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TOP STORIES
Iran signed the first oil output contract under a new,
less restrictive model on Tuesday, Iranian oil officials were quoted
as saying, with a firm identified by the United States as part of a
conglomerate controlled by Iran's Supreme Leader.... The
National Iranian Oil Company signed the contract with Persia Oil
& Gas Industry Development Co., an Iranian firm, according to the
oil ministry's official website SHANA. The U.S. Treasury Department
named Persia Oil & Gas in 2013 as part of Setad Ejraiye Farman-e
Emam, or Setad, a secretive and powerful organization overseen by
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. With stakes in nearly every
sector of Iran's economy, Setad built its empire on the seizure of
thousands of properties belonging to religious minorities, business
people and Iranians living abroad, according to a 2013 Reuters
investigation, which estimated the network's holdings at about $95
billion. The U.S. Treasury in 2013 sanctioned Setad and 37
companies it said it oversees, calling it "a major network of
front companies controlled by Iran's leadership." Those
sanctions were lifted in January, as part of the historic nuclear
deal reached between Iran and world powers in 2015.
Aircraft maker Boeing Co is making progress on a deal
to provide more than 100 commercial airplanes to Iran though none
will be delivered in 2016, the company's top executive said on
Tuesday... "We won't deliver any aircraft under that deal this
year - these are deliveries that are a year, two, three
downstream," Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg
told reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Chicago on future
technologies. "But it's significant opportunity for us and I'm
pleased to see that we're making steady progress." ...
Muilenburg said Boeing is "in the final stages of working
through the deal structure with our customers in Iran" while
also working through the U.S. government licensing process.
Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) warned
Saudi naval vessels taking part in military exercises in the Gulf on
Wednesday not to get close to Iranian waters, in a sign of heightened
tensions between the two regional rivals. Saudi Arabia began
naval war games including live fire exercises on Tuesday in the Gulf
and Strait of Hormuz, the world's most important oil route.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC MISSILE
PROGRAM
The Obama administration misled journalists and
lawmakers for more than nine months about a secret agreement to lift
international sanctions on a critical funding node of Iran's
ballistic missile program, as part of a broader "ransom"
package earlier this year that involved Iran freeing several U.S.
hostages, according to U.S. officials and congressional sources
apprised of the situation. The administration agreed to
immediately lift global restrictions on Iran's Bank Sepah-a bank the
Treasury Department described in 2007 as the "linchpin of Iran's
missile procurement"-eight years before they were to be lifted
under last summer's comprehensive nuclear agreement. U.S. officials
initially described the move as a "goodwill gesture" to
Iran. The United States also agreed to provide Iran $1.7 billion
in cash to release or drop charges against 21 Iranians indicted for
illegally assisting Tehran. Full details of this secret agreement
were kept hidden from Congress and journalists for more than nine
months, multiple sources told the Washington Free Beacon.
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
Lawyers for Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab, whose
prosecution in the U.S. for alleged sanctions violations has drawn
national attention in Turkey, will argue at a hearing Wednesday that
the criminal charges against him are an overreach by the U.S.
government and should be dismissed. Mr. Zarrab, who had been
living in Turkey with Turkish and Iranian citizenship, was arrested
by U.S. authorities in March when he arrived in Miami for a family
vacation. Mr. Zarrab, 34 years old, was accused of helping Iranian
companies process financial transactions that sidestepped U.S.
sanctions against Iran. The criminal charges against him include
conspiracies to launder money and defraud U.S. banks and carry a
maximum prison sentence of 75 years.
BUSINESS RISK
Brazilian companies such as Embraer SA and Marcopolo
SA are scrambling to close multi billion-dollar deals to sell planes
and buses to Iran, seeking to navigate remaining U.S. financial
sanctions, senior officials have said. The plane-maker is in
advanced negotiations to sell at least 20 E195 jets with a total list
price of more than $1 billion, while the bus manufacturer is in talks
to supply part of the 27,000 units Tehran is seeking, according to
Mahdi Rounagh, a senior official at Iran's Foreign Ministry and until
recently deputy ambassador in Brasilia. The problem is that
Brazilian banks are reluctant to deal with Iran for fear of penalties
by the U.S., even after Washington lifted restrictions on non-U.S.
banks. Their concern is that their U.S. assets and subsidiaries could
classify them as U.S. banks, according to two senior bank executives
in Brasilia. Business and government officials say Brazil must try
harder to find alternatives, such as using smaller European banks
that don't operate in the U.S.
