Eye on Iran: Hezbollah Sanctions Bill Targets Central Banks

Join UANI           Top Stories Al-Monitor: "A Hezbollah sanctions bill expected to be introduced shortly in the House would allow the Treasury Department to target central banks and other financial institutions that 'knowingly engage' with the US-designated terrorist group, according to a draft summary of the bill obtained by Al-Monitor. The Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act, according to the draft, 'takes a comprehensive approach to one of the greatest threats to the United States.' It will be introduced by Reps. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Brad Schneider, D-Ill., both members of the House Foreign Affairs panel on the Middle East, and is backed by committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., and ranking member Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., greatly boosting its chances of becoming law. 'It broadens financial-sector sanctions against Hezbollah; forces other critical designations regarding the terrorist organization; and, targets their media appendage al-Manar,' the summary says. The bill also states that it is US policy 'to prevent Hezbollah's global logistics and financial network from operating in order to curtail its domestic and international activities.'" http://t.uani.com/1hIMyKv WSJ: "Two former top advisors to the Obama administration on Iran are calling for the White House and Congress to increase the threat of using military force against Tehran if talks aimed at curbing its nuclear program fail - or the country's Islamist government is caught cheating on the terms of an agreement. This hawkish stance taken by Robert Einhorn and Dennis Ross - both strong proponents of President Barack Obama's diplomacy with Iran - underscores the skittishness in Washington and Europe about the prospects for the negotiations losing momentum. American and Iranian diplomats continue to stake starkly different positions on the end state for Tehran's nuclear program. The U.S. wants a dismantling of much of Iran's facilities, while President Hasan Rouhani's government maintains it will keep them... Mr. Einhorn served as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's top advisor on nuclear issues during her term and took part in numerous negotiations between the P5+1, before leaving the administration last year. The proliferation expert, in a paper released by the Brookings Institution this week, called for Congress to pass legislation authorizing new sanctions on Iran and the use of American military force if Iran pulls out of any negotiated agreement or takes steps to produce nuclear weapons. He also calls for the U.S. to coordinate its response with the United Nations Security Council and allies in Europe." http://t.uani.com/QL34jB Reuters: "Austrian President Heinz Fischer has 'in principle' accepted an invitation to visit Iran, his office said on Wednesday, in what would be the first trip for many years by a Western head of state. Under President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate who was elected last year, Iran has started to improve relations with the West by engaging with world powers over its disputed nuclear program. It remains under sanctions, however, and a visit by Fischer, perhaps accompanied by business leaders, would be fraught with political significance as the United States presses Western countries to limit commerce with Tehran. 'The invitation from the Iranian side has been accepted in principle but no date has been set,' Fischer's spokesman said, declining to give any more details given the delicate diplomacy at stake... No Western head of state visited Iran under Rouhani's predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was president from 2005 to 2013. However then-Austrian President Thomas Klestil visited in 1999 and 2004 when reformist Mohammad Khatami was in office... A spokesman for Kurz's ministry said the program for the Iran trip was still under discussion. 'Austria will in any case discuss the human rights situation as well as its nuclear program,' he said, adding that Kurz would not be accompanied by a business delegation. A senior U.S. official visited Vienna in January to voice concern that Austrian companies, hoping to win post-sanctions business in Iran, had visited Tehran in December." http://t.uani.com/1ikWhEm        Nuclear Program & Negotiations Reuters: "Iran and six world powers began an expert-level meeting about Tehran's nuclear program on Thursday, part of efforts to reach an agreement by late July on how to resolve a decade-old dispute that has stirred fears of a Middle East war. The meeting in Vienna of nuclear and other experts from Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Russia, China and Britain was to prepare for a new round of higher-level negotiations next week, also in the Austrian capital. A spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton - whose office is coordinating contacts with Iran on behalf of the big powers - confirmed that the meeting had started but gave no details. Officials earlier said they were expected to last until Saturday. The April 8-9 meeting of chief negotiators - including Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif - will be the third round of talks at that level since February." http://t.uani.com/1lutobI Human Rights ICHRI: "On Thursday, April 3, 2014, the European Parliament passed a resolution expressing grave concern over the human rights situation in Iran and the 'continued, systemic violation of fundamental rights' in the country, and called on the members of the European Union to 'mainstream human rights in all of its relations