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Stories
Reuters:
"Iran's crude oil exports in March may plunge by a quarter from a
month earlier to the lowest since tight Western sanctions came into
effect in 2012, industry sources said, squeezing income for Tehran as
sanctions cast doubt over its future revenues. The fall may result in a
revenue loss of about $1 billion for Iran, according to Reuters
calculations based on current oil prices, just as the country's
parliament debates President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's spending proposals...
Iran's customers will load 810,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude in
March compared with about 1.1 million bpd in February, according to an
industry source with direct knowledge of the matter and a company that
tracks the country's crude shipments. Excluding Turkey, the only European
buyer of Iranian crude, Tehran's top customers in Asia -- China, India,
South Korea and Japan -- will load 703,000 bpd in March versus about
960,000 bpd a month earlier." http://t.uani.com/ZFKxDb
AFP:
"Pakistan risks sparking US sanctions if it pursues its plans with
Iran to build a $7.5 billion gas pipeline linking the two nations, a
senior US official said in a renewed warning Monday. 'We have serious
concerns, if this project actually goes forward, that the Iran Sanctions
Act would be triggered,' State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland
said. 'We've been straight up with the Pakistanis about these concerns.'
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched the construction of a
much-delayed section of the gas pipeline with his Pakistani counterpart
Asif Ali Zardari at a ceremony on the border of the two neighbors. But
Nuland added: 'We've heard this pipeline announced about 10 or 15 times
before in the past. So we have to see what actually happens.'" http://t.uani.com/X2RQmL
AFP:
"Human rights violations in Iran spiralled in 2012, a United Nations
monitor said Monday, spotlighting abuses including repression of freedom
of speech, torture and secret executions. 'The prevailing situation of
human rights in Iran continues to warrant serious concern,' Ahmed Shaheed
told the UN Human Rights Council. 'The situation for individuals in Iran
who advocate for the advancement of human rights, or those that document,
report, or protest against human rights violations is grave and continues
to deteriorate,' he added. Those who speak out 'continue to be subjected
to harassment, arrest, interrogation, and torture and are frequently
charged with vaguely-defined national security crimes, which is seemingly
meant to erode the frontline of human rights defence in the country'...
Turning his focus to executions, Shaheed said that while 297 were
officially announced by the government -- 58 of them carried out in
public -- some 200 'secret executions' had been acknowledged by family
members, prison officials or members of the judiciary. Nearly 500
executions -- both official and unofficial -- were carried out in 2012,
compared to 661 in 2011, and 542 the year before." http://t.uani.com/Y854il
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
Bloomberg: "Sasol's profit
declined to 13 percent to 12.1 billion rand in the six months through
December as it wrote down the value of its Iranian polymers unit as it
wrote down the value of its Iranian polymers unit, it said in a statement
today... The company wrote down 428 million rand at an unsuccessful oil
well in Mozambique, and recorded a 1 billion-rand foreign- exchange loss,
it said. The loss was primarily due to the Iranian rial's depreciation
against the dollar, Sasol said. 'The operating profit in the current year
was negatively impacted by once-off charges totaling 3.6 billion rand,'
the company said. 'These items relate primarily to the partial
impairments of our Arya Sasol Polymer Co. investment and the Solvents
Germany business of 1.97 billion rand and 198 million rand,
respectively.'" http://t.uani.com/10AtCTD
Human Rights
Reuters:
"The European Union imposed sanctions on Tuesday on an Iranian
police unit monitoring the Internet, as well on several judges and media
bosses the bloc blames for human rights violations in the Islamic
Republic. The sanctions reflect mounting concerns about human rights in
Iran and are separate from measures against Tehran over its nuclear
program, which governments in the European Union and elsewhere suspect
has a covert military dimension. The move brings to nearly 90 the number
of people targeted by EU asset freezes and visa bans over concerns about
human rights in Iran. Among those newly listed is a judge, Morteza
Kiasati, who imposed death sentences on four Iranian Arab political
prisoners... Mohammad Sarafraz, the head of both IRIB, Iran's state
broadcaster, and Press TV, the state English-language television news
channel, was listed over his alleged cooperation with security services
and prosecutors to broadcast forced confessions of detainees. Press TV's
newsroom director was also similarly listed." http://t.uani.com/16oKPnl
ABC:
"The wife of a retired FBI agent who was kidnapped in Iran six years
ago said today she will hold Iran to its promise to help find her husband.
'I hope that they do it as quickly as possible,' Christine Levinson, wife
of longtime FBI veteran Robert Levinson, told ABC News today. 'We
continue to be extremely worried about Bob, particularly his health. He
is 65-years-old... His birthday was yesterday.' Christine Levinson spoke
in reference to comments reportedly made today by Iranian Foreign
Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in which he said his country will help find out
what happened to the ex-FBI agent." http://t.uani.com/W5xrBA
Fox News:
"Five Iranian Christian converts who were detained late last year
will reportedly begin trial in Iran's Revolutionary Court this week,
according to a human rights group following the case. The five men were
among seven arrested in October when security forces raided an
underground house church in the city of Shiraz during a prayer session.