Iran's top renewable-energy authority denied that it's
signed any agreement covering electricity generation projects with a
Swiss developer that has said it obtained power-purchase agreements
for 370 megawatts of installations. The Renewable Energy
Organization of Iran, which is known as Suna, hasn't signed any deal
with MECI Group International, said Jafar Mohamadnejad Sigaroudi, the
deputy in charge of planning and development at the organization...
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Iran on Tuesday clinched the first oil-field deal
designed to boost its production, vowing to pump more crude despite a
collective OPEC deal to curb output. Iran's oil ministry news
agency Shana said the government had signed a $2.2 billion contract
with a unit of Iranian company Tadbir Energy, which is controlled by
a religious foundation overseen by Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei... The announcement was made after the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed Wednesday in Algiers to
collectively reduce output by between 200,000 barrels a day and
700,000 barrels a day. But Iran-along with Nigeria and Libya-would be
exempted from making a reduction, posing a potential challenge to the
deal.
Construction noises are rumbling these days from a
vast site in the Iranian capital where the city's latest megamall is
taking shape. The project-the 2.7 million-square-foot Iran Mall
in Tehran's northwestern outskirts-is part of a new crop of shopping
centers sprouting up across the country, reshaping its retail
landscape as the Persian Gulf state comes out of years of crippling
economic sanctions. The mall, built by real-estate and
industrial magnate Ali Ansari, is one of roughly 300 retail
properties currently under construction across the country to meet
growing consumer demand at home, according to Boris Planer, the chief
economist at Planet Retail in Frankfurt.
Real-estate developers have found their next big
project: Iran. The onetime pariah's year-old deal to curb its
nuclear program lifts a host of economic sanctions that have limited
the ability to do business in the country. Now, hotel and shopping
mall developers from Europe and the Middle East are rushing to take
advantage of the opening. Developers are making bets on the
capital city of Tehran, while some European companies are leasing
office space there, lifting the market. Plans are moving forward to
turn an area near the city's international airport into a logistics
hub that would compete with those in Turkey and Dubai... Some
U.S. sanctions are still in effect, discouraging American companies
from expanding into Iran for now. Many international companies in
sectors like energy and health care are holding back as
well. The early movers include hotel industry companies like
France's Accor, Spain's Meliá and Germany's Steigenberger Hotel Group.
When the leaders of India, Iran and Afghanistan
gathered in Tehran in the spring for a ceremony marking India's
development of a strategic Iranian port, they recited Persian poetry
and said their partnership would "alter the course of
history... Months after the ceremony in May and pledges by India
to inject $500 million into the project, the much-heralded port of
Chabahar remains a sleepy outpost - as well as a shadow of the
Chinese-built port of Gwadar, 100 kilometers (62 miles) to the east
across Iran's border with Pakistan.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
The European Parliament is set to vote on a roadmap
for relations with Iran that critics charge sidesteps Tehran's
endorsement of anti-Semitism, terrorism, and calls to destroy
Israel. Compiled by Richard Howitt, a member of the European
Union's legislative arm for Britain's Labour Party and a close ally
of party leader Jeremy Corbyn, the draft report on "EU strategy
towards Iran after the nuclear agreement" is scheduled to be
voted on Thursday by the Committee on Foreign Affairs in
Brussels. The draft document, which sets principles for
normalization of European Union relations with Iran following the
agreement to lift sanctions from Tehran in exchange for the scaling
back of its nuclear program, contains one single criticism of Iran,
regarding its use of the death penalty. It does not mention Iran's
sponsorship of terrorism, support for Holocaust denial, and threats
to destroy Israel. "Iran's revolutionary legacy and its
constitution as an Islamic state must not be an impediment for
finding common ground on matters related to democracy or human
rights," the document states. Omitting reference to Iran's
support for the Hezbollah military wing, which is on the EU list of
terrorist groups, the document "welcomes Iran's contribution to
the fight against ISIS."
Iran's foreign minister and parliament speaker called
off meetings with Germany's vice chancellor over his demand that the
Islamic Republic recognize Israel as a precondition for full
normalization of ties between Berlin and Tehran, the semi-official
Fars News Agency reported on Tuesday. Sigmar Gabriel, who also serves
as economy minister, arrived in Tehran on Sunday as part of Germany's
efforts to renew business ties with the Islamic Republic following
the last year's nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers that
eased international sanctions in exchange for curbs to Tehran's
nuclear program. Ahead of the visit, Gabriel told Der Spiegel that
Germany could not move ahead with full normalization of ties until
the Iranian regime accepted Israel's right to exist. According to the
Fars News Agency, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and
Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani subsequently snubbed Gabriel, who was
in the Islamic Republic for two days with some 120 business
representatives and dozens of journalists. Meetings between the
Iranian politicians and Gabriel were canceled, the report said.
REGIONAL DESTABILIZATION
The United Arab Emirates said on Wednesday Yemeni
Houthi forces had attacked a UAE vessel in a strategic Red Sea
shipping lane off the coast of Yemen at the weekend and called the
incident an "act of terrorism." Hundreds of Emirati
soldiers in a Saudi-led coalition have been fighting Yemen's
Iran-allied Houthis, who control the capital, besides training Yemeni
troops in the port of Aden to help rebuild a state loyal to exiled
president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi. The vessel, an Australian-built
high speed logistics catamaran under lease to the United Arab
Emirates military, was attacked by Houthi fighters near the Bab
al-Mandab strait off Yemen's southern coast on Saturday. The coalition
rescued its civilian passengers. No crew were hurt. "The
targeting of the civilian ship in an international channel has
serious implications for freedom of navigation, and is an act of
terror," the UAE foreign ministry said in a statement carried by
state news agency WAM, without elaborating.
HUMAN RIGHTS
Iran, which puts more people to death every year than
any other country in the world but China, is debating a measure that
could significantly cut the number of executions, local news outlets
reported Tuesday. But the bill seems certain to face considerable
opposition from hard-liners in the judiciary. newly
installed Parliament, thought to be more liberal than its predecessor
but, until now, unwilling to take any unorthodox steps, is
considering a bill that would abolish the death penalty for drug
smugglers, who account for a large majority of those executed. While
the government does not release figures on capital punishment, the
local news media said that 950 people had been hanged in 2015. Human
rights groups say the total could have been as high as 1,500, and the
United Nations put the number at nearly 1,000. Possession of as
little as 30 grams of heroin is enough under Iranian law to face
execution by hanging. Nevertheless, drug addiction and smuggling are
rampant, officials acknowledge.
Calls for a boycott of next year's Women's World Chess
Championship in Tehran, in protest at Iran's strict hijab laws, have
prompted a big debate inside Iran in both the official and social
media. At stake are two of the most current and contentious
issues in Iran - equal participation for women in sport and
increasing resistance among growing numbers of Iranian women to their
country's compulsory Islamic dress code. The controversy started
after Iran was named as host country at the end of September, in the
absence of any other volunteers, prompting dismay from some
international players, including the current US champion, Nazi
Paikidze. Georgian-born Paikidze said she was taking a stand over
the requirement for all women living in Iran or visiting the country
to wear a headscarf... Some Iranian women have welcomed
Paikidze's support for an issue they have long campaigned
on. "I have never experienced the freedom of not wearing a
veil without the fear of the morality police," wrote artist and
activist Atena Daemi in an emotional Facebook post. Currently on
home leave from a seven-year prison sentence, Daemi wrote that she
was paying the price for challenging the law in Iran and posting a photo
of herself without her headscarf.
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