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TOP
STORIES
Iran is not
ready to compromise on the issues of intelligence sharing, sanctions
and definitions of terrorist groups in order to join an international
task force against terror financing, a minister said
today. Iran, along with North Korea, is blacklisted by the
Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and aims to be removed from
"high risk and non-cooperative" status, even if it does not
obtain full membership. Economy Minister Ali Tayebnia said Iran
is not obliged to accept all the conditions put forward by the task
force. But it will implement some of the recommendations in an
Action Plan developed with the FATF in order to be upgraded to either
a fully cooperating or partially cooperating country, he added.
A senior
commander in Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Tuesday that
Iran is in possession of missiles that can hit Israel. Iran's Press
TV quoted Commander of the IRGC's Aerospace Division Brigadier
General Amirali Hajizadeh as telling reporters that "we do not
need missiles with a range of over 2,000 kilometers. The longest
range required for [Iran's] missiles is the [Israeli] occupied
lands." The commander warned that "the Zionist regime is
our biggest target."
Austrian and
Iranian bankers are meeting in Vienna on Wednesday to
discuss the resumption of trade financing, people familiar with the
discussion said. The meeting will take place at the Austrian central
bank after the governors of the two nations' central banks, Ewald
Nowotny and Valiollah Seif, met on Tuesday, according to the
people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.
Austria's top three banks Erste Group Bank AG, UniCredit Bank Austria
AG and Raiffeisen Bank International AG are all among the
participants, the people said.
SANCTIONS
RELIEF
Fourteen
international shipping lines have returned to Iranian ports following
the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the
formal name of the nuclear deal signed by Iran with the West), the
deputy head of Ports and Marine Organization of Iran said. Jalil
Eslami added that eight more shipping lines have signaled their
readiness to resume their activities here. "Mediterranean
Shipping Company, the world's second-largest shipping line in terms
of container vessel capacity, and Evergreen Line are among the top
shipping lines engaged in economic interactions with Iranian
ports," he said. France's CMA CGM, the world's third largest
container shipping group, called on Shahid Rajaei, Iran's biggest
container port at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, early August.
Iran and
Australia have signed fresh agreements to forge closer ties, with
Australian Trade Minister Steve Ciobo announcing the dawn of a new
age of relationship. Ciobo is leading a trade delegation of more than
20 companies to Tehran, seeking out opportunities, buoyed by the
prospects in Iran's mining, oil and gas, and other industries as well
as the near 80 million population. "We are in the dawn of a new
age of the relationship with Iran," Ciobo told a gathering of
business leaders in Tehran on Tuesday night... Companies
such as Woodside Petroleum, engineering company WorleyParsons and
Australian Water Partnership seek to capitalize on historically
strong economic ties to stake out a share of business opportunities
in Iran. Representatives of Australia's flagship carrier Qantas Airways,
global biotechnology company Cochlear, GrainCorp agribusiness
company, Australian Livestock Export Corporation Ltd (LiveCorp) and
the universities of Melbourne and Sydney are also tagging along...
Australian natural health company Blackmores became one of the first
businesses to secure a deal with local firm Tasnim Pharm, allowing it
access to Iran's market for vitamins and dietary supplements that is
estimated to be worth at least $585 million a year.
The Central Bank
of the Islamic Republic of Iran (CBI) says Austrian export credit
agency OeKB has raised its cover for Iran transactions to 1 billion
euros, the Mehr news agency reports. The announcement by Austrian
Minister for Finance Hans Jörg Schelling came during a meeting with
CBI Governor Valiollah Seif in Vienna, the report said. "In the
meeting, it was announced that OeKB's insurance cover for exports to
Iran has increased to 1 billion euros from 280 million euros,"
Mehr said, citing a CBI statement.
European banks
and firms should use their influence in the United States to speed up
the implementation of financing projects with Iran, the Islamic
Republic's central bank chief said on Wednesday.
MILITARY
MATTERS
An Italian
frigate has held manoeuvres with two Iranian warships in the Strait
of Hormuz after making a rare Western port call in the Islamic
Republic, an Iranian commander said Wednesday. The joint
manoeuvres in the strategic waterway between the Gulf and the Sea of
Oman come after a series of incidents between Iranian vessels and
U.S. warships in the area in recent months. The Italian frigate Euro
sailed to the strait for the manoeuvres with Iranian ships Alvand and
Alborz after making the port call in Bandar Abbas Saturday,
Admiral Hossein Azad told the official IRNA news agency.