with Iran.' With the passage of the resolution, EU Strategy toward Iran, the EU has unequivocally signaled its rejection of Iran's efforts to limit its dialogue with the West exclusively to the nuclear issue. Indeed, while expressing strong support for the Geneva interim agreement on Iran's nuclear program, and for the continuation of efforts to reach a peaceful negotiated solution to the nuclear issue, the European Parliament forcefully proclaimed human rights will not be relegated to the back seat of foreign relations while the negotiations proceed. The resolution drew particular attention to Iran's lack of cooperation with UN human rights bodies, including the denial of a visa to the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran, and called for 'the release of all imprisoned human rights defenders, political prisoners, trade unionists, labor activists, and those detained after the 2009 Presidential elections.' ... Iranian officials reacted furiously to the report. On April 2, Marzieh Afkham, Spokeswoman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry said, 'We reject and find unacceptable the human rights position of the EU Parliament and their raising of false issues, especially about the Iranian elections.'" http://t.uani.com/1dXRbRt The Independent: "A British woman has been locked up in Iran for five months after posting derogatory comments about the country's government on Facebook and fears she will be executed, her husband has said. Concerns are growing for the welfare of Roya Saberi Negad Nobakht, 47, from Stockport, who has been charged with 'insulting Islamic sanctities', a crime which can be punishable by death. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said it was 'urgently' looking into her case. However, Britain currently has no embassy in Iran, making any negotiations more difficult. Mrs Nobakht was in Iran visiting family in October last year when she was arrested by police as she arrived by plane in the south western city of Shiraz, according to an account given by her husband, Daryoush Taghipoor, to a family friend in Britain. She was then taken back to Tehran and charged with 'gathering and participation with intent to commit crime against national security' and 'insulting Islamic sanctities', according to a copy of her charge sheet seen by The Independent. Mr Taghipoor, who is currently in Iran, claimed that his wife's arrest was over comments she had made on a Facebook group about the government being 'too Islamic', and that she had only been charged after a confession was extracted from her 'under duress.'" http://t.uani.com/1oxJwOo ICHRI: "Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has pardoned 920 Iranian prisoners on the anniversary of the Islamic Republic of Iran on March 31, 2014. According to the Iranian news agencies, after Head of the Judiciary Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani sent a letter to the Supreme Leader recommending pardons and reductions in the sentences of 920 prisoners, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei signed off on the recommendations. Each year and on separate occasions, a pardon list is compiled by the Judiciary's Central Commission on Amnesty and Pardons, and forwarded to the Supreme Leader for his approval. As of this time, none of the released prisoners are known to be political prisoners. With few exceptions, the few 'pardons' recently granted to political prisoners have been applied to prisoners who often had only days left before completing their full sentences." http://t.uani.com/1pZXy6X Reuters: "Within the small community of minority Arabs where he lived in southwest Iran, Hashem Shaabani was known as a teacher, an advocate for civil rights and a poet. But to the Islamic Republic he was seen as a threat. Shaabani, 32, was arrested in February 2011 and accused of belonging to an armed separatist group. His family had minimal contact with him after his arrest, and in late January this year they received shocking news: Shaabani had been executed. 'It made me question why we live in a society where something like this can happen,' said a friend who asked not to be identified for personal security reasons. 'It also made me think that we have a long road ahead before we can reach democracy and freedom.' Since president Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate in Iran, took office last August, there has been a surge in executions: at least 537 people have been executed in the past eight months, nearly 200 of them since the beginning of this year, according to figures compiled by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. That compares with a total for 2013 of 624, according to data gathered by the United Nations. Some human rights activists and others fear that those who oppose Rouhani and his negotiations with Western powers over the country's nuclear program are pushing the executions to weaken him." http://t.uani.com/1lFEFIJ Domestic Politics Trend: "Iran's GDP contracted by 1.7 percent in the previous Iranian calendar year (which ended on March 20). The country's GDP growth also stood at -5.8 percent in the mentioned period. According to the International Monetary Fund's report, which was released on April 3, Iran had achieved considerable progress in raising per capita income and living standards in previous decades. But in recent years, such progress stalled as both domestic policies and the external environment deteriorated. The reports also reads that macroeconomic performance worsened markedly following the implementation of subsidy reform plan in late 2010 and the intensification of sanctions in 2012. 