Eye on Iran: Family of Jailed Journalist Jason Rezaian Calls Incarceration A Farce

Join UANI           Top Stories NYT: "The family of The Washington Post's Iran correspondent, who has been jailed without explanation or charges since July, called on Thursday for the Iranian authorities to release him and said his incarceration was a farce. In a statement posted online, the mother and brother of Jason Rezaian, 38, a dual Iranian-American citizen from California, said it was clear officials had failed to find anything incriminating. Otherwise, they wrote, he would have been charged by now. The statement came on Mr. Rezaian's 100th day of confinement in Iran. He has not been allowed to make or receive phone calls from Tehran's Evin Prison, and he cannot hire a lawyer because he has not been formally accused". http://t.uani.com/1u03hAD LAT: "The media office of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, this month sent an unusual text message: For the first time since having prostate surgery in September, Khamenei had resumed his weekly hikes in the hills of Tehran. Attached was a photo of him dressed in a robe and making his way up a rocky slope. The message from the media office, which normally sends information about Khamenei's speeches or books he has read, followed frequent photos posted on his official Twitter account showing him receiving visitors in a hospital. The news alerts that deal with Khamenei's health and show a more informal side of him come amid rampant - though secretive - speculation that Khamenei, 75, who survived an assassination attempt in the early days of the Islamic Revolution, is terminally ill." http://t.uani.com/1uczfdu Reuters: "Iran defended its human rights record on Friday, after a wave of Western criticism of its execution of a woman for murdering a man she said had tried to rape her. Mohammad Javad Larijani, secretary general of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, was speaking at a more than three hour-long debate in the U.N. Human Rights Council to review Tehran's record. Reyhaneh Jabbari was hanged on Saturday in Tehran's Evin prison for the killing. The dead man's relatives had refused to grant her a reprieve within a 10-day deadline set by sharia law, in force since the 1979 Islamic Revolution". http://t.uani.com/1E8hOfB     Nuclear Program & Negotiations AFP: "The world will know in the coming weeks if Iran can make the 'tough decisions' needed for a nuclear deal, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday. As the clock ticks down to a November 24 deadline for an agreement on reining in Iran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, Kerry vowed that global powers were going to be 'very careful', everything will be based on expert advice." http://t.uani.com/1s0iHz8 Trend: "Iran has carried out what was needed based on its commitments in the interim nuclear deal and now, the ball is in West's court, Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee spokesman Kazem Jalali said. Jalali told Trend on Oct.30 that reaching the final nuclear accord depends on the level of western countries' loyalty towards their commitments in the nuclear talks, as Iran has done everything regarding its commitments so far. The P5+1 (five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany) is preparing to hold the next round of negotiations with Iran to reach a comprehensive nuclear deal until Nov.24. The time for next talks hasn't been scheduled yet. Iran and the P5+1 held their latest round of talks in Vienna in mid-October to work out a final agreement aimed at ending the long-standing dispute over Tehran's nuclear program. Last November, the two sides clinched an interim nuclear accord, which took effect on Jan. 20 and expired six months later. However, the parties agreed to extend their talks until Nov. 24 as they remained divided on a number of key issues". http://t.uani.com/1sQCZdC Washington Free Beacon: "Deputy National Security Adviser and MFA in creative writing Ben Rhodes likened an Iranian nuclear deal to Obamacare in a talk to progressive activists last January, according to audio obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The remarks, made at a since-discontinued regular meeting of White House personnel and representatives of liberal interest groups, reveal the importance of a rapprochement with Iran to President Obama, who is looking to establish his legacy as his presidency enters its lame-duck phase". http://t.uani.com/1paQ0Ec The Algemeiner: "A leading advocacy group working to counter Iran's nuclear program has urged the Obama Administration to press for "full transparency" on the Tehran regime's nuclear installations ahead of any discussions about the lifting of sanctions. United Against Nuclear Iran, a New York-based lobby group whose leadership includes Mark Wallace, a former American Ambassador to the United Nations, and Dr. Gary Samore, the former White House Coordinator for Arms Control, was reacting to a statement from the chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Alaeddin Boroujerdi , who said that a US proposal for the gradual lifting of sanctions was 'unacceptable.'" http://t.uani.com/1yM1UEC Sanctions Relief Reuters: "Asian buyers of Iranian crude imported 6.6 percent less in September than a year ago, the first on-year decline since December, but shipments rose back above the 1 million