'displayed reckless disregard for US sanctions.'" http://t.uani.com/VBSK8j
Foreign Affairs
AP:
"Iran is now capable of manufacturing its own copies of an advanced
CIA spy drone captured last year, a senior Iranian lawmaker said
Wednesday. Avaz Heidarpour, a member of the parliament's national
security committee, said experts have reverse-engineered the RQ-170
Sentinel drone, and Iran now is capable of launching a production line
for the unmanned aircraft." http://t.uani.com/TWAuZH
Human Rights
AFP:
"The European Parliament roundly condemned Iran as it awarded its
prestigious Sakharov prize Wednesday to lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and
film-maker Jafar Panahi, who are both detained back home. 'The European
Parliament is honouring these two people who are standing up for a better
Iran,' said parliament president Martin Schulz, calling for their
immediate and unconditional release. Iran 'should know this institution
stands on the side of those repressed by this regime,' he said. 'The
Iranian people have earned the right to a regime that respects human
rights and that is different to this regime'. Neither Panahi, currently
under house arrest, nor Sotoudeh, who was thrown behind bars in August
2010, were able to collect the 50,000-euro ($65,000) prize, whose past
winners include Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan. Sotoudeh, a 47-year-old
mother of two, is a leading rights campaigner known for representing
opposition activists and juveniles facing the death penalty." http://t.uani.com/SfDmTx
Jewish Journal:
"In the wake of the gruesome murder of a 57-year-old Jewish woman living
in the Iranian city of Isfahan nearly three weeks ago, a group of
Iranian-Jewish activists in Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C.,
have banded together in an informal group hoping to raise public
awareness of the murder and to help bring the murderers to justice. This
new group, known as the Jewbareh Committee - named for the ancient Jewish
ghetto in Isfahan where the victim, Toobah Nehdaran, was murdered -
released a statement last week calling upon Iranians and the
international community to push for a real investigation of the case...
Currently, an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 Jews still live in Iran, most of
them based in Tehran. Frank Nikbakht, an Iranian-Jewish activist who
heads the L.A.-based Committee for Minority Rights in Iran, said that
despite discriminatory laws and constant threats to their lives, Jews
remain in Iran for a variety of reasons." http://t.uani.com/SRH5Dy
Domestic
Politics
Bloomberg:
"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's loss of favor with the
country's ruling elite may turn into a gain for Ali Larijani. The
parliament leader, one of five brothers who have all served in public
office, is increasing his influence ahead of elections in June amid the
most turbulent time in Iranian politics since Ahmadinejad faced down
street protests in 2009. While Larijani hasn't yet declared whether he
will run for the presidency, the heart of his family's power is
unwavering allegiance to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei...
'They've done well positioning themselves very closely to the Supreme
Leader and by being very good at knowing where the wind blows,' said Gala
Riani, head analyst for the Middle East at London-based consultants
Control Risks. Ali Larijani is a 'main critic of Ahmadinejad and at the
same time he ensures that parliament conducts its business in accordance
with the wishes of the Supreme Leader,' she said." http://t.uani.com/SfynlV
RFE/RL:
"Those looking for another avenue to watch Persian cat videos or
cute antics by Iranian toddlers have been left disappointed after the
launch of Iran's new and much-hyped video-sharing website went awry. On
its homepage, Mehr says its purpose is to bring together Persian-speaking
users and to promote Iranian culture. But just days after its launch, the
website that officials hope will become a rival to Google's popular
YouTube has been marred by poor download speeds and technical
glitches." http://t.uani.com/UVF1wh
Opinion &
Analysis
UANI CEO Amb. Mark
Wallace in RealClearWorld: "The recent
demonstrations and protests in Iran over the increasingly perilous state
of its economy are the latest and most powerful sign that the economic
war is having a tangible impact. There is no doubt that punitive
financial and economic sanctions have contributed greatly to the collapse
of Iran's currency, the rial. Iran now suffers from hyperinflation and
the rial has fallen by 80 percent in the past year. As history has shown,
durable hyperinflation such as this can result in public unrest and,
occasionally, regime change. The conventional wisdom of the past was that
sanctions against Iran would have little impact because of Iran's vast
oil wealth. That was, in retrospect, flawed thinking. In the past year,
Iran's acceleration of its nuclear program and defiance of the IAEA, its
sponsorship of terrorism and its destabilizing behavior in countries like
Syria finally prompted the international community to act. The loss of
Iranian oil has had little effect on the market so far, as countries like
Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Libya have made up for the loss. The sanctions now
in place are beginning to have a dramatic impact, as Iran's currency is
collapsing. As a result of hyperinflation, we have seen Iran's currency
exchange market become paralyzed. Licensed exchange bureaus refused in
recent days to do business at the officially imposed rate of 28,500 rials
to the dollar, while black market dealers were offering the dollar at a
rate of 35,500 rials, sparking protests and a violent crackdown.