'The economy contracted by almost 6 percent in 2012/13 and 12-month inflation rose from about 12 percent in late 2010 to around 45 percent in July 2013', IMF said. The report went on saying that the sharp fall in oil exports was the main factor [for worsening the economic performances], partly offset by import compression. Iran's crude oil exports, as well as gas condensate, had decreased from 2.5 million barrels per day in 2011 to about one million barrels per day in 2013." http://t.uani.com/1luoBqX Foreign Affairs The Hill: "House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) on Thursday said the United States should deny a visa to Iran's new ambassador to the United Nations.  In an interview on MSNBC's 'Andrea Mitchell Reports,' Royce was asked if the State Department should grant entry to Hamid Abutalebi, who was part of the group that carried out the 1979 hostage crisis. 'Well, no, because under the State Department rules, we're allowed to withhold the granting of a visa if there's a security component to it. And the fact that this individual was involved in taking American hostages would allow us to use that rationale. So, yes, we should exercise that,' Royce said... On Tuesday, a group of House Republicans proposed legislation that would attempt to block Abutalebi from entering the U.S, similar to a bill introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) a day earlier. 'I would say now would be the time to push back and show them that they're not going to be able to run the tables on the U.S.,' Royce said. 'So symbolically it's important to see if they can get away with this. I suggest we don't let them.'" http://t.uani.com/1kxrrdd AP: "Twenty-nine Republican senators have written to President Barack Obama urging him to deny a visa to a former hostage-taker who is Iran's choice for ambassador to the United Nations. The senators said Thursday that the United States should not allow entry to an individual who participated in an act of terror against the U.S. and its citizens. Hamid Aboutalebi was a member of a Muslim student group that stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. Mark Kirk and Marco Rubio led the senators and said U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power should work closely with the U.N. to ensure Aboutalebi is denied entry." http://t.uani.com/1hnHZk3 Reuters: "Four Iranian border guards have been freed in Pakistan two months after they were seized by al Qaeda-linked militants on the countries' lawless frontier, Iran's semi-official Fars news agency quoted a lawmaker as saying on Friday. The abduction in early February heightened regional and sectarian tensions. Iran had said the guards were taken into Pakistan and it threatened to send troops over the border to retrieve them. The kidnapping was claimed by Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), a Sunni Muslim rebel group operating in predominantly Shi'ite Muslim Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan province, which borders Pakistan. The movement said it had killed a fifth member of the group of guards in March. 'Four of the five abducted Iranian border guards have been handed over to Iranian embassy officials in Pakistan,' Fars quoted Iranian lawmaker Esmail Kosari as saying." http://t.uani.com/1lusrA6 Opinion & Analysis Rep. Doug Lambon (R-Colo.) in The Hill: "'A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory,' Mark Twain once quipped. That astute observation comes to mind in the wake of Iran's outrageous and revealing selection of their new United Nations ambassador. He is an official linked to the notorious 1979-81 U.S. embassy hostage crisis. Iran's supposed moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, who made this disgraceful appointment, may very well have a clear conscience about naming such an envoy to sit in New York City. The would-be ambassador, Hamid Aboutalebi, who has understandably played down his role during the hostage crisis, also has a clear conscience. But we, as Americans, and as people with a memory as well as a conscience, cannot allow such an official on our soil, except to be brought to trial for his participation in illegally holding our diplomats hostage. While the U.S. is required to allow UN diplomats to come to New York, it has the right to refuse visas to those seeking to work as diplomats in the UN. We in Congress are, in a bipartisan manner, urging the State Department to refuse entry to Mr. Aboutalebi due to his past behavior. The president can deny visas to diplomats for spying.  Terror activities by diplomats, past or present, should be dealt with just as severely. Diplomatic immunity should not apply to terrorists and to their accomplices. While the would-be ambassador has downplayed his role in the hostage crisis suggesting he was but a 'translator,' he was indeed part of the radical student group, the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line. This is the group which occupied the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979.  Tellingly, his photograph is still on the group's official website. Understandably, many of the 52 former U.S. hostages held captive for 444 days are furious over the matter. One former hostage, Barry Rosen, said it would be 'like spitting on us' and 'a travesty of justice' if the Iranian diplomat was granted entry. Others described it as a 'slap in the face' to the hostages and their families, who never received reparations for their ordeal. For them -- and for us -- we cannot allow such an individual in our homeland.  President Obama must deny him a visa to come onto our soil. Our conscience will not allow it." http://t.uani.com/1lusJaf 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.