barrels-per-day mark allowed under a deal that eased Western sanctions. World powers are negotiating to strike a permanent settlement with Iran on its disputed nuclear program by a Nov. 24 deadline. Tehran would have to curb its nuclear work to ensure it cannot be applied to weapons in exchange for removal of the sanctions that have hobbled its oil-based economy. Iran and the United States said earlier they made some progress toward a final deal this month but that much work remains to be done. Some industry sources expect Iran to strike an agreement to escape the tough sanctions that have cut its crude exports by more than half since early 2012. Tehran's crude sales would likely surge if Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States reach any agreement with Iran that would scuttle the sanctions." http://t.uani.com/1E8itxx Human Rights Al- Monitor: "A number of Iranian officials have claimed that there is a conspiracy behind the serial acid attacks on women that shocked the city of Esfahan and horrified citizens, leading to mass protests and eventually the detention of several journalists. "The acid attacks in Esfahan are a game and a conspiracy," said Ayatollah Naser Makaram Shirazi. He said that Iran's enemies wanted to "deviate [public] thought into another direction" after parliament presented a bill to offer legal protection to 'vice' groups' that take it upon themselves to enact the Islamic teaching of 'enjoining good and forbidding wrong.'" http://t.uani.com/1wNi2W3 Foreign Affairs Trend: "The Head of Iran's Strategic Council on Foreign Relations Kamal Kharrazi met with the UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson, the Iranian news agency IRNA reported Oct. 30.A joint press conference was held following the meeting. Kharrazi said at the press conference that the discussed issues included the great powers' mistakes that led to instability in the region, as well as the methods for solving problems from the point of view of Iran. Kharrazi praised his meeting with the UN deputy secretary-general, and said the discussions focused on the developments in the region, the situation in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and the issues regarding as to whether the UN meets global community's requirements. Jan Eliasson, for his part, said at the press conference that it is necessary to settle the region's problems through political negotiations, rather than military means. The UN deputy secretary-general is visiting Iran starting from Oct. 28." http://t.uani.com/1G2csV3 Opinion & Analysis Lee Smith in The Weekly Standard: "Last week, the Obama White House finally clarified its Middle East policy. It's détente with Iran and a cold war with Israel. To the administration, Israel isn't worth the trouble its prime minister causes. As one anonymous Obama official put it to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, what good is Benjamin Netanyahu if he won't make peace with the Palestinians? Bibi doesn't have the nerve of Begin, Rabin, or Sharon, said the unnamed source. The current leader of this longstanding U.S. ally, he added, is "a chickens-t." It's hardly surprising that the Obama White House is crudely badmouthing Netanyahu; it has tried to undercut him from the beginning. But this isn't just about the administration's petulance and pettiness. There seems to be a strategic purpose to heckling Israel's prime minister. With a possible deal over Iran's nuclear weapons program in sight, the White House wants to weaken Netanyahu's ability to challenge an Iran agreement". http://t.uani.com/1to2PuD David Ignatius in The Washington Post: "An intriguing figure is gaining prominence in the Iranian government just as regional conflicts in Iraq and Syria intensify and nuclear talks with the West move toward a Nov. 24 deadline.The newly prominent official is Ali Shamkhani, the head of Iran's national security council. He played a key role last summer in the ouster of Nouri al-Maliki as Iraq's prime minister. In interviews over the past few weeks, Iraqi, Iranian, Lebanese, European and U.S. officials have all described Shamkhani as a rising political player. 'He is a person in the middle,' with close links to both President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, says Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian official who teaches at Princeton University and knows the leadership well. 'Shamkhani can play an influential role in managing the crisis in the Arab world,' he argues, in part because he is from an Arabic-speaking region of southern Iran". http://t.uani.com/1DD6tlr Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post: "In an interview on Thursday, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said, for the first time, something reassuring about the Iran 'P5+1' talks: 'I will say this to everybody: We've set a very clear standard. There are four present pathways to a bomb for Iran - the hidden so-called secret facility in a mountain called Fordow, the open Natanz enrichment facility, the plutonium heavy-water reactor called Arak, and then, of course, covert activities. We've pledged that our goal is to shut off each pathway sufficient that we know we have a breakout time of a minimum of a year that gives us the opportunity to respond if they were to try to do that'. http://t.uani.com/1wQ8qfD      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.