SYRIA
CONFLICT
A top Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander told Iranian media last
week that the Guard and allies supply intelligence to Russia for
airstrikes in Syria. Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, who is senior
advisor to the supreme leader and was IRGC chief commander from 1997
through 2007, made the remarks in a lengthy television interview on
Sept. 22. "The Russians are responsible for aerial support of
ground units, meaning those who are fighting on the ground are the
Syrian army, Syrian popular forces, and some advisory forces and/or
Hezbollah forces. Russia largely plays the role of supporting these
[forces] by air," Safavi said.
Iranian Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif Wednesday visited Ankara for
his third set of talks with top Turkish officials in less than
one-and-a-half-months despite standing on opposite sides of the Syria
conflict, sources said. Zarif met with Turkish Foreign Minister
Mevlut Cavusoglu in an unscheduled trip to Ankara on his way back to
Tehran from a visit to New York for the U.N. General Assembly, a
Turkish diplomatic source told AFP. They discussed bilateral and regional
issues, including the Syrian conflict, the source added. Zarif was
later due to meet with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, the
premier's office said.
HUMAN
RIGHTS
The Qarchak
women's prison located in a desert, east of Tehran, is known as the
most dangerous and worst prison in Iran due to its inhumane medical
and psychological conditions. The Human Rights' Activists News
Agency (HRANA) published a detailed report about the prison saying it
held the worst reputation among women's prisons in Iran. The
prison is located in a barren desert and hosts a big number of
inmates despite its small size. The prison does not divide inmates
according to the crimes committed and this leads to violence thus,
worsening the situation as they lack medical services and are
subjected to torture.
DOMESTIC
POLITICS
Before being
elected president of Iran in June 2013, Hassan Rouhani was known as a
close friend and constant companion of Expediency Council Chairman
Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani... throughout his career...
everyone thought of Rouhani as Rafsanjani's right-hand
man... Despite their long history of working together, there are
now rumors in Tehran about Rouhani and Rafsanjani having
disagreements that are leading them to distance themselves from one
another. The Feb. 26 Assembly of Experts elections exposed
one of the main aspects of this political fault line.
Iran's worsening
water crisis has spread desperation across this parched farm belt.
Families watch sons leave the villages to hunt for scarce work in the
cities. Crops are abandoned. The elderly and infirm forego medical
care because they barely have enough money to survive. Like their
counterparts in California's Central Valley and elsewhere around the
world, Iran's farmers have struggled with several successive years of
drought. But environmental mismanagement, water overuse, the
pressures of population growth and a government more concerned with
security and economic challenges have exacerbated Iran's agricultural
problems.
OPINION
& ANALYSIS
A well-intended
effort to help victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks threatens
to dilute the power of one of our most effective national security
tools in the fight against global terrorism-the state sponsor of
terrorism designation-and, in turn, the ability to secure justified
compensation for victims of crimes sponsored by the world's leading
terrorist state actor-the Islamic Republic of Iran... The
Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act or JASTA, which was vetoed
by President Obama last Friday after passing both the House and
Senate, would allow private citizens to sue foreign governments they
believe have played a role in a terrorist attack, irrespective of
whether that foreign government is a designated U.S. sponsor of
terrorism, or a U.S. ally... By expanding the scope of allowable
lawsuits against sovereign nations to include countries not
explicitly designated as state-sponsors of terrorism, JASTA would
effectively create a false equivalence in U.S. courts between the
'worst of the worst,' like Iran, and every other ally or partner.
Indeed, under the precedent set by JASTA, any country in the world
could potentially be a target of U.S. lawsuits. The Iranian regime
would like nothing more than to see U.S. courts effectively apply a
"terror-sponsor" label to an ever-expanding pool of states
that includes U.S. allies... Let me be clear: victims of the
Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks should be compensated as much as
possible for their grave loss. We also must ensure that our most
powerful and effective national security tools are not undermined. If
it was the case that Saudi Arabia was at the root of this worst of
all terror attacks then it, or any other government that
systematically attacked the U.S., should have been added to the state
sponsors of terrorism list by either of the successive Republican or Democrat
administrations. Taking this important national security designation
and effectively placing it in the hands of plaintiffs and defense
lawyers rather than our policy and intelligence community-while
emotionally appealing to our sense of great respect for and
obligation to the victims of 9/11-is not sound policy.
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