They will be tried at the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz's Fars Province
on charges of disturbing public order, evangelizing, threatening national
security and engaging in Internet activity that threatens the government,
according to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a religious persecution
watchdog group. 'Judging from recent cases, it is likely that, at the
very least, those detained may face lengthy prison sentences,' said CSW
spokesperson Kiri Kankhwende." http://t.uani.com/Y82pVL
NYT:
"Iran's powerful Ministry of Information and Communications
Technology has blocked the most popular software used by millions of
Iranians to bypass an elaborate official Internet filtering system, stepping
up a campaign to gain more control over the way Iranians use the
Internet. As of Thursday, a collection of illegal virtual private
networks, or VPNs, was successfully closed off by the ministry, making
visits to Web sites deemed immoral or politically dangerous - like
Facebook and Whitehouse.gov - nearly impossible. Popular mobile
applications like Viber, for free phone calls, and WhatsApp, for free
text messaging service, have also been experiencing problems. People
trying to visit illegal Web sites are being directed to a page on which
users are encouraged to report illegal use of the Internet. This page,
Peyvandha.ir, also explains in Persian that Web sites that promote
'debauchery, boozing, pornography, the sharing of pictures and advocating
ideas against religion' are forbidden." http://t.uani.com/12LxtCA
AFP:
"Syria, China, Iran, Bahrain and Vietnam are flagrantly spying
online, media watchdog RSF said Tuesday, urging controls on the export of
Internet surveillance tools to regimes clamping down on dissent... Iran
meanwhile is in the process of creating a home-grown Internet system,
citing a series of cyber attacks on its nuclear installations, RSF said.
'Applications and services such as email, search engines and social
networks are proposed to be developed under government control,' to allow
for 'large-scale surveillance and the systematic elimination of dissent.'
Twenty Internet users were jailed and one had been killed in the past
year, it said, warning against the use of Iranian virtual private
networks as it 'will be like throwing yourself into the lion's
jaws.'" http://t.uani.com/12LzRsP
Domestic
Politics
AP:
"Senior Iranian clerics have scolded President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
for consoling Hugo Chavez's mother with a hug - a physical contact
considered a sin under Iran's strict Islamic codes. The rebuke follows a
widely published photo showing Ahmadinejad embracing Chavez's mother at
the funeral of the late Venezuelan president in what is seen as
taboo-breaking behavior in Iran. Iranian papers on Tuesday cited clerics
from the religious center of Qom who described the hug as 'forbidden,'
inappropriate behavior and 'clowning around.' Iran's strict Islamic codes
prohibit physical contact between unrelated members of the opposite sex.
The clerics did not spare Ahmadinejad." http://t.uani.com/16oONfu
Opinion &
Analysis
Gerald Seib in
WSJ: "Like Iran's nuclear program itself, the
international effort to stop it is about to enter a critical phase. Put
simply, it now seems possible that the world will know by the end of
April whether diplomacy will be sufficient to halt what some fear is an
Iranian march toward nuclear-weapons capability. Iran continues to enrich
uranium at two facilities, and it is working on a separate heavy-water
reactor that would be able to produce plutonium. Perhaps most troubling,
it said this month it is building 3,000 new and faster centrifuges that
would allow it to speed up its production of enriched uranium. Meanwhile,
diplomats from the U.S. and five allies held two days of talks at the end
of February with Iranian officials in Kazakhstan in an effort to find a
formula for slowing down the Iranian effort. Lower-level nuclear experts
from Iran and those world powers are set to meet Monday for more detailed
discussions, and the high-level diplomats plan to get together again in
early April. In the midst of that action, President Barack Obama will
visit Israel next week for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
that undoubtedly will be dominated by Iran's nuclear program. In short,
the period between now and early April is shaping up as crucial.
Throughout, it will be clear that, as ever, the quest to stop Iran from
developing a nuclear weapon is best seen as a race against a clock-a
clock that is being read differently in various world capitals. For the
U.S. and its partners in the international effort to curb Iran's
program-Russia, France, China, Britain and Germany-the clock is ticking
down at one speed toward the alarm sounding. For Israel, the country most
threatened by Iran's nuclear ambitions, the clock is ticking down at a
faster speed. For the past couple of years, Israel and the U.S. have been
able to finesse their different views of the clock largely because
Washington was succeeding at marshaling international support for
economic sanctions that have put some serious hurt on Iran and hold out
the prospect that the pain would compel real changes in Iran's nuclear
arc. The latest success in that sanctions effort came last week, when
Indian refiners said they may stop purchases of Iranian oil. Over the
next month, as the stakes grow higher, the ability to continue finessing
the differences will be put to the test. That much has become clear from
the differing reactions to the latest round of diplomacy in Kazakhstan."
http://t.uani.com/14RRS4m
Claudia Rosett in
Forbes: "Both Iran and North Korea are subject to a
growing stack of sanctions with which the United Nations, since 2006, has
been demanding an end to their illicit nuclear and ballistic missile
programs. Yet these two rogue states continue doing business with each
other, of the most dangerous sort, at times in plain view. Since North
Korea's third and most successful nuclear test, just last month, North
Korea's third-generation tyrant Kim Jong Un has been diverting the world
with such bizarre maneuvers as glad-handing basketball eccentric Dennis
Rodman and threatening preemptive nuclear strikes against the U.S. and
South Korea. The real, deadly serious business of North Korea can better
be discerned by focusing on its dealings with its fellow rogue state and
longtime partner in proliferation, Iran. Now edging back into the news,
following North Korea's Feb. 12 nuclear test, is a deal that was signed
between the governments of Iran and North Korea last September, when a
delegation of senior North Korean officials traveled to Tehran to attend
a summit of the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Perversely lending
legitimacy to that NAM gathering, at which UN-sanctioned Iran took over
the NAM chairmanship for 2012-2015, were such worthies as United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. On the fringes of that summit, North Korea
and Iran signed a Scientific Cooperation Agreement, described by North
Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) as covering
'cooperation in science, technology and education.' The deal bears an
ominous resemblance to an agreement signed between North Korea and Syria
in 2002, according to former State Department official David Asher,
testifying on North Korean rackets this past Tuesday before the House
Committee on Foreign Affairs. Asher described the 2002 agreement as the
'keystone' of North Korea's covert cooperation with Syria in building a
clandestine copy, inside Syria, of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear reactor
- a project that had no evident purpose except to produce plutonium for
nuclear weapons. (As that reactor was nearing completion, in 2007, the
Israelis destroyed it with an air strike.) The North Korean delegation to
last year's NAM summit in Tehran was led by the same North Korean
official who led the 2002 delegation to Syria, Kim Yong Nam, head of
North Korea's parliament. While neither Iran nor North Korea has released
the text of the agreement, state news outlets from both countries did
publish the names of some of the officials present for the signing of the
deal. It is a list that suggests nuclear proliferation may be at the core
of this deal." http://t.uani.com/15K1GQ1
Elise Auerbach in
Amnesty: "Adherents of the Baha'i faith are probably
the most persecuted religious community in Iran. Their faith is not
recognized as a religion in Iran's Constitution. Many Baha'is were
executed in the 1980s. The seven leaders of the Baha'i community are
serving 20-year prison sentences after their convictions on specious charges
of 'espionage for Israel,' 'insulting religious sanctities' and
'spreading propaganda against the system.' Baha'is are excluded
from higher education and face severe discrimination in employment, their
cemeteries have been desecrated, and they are not permitted to meet, to
hold religious ceremonies or to practice their religion communally.
Because they are excluded from universities, the community established
the underground Baha'i Institute for Higher Education, but its faculty
and staff have been arrested and imprisoned solely for peacefully
providing instruction to their young people. About 110 Baha'is are
currently in detention in Iran, while many others are awaiting trial or
have charges pending against them. One of the Baha'i prisoners of conscience
is Rozita Vaseghi who is serving a ten-year prison sentence for
'membership of an illegal organization whose aim is to harm the security
of the country,' 'propaganda against the system' and 'spreading Baha'i
teachings.' After she refused to sign a confession, she was told she
would remain in prison 'until her hair was the color of her teeth.'
Meanwhile a new book, Captive in Iran, relates the story of two young
women, Maryam Rostampur and Marziyeh Amirizadeh, who converted from Islam
to Christianity and who endured detention for nearly nine months in
Tehran's Evin Prison, solely for the peaceful promotion of their
religion. They describe in painful detail the squalid conditions,
inadequate food, long interrogations, as well as the fear and
uncertainty; they were threatened by prosecutors with dire consequences -
including possible death sentences for apostasy - and were pressured to
repudiate their faith. Their eventual release was likely due to the
intense international brought to bear on the Iranian government on their
behalf. For the last few years Iranian authorities have increasingly
targeted Evangelical Protestants, many of whom are converts from Islam...
Now that the touring Cyrus Cylinder will be suggesting to visitors around
the U.S. that the ideals we hold dear were recognized long before the
Enlightenment in Europe, the Iranian government should embrace and uphold
the principles established by the visionary ancient king of Persia."
http://t.uani.com/10AzL21
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