Significantly, the ire of the protesters was primarily directed at the
regime for its mismanagement, and for actions that led to sanctions in
the first place. If history is any guide, the leaders of Iran have reason
to worry, as there is a correlation between hyperinflation and regime
change. In Indonesia, hyperinflation and the collapse of the rupiah from
2,700 to the dollar to nearly 16,000 over the course of a year was one of
the principal sources of discontent, which brought people out to the
streets to overthrow the Suharto regime. In the case of Yugoslavia, hyperinflation
was the motivating force that led Slobodan Milosevic to start a war to
divert attention from the monetary crisis facing the country -- a war
that led to his ultimate defeat. Regardless of the precipitating event,
hyperinflation can signal the death knell of a regime. We often forget
that a 'Persian Spring' preceded the Arab Spring, and that Iran has not
only restive minorities, but a restive middle class frustrated with a
corrupt theocratic regime, culminating in protests over the 2009
election. If the regime faces increased and durable hyperinflation,
Iran's demographics suggest that the mullahs' brutal hold on power could
face serious challenges. At this critical stage, it is time for U.S. and
EU policymakers to do all they can to build upon and ensure the
durability of Iran's hyperinflation. The best way to do so is by
implementing a total economic blockade that would pit the vast purchasing
power of the world's two largest economies against that of Iran. Such an
economic blockade would bar any business, firm or entity that does work
in Iran from receiving U.S. and EU government contracts, accessing U.S.
and EU capital markets, entering into commercial partnerships in the U.S.
and EU or otherwise doing business in the U.S. and EU. The result would be
an immense economic barrier to entry into Iran's marketplace, and would
place unprecedented pressure on the rial." http://t.uani.com/SfxXvH
David Albright
& Robert Avagyan in ISIS: "The latest commercial
satellite imagery from the alleged Parchin high explosive test site in
Iran shows a steady pace of what appears to be the
"reconstruction" phase of the site which between April and July
2012 had undergone considerable alterations. Such alterations
included building demolitions and earth displacement. Figures 1
through 4 provide a reverse timeline of imagery starting from the latest
changes to before major alterations began in late spring 2012. The latest
imagery from December 9, 2012 shows what appears to be a new, almost
completed security perimeter around the site. In the previous imagery
from November 7, ISIS had identified the construction of a cement terrace
or wall that has now become part of the western side of the new security
perimeter which resembles the predecessor fence that was demolished in
late spring of 2012. Notable are further changes to the two major
buildings at the site which appear to have been covered with white or
gray roofing. Previously the roofing had been covered with blue paint or
completely new roofing had been installed. Additionally, a section of
unknown material that seemed attached to the entrance of the suspected
explosive chamber building in the November 7, 2012 imagery is no longer
present in the latest image. A new site layout is taking shape and the
presence of dirt piles and a considerable number of earth moving vehicles
and cars suggest that construction is continuing at a steady pace. It is
not clear when or if IAEA inspectors will be granted access to the site.
The IAEA has stated that in light of these continuing activities at
Parchin, 'When the Agency gains access to the location, its ability to
conduct effective verification will have been seriously undermined.' It
nonetheless reiterates its 'request that Iran, without further delay,
provide both access to that location and substantive answers to the
Agency's detailed questions regarding the Parchin site and the foreign
expert' (identified by ISIS as former Soviet scientist V.V.
Danilenko)." http://t.uani.com/UV46aC
|
|
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.
|
|
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment