Thursday, July 10, 2014

Eye on Iran: Iran Connection: Why Are Gaza Rockets Reaching So Deep into Israel?








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CSM: "Evidence that Hamas is firing more sophisticated weapons at Israel - including longer-range rockets - than in past conflicts is focusing a new light on Iran's role in arming the militant organization. As Israel is contending with rockets launched from Hamas-controlled Gaza that are reaching deeper into its territory, a classified United Nations Security Council report concludes that a shipment of weapons intercepted by Israel on a cargo boat in the Red Sea last March originated in the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. At the time, Iranian officials denied any knowledge of the arms, which were found in 20 crates buried under bags of cement. Iran is barred from exporting weaponry under an arms embargo approved by the Security Council in 2007... But one reason the arms shipment - and the Security Council Sanctions Committee's report on it - are drawing interest now is that under the bags of cement and among thousands of rounds of ammunition were tucked several dozen M-302 rockets. It's the same longer-range, larger-payload rocket that Israel reports has been fired from Gaza in the current fighting." http://t.uani.com/1lWKBbd

WSJ: "Foreign ministers from the six-power group negotiating a final nuclear agreement with Iran will step into talks in Vienna this week in an effort to break a stalemate and salvage a deal by a July 20 deadline. The decision to bring ministers into the talks comes a week into what was supposed to be the final round of negotiations, with western diplomats saying progress has been painfully slow. While no official plans have been announced, three diplomats said foreign ministers could arrive in Vienna as early as Friday. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who is currently in Asia, could come to Vienna over the weekend, two officials said." http://t.uani.com/1jgpzcK

AP: "A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that $1.75 billion for terrorism-related judgments against Iran can be distributed to victims of attacks, including a 1983 bombing that killed 241 Marines in Lebanon. Washington lawyer Thomas Fortune Fay said the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruling affects 1,300 individual cases that were combined in New York. A three-judge panel rejected arguments by attorneys for Bank Markazi, the central bank of Iran, which had argued that turning over the money would conflict with U.S. obligations in a 1955 treaty signed with Iran. The 2nd Circuit said turning over the assets was 'entirely consistent' with the terms of the treaty... Fay said the decision was welcomed by several hundred families affected by those killed or injured in the attack on the Marines barracks. He said each family was likely to receive about $5 million after attorney fees are subtracted once the appeals are completed." http://t.uani.com/1qZ0tBZ
   
Nuclear Program & Negotiations

Reuters: "Iran said on Wednesday it had offered ways to address foreign concerns over its underground Fordow uranium enrichment plant, hinting at flexibility on a serious obstacle to a nuclear deal with big powers as a self-imposed July 20 deadline nears. It was not immediately clear whether the Iranian suggestions were far reaching enough to bridge the gap over Fordow, one of a handful blocking progress toward a long-term agreement that would improve stability in a Middle East riven by conflicts... 'One proposal is changing the Fordow site into a research and development and back-up site for Natanz,' said Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization according to comments carried by IRNA... Another idea, Salehi was quoted by IRNA as saying, was to convert Fordow into a physics and space radiation laboratory offering services to other countries." http://t.uani.com/1naH7Cp

Reuters: "The six world powers negotiating with Iran over its nuclear programme are 'completely united', an EU spokesman said on Wednesday, a day after France suggested there were differences between Russia and some of the others. The group of countries - the United States, Russia, France, Germany, China and Britain - 'has been united and is still united', Michael Mann, spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, told reporters. Ashton coordinates the talks on behalf of the six states. Mann said they remained determined to try to reach an agreement by a self-imposed July 20 deadline. Some diplomats and experts say they believe the negotiations may have to be extended, in view of persistently wide gaps in positions. 'We are working very hard, we are working on drafting the text,' Mann said. 'But there are still obvious, serious gaps to close and we are determined to work hard to try and close those gaps.'" http://t.uani.com/1omh2kZ

Reuters: "Significant differences remain between the six world powers and Iran in negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program, British Foreign Minister William Hague told an Austrian newspaper. In an interview conducted by the Wiener Zeitung via email on Wednesday and published on Thursday, Hague said a deal was far from certain but that all possibilities should be exhausted in a final round of talks now taking place in Vienna... 'Achieving an agreement is far from certain,' Hague said. 'Significant differences remain ... which are yet to be bridged. But I am convinced that the current negotiations are the best opportunity we have had in years to resolve this issue.'" http://t.uani.com/1kHPt4q

Al-Monitor: "'Actually, we are not planning to carry out all the enrichment [we need for fuel] inside the country,' Salehi, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and former Iranian foreign minister, told Iranian Students' News Agency (ISNA) July 8. 'However, the opposite sides [P5+1 member states] should know that if they do not give us the fuel for power plants, then Iran has the capacity to produce it.' The Iranian position on producing its own fuel for Bushehr 'makes no sense,' Jofi Joseph, former White House Iran non-proliferation expert, told Al-Monitor July 9. 'It is a long standing rule of thumb in the nuclear industry that a state that designs and constructs a nuclear reactor also provides the fuel for that reactor, largely because each individual nuclear reactor requires unique specifications for the nuclear fuel supply.' 'Russia designed, constructed, and to this day largely still operates the Bushehr reactor; it would be odd if Russia did not supply the fuel for Bushehr,' Joseph said. 'Which is why the Iranian position is so odd, and leads to suspicions that it is just a fig leaf for demanding a large enrichment capacity for other reasons.'" http://t.uani.com/1w5l2dC

Sanctions Enforcement & Impact

Reuters: "German lender Commerzbank AG is expected to pay between $600 million and $800 million to resolve investigations into its dealings with Iran and other countries under U.S. sanctions, sources familiar with the matter said. The penalty, previously reported to be more than $500 million, includes a demand from New York's top banking regulator, Benjamin Lawsky, for more than $300 million from the bank, the sources said... Among the violations being investigated are Commerzbank's transactions for the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, one of the sources said. The state-sponsored shipping company was designated for economic sanctions by the United States in 2008 for allegedly supporting Iran's proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The source said Commerzbank was alleged to have done business with the company despite knowing that it was sanctioned." http://t.uani.com/1naHDjI

Bloomberg: "BNP Paribas SA pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to violating U.S. sanctions after agreeing last week to pay a record $8.97 billion to resolve state and federal probes that reached the highest echelons of French and American diplomacy. BNP, France's largest bank, admitted it violated the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act by processing almost $9 billion in banned transactions from 2004 to 2012 involving Sudan, Iran and Cuba. U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield in Manhattan, accepted the plea entered today by Georges Dirani, the company's top lawyer. She set the bank's sentencing for Oct. 3... Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Goldstein outlined the totality of the bank's crimes for the judge, citing evidence including banking records, interviews with employees and communications.'BNP engaged in a long-running conspiracy to violate the U.S. embargoes against the Sudan, Iran and Cuba,' Goldstein said." http://t.uani.com/1q1xVIo

Bloomberg: "Fokker Services BV's $21 million settlement with the U.S. for violating Iran sanctions was delayed by a federal judge who questioned the deal's terms and whether the aerospace company had voluntarily disclosed its wrongdoing. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon set a hearing for July 24 for attorneys to address misgivings that include the size of the penalty levied on Fokker, the lack of charges against individuals and the scope of court oversight of the accord. Leon must sign off on the deferred-prosecution agreement before it can take effect. 'These are all components of the deal I have great concerns about,' Leon said during a hearing yesterday in Washington. The judge said he was also troubled by a report in Bloomberg News that raised questions about whether Fokker voluntarily disclosed in 2010 that it had sold aviation parts and services to Iranian clients, including the military. The article cited three people who claimed the government learned about the violations in 2008, two years before Fokker disclosed them." http://t.uani.com/1jgrY7x

Human Rights

ICHRI: "The prominent journalist Marzieh Rasouli was summoned to Evin Prison on July 8, 2014, for the implementation of her sentence of 50 lashes and two years' imprisonment, she announced on Twitter, even though Rasouli has not yet received confirmation of the initial sentence from the appeals court. 'They quickly want to implement the sentence,' she added on Twitter. Her case is one of many recently, reflecting a current wave of arrests, prosecution under vague national security grounds, and imprisonment of journalists in Iran... Meanwhile, another journalist, Rayhaneh Tabatabaie, was summoned to Evin Prison on June 21, 2014, to begin serving her six-month sentence at the facility's Women's Ward, on charges related to publishing news about the opposition Green Movement. In addition, a third female journalist, Saba Azarpayk, working for the Etemad newspaper and the Tejarat-e Farda weekly, was arrested on May 28, 2014, and has been held ever since in IRGC's Ward 2-A at Evin Prison. The only information about her situation, only surfaced on July 9 when her lawyer Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabaie told the Iranian media Azarpeyk has been indicted under the charges of 'propaganda against the state' and 'dissemination of falsehoods.'" http://t.uani.com/1tr0osC

Opinion & Analysis

Benjamin Weinthal & Saba Farzan in NYDN: "As the world powers meet with representatives of the Iranian regime in Vienna in an effort to end its illicit nuclear program, the plight of struggling Iranian women can shed light on what is happening inside the country. We believe Tehran's severe marginalization of women cannot be decoupled from the nuclear negotiations. A little over a year after Hassan Rouhani was elected president, he has failed miserably in fulfilling his pre-election and post-election promises to end widespread discrimination against women. 'Women must enjoy equal opportunity, equal protection and equal social rights,' he said in televised comments marking Women's Day in Iran on April 20. Still, Rouhani has taken no meaningful action to challenge, either in word or deed, his boss Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's statement: 'One of the biggest intellectual mistakes of the West about the issue of women is gender equality.' Khamenei's views are not mere rhetoric; they have been codified since 1979 in Iran's system of Sharia law. The Islamic Revolution brought Iran back to the medieval ages with stoning, gender apartheid and systematic oppression of the country's women. Fast forward to the summer of 2014: Even under Rouhani - a self-described moderate - the barbaric judicial machinery continues to grind. Iran is slated to execute Razieh Ebrahimi, a child bride convicted of killing her husband in response to his domestic violence. Ebrahimi was forced to marry at the age of 14 and gave birth when she was merely 15. It is also worth recalling the famous (or infamous) 2006 case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who was sentenced to death by stoning for alleged adultery. International public pressure forced the regime to stay her execution. One could argue that Rouhani has no power over Iran's opaque judiciary. Nevertheless, he has not moved beyond nebulous phrases about women's equality even in the realm he does control. His lack of forceful condemnations and advocacy of change in the country's incorrigibly reactionary laws is a form of complicity. Sadly, there is no shortage of repression of women in Iran. New educational restrictions were imposed on women in 2010, barring female students from access to certain social studies courses (women's studies and human rights) because they are deemed to be 'incompatible with Islamic teaching.' In the context of a divorce, women lose custody of their children. There is no shared custody. The legal system forces women to wear headscarves, depriving them of their freedom to choose. Sports stadiums have long remained a no-go area for Iranian women. A telling example in June: Iran barred women from viewing the country's national volleyball team in Tehran's Azadi stadium. In the same month, Iran prohibited mixed gender viewings in cinemas of World Cup soccer matches. The growing frustration of Iranian women from all walks of life with the stifling system has been on display over the last few months. The 'Stealthy Freedoms' social media campaign shows women tossing off their headscarves as an act of personal freedom. The arrest of women who chose not to wear their headscarves during a viral YouTube video - to the tune of Pharrell Williams' song 'Happy' - naturally prompted justified international outrage." http://t.uani.com/1mjjcVS

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

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