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TOP STORIES
A day after winning re-election last month, Iran's
President Hassan Rouhani reaffirmed a campaign pledge: that he'll
find a way to free his country from sanctions that hobble its
economy. That's a vow President Donald Trump and U.S. lawmakers are
making harder than ever to keep. Trump used his first overseas trip
last week to portray Shiite-led Iran as the embodiment of evil, the
common enemy that could bring America's Sunni-led Gulf allies
together with Israel to achieve Middle East peace. In Washington, Republicans
in Congress are also doubling down, pressing for legislation to add
more sanctions, not lift those that remain after the 2015 nuclear
deal between Iran and world powers. Against those odds, Rouhani's
best bet after taking 57 percent of the vote is to get the blessing
of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to seek negotiations with
the U.S. while cultivating European leaders to work around the
restrictions, said Elizabeth Rosenberg, a senior analyst at the
Center for A New American Security.
Iran will reportedly resume financial assistance to the
Palestinian militant group Hamas following a freeze in relations,
caused by Hamas' refusal to support the regime of Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad, an ally of Tehran, and the group's unwillingness to
take Iran's side in its rivalry with regional enemy, Saudi Arabia.
Iran appears to have backed down on these demands and ties have
warmed in recent weeks after the election of Ismail Haniyeh as
Hamas's new political leader on May 6 over former deputy head Moussa
Abu Marzouk, who Tehran reportedly did not want to work with. For the
past two weeks, senior Hamas figures have been meeting officials from
Iran's military arm, the Revolutionary Guards, and Shiite militant
group Hezbollah in Lebanon, Palestinian sources told London-based
Arabic daily Asharq al-Awsat on Tuesday.
When Iran's scientists sent a monkey into space in 2013,
the country's president volunteered to be the first Iranian to blast
aloft in a domestically built rocket, possibly as early as 2018. But
the term of that president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also expired in
2013. And now, apparently, so have Iran's ambitions for homegrown
human spaceflight. The semiofficial ILNA news agency reported on
Wednesday that the government-run space agency had canceled a project
to launch a human-carrying rocket. It quoted Mohammad Homayoun Sadr,
deputy head of the agency, as saying the $15 billion to $20 billion
developmental costs over 15 years had been judged too expensive,
according to a translation by The Associated Press. In January 2013,
when Iran said it had successfully launched a monkey named Pishgam -
Persian for pioneer - more than 70 miles into the edge of space and
then retrieved the animal alive, the experiment was regarded by
Iranian scientists as a prelude to human flight within five to eight
years. Previously, Iran had sent a mouse, a turtle and worms aloft.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
A political analyst said the new sanctions bill passed
by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee does not contravene the
nuclear pact, albeit it is against the spirit of the historic
agreement. "This matter was already been raised when [former US
president ] Barack Obama was in office. All sides were then convinced
that those sanctions were not a breach of JCPOA. There is no
difference now," Ali Khorram, a former diplomat and representative
to the UN office in Geneva, said in a talk with IRNA. He was
referring to the official title of the 2015 nuclear deal with world
powers, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The Senate committee
voted 18-3 in favour of the legislation on May 25, paving the way for
its consideration by the full senate. If passed by the senate, the
bill would impose new sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile
development and alleged human rights violations.
BUSINESS RISK
In Iran, there is one civil servant for every 26 to 28
people whereas the international average is one for every 600 to 800
people, Iran Productivity Association announced. The excessive number
of government employees has become a recurrent subject of discussion
among officials and experts these days. "The surplus workforce
[in state bodies] is consuming 90% of the current budget, leaving no
breathing room for other activities," said Parliament Speaker
Ali Larijani last year. Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh has also
complained of 100,000 excessive workforce in the ministry under his
watch, saying they were all employed during the eight-year tenure of
former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Persian daily Shahrvand reported.
Last month, the ministries of energy and education also announced
that they have 25,700 and 50,000 workforce in excess respectively.
Every now and then, other ministries and governmental organizations
speak of the same problem.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
After the lifting of some of Iran's sanctions following
the nuclear accord, the country's banking system connected with small
Malaysian banks though there are still no ties with major lenders,
the head of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and
Agriculture said in a meeting with Malaysia's ambassador to Iran on
Wednesday. "Banking issues pose major obstacles to bilateral
trade since we are facing problems of transferring money or opening
letters of credit," Gholamhossein Shafei was also quoted as
saying by ICCIMA's website. He noted that both countries' officials
and central bankers had constructive negotiations during President
Hassan Rouhani's trip to Malaysia and it is hoped that major Malaysian
banks resolve their issues as soon as possible to boost bilateral
trade.
SYRIA CONFLICT
In April, Syrian rebel fighters and their US
special-forces trainers repulsed an ISIS attackin an hours-long
battle marked by suicide bombers and coalition airstrikes. The battle
took place at al Tanf near the Syria-Iraq border, and the camp there
is still used by US and UK personnel to train Western-backed
fighters. But with ISIS' territorial presence in Syria continuing to
erode, al Tanf and the area around it - near the intersection of the
Syrian, Iraqi, and Jordanian borders - looks to be the site of a
potential clash between the US-led coalition, its local partners, and
the Assad regime and its partners, backed by Iran. With US-backed
forces gearing up to liberate ISIS' self-proclaimed capital in Raqqa
and ISIS losing ground elsewhere in the Syria, combatants in the
country are reportedly trying to position themselves to assume
control of territory vacated by terrorist group.
HUMAN RIGHTS
The leader of Iran's Sunni population,
Molavi Abdolhamid Ismaeelzahi, told the Center for Human Rights in
Iran (CHRI) that Sunnis should be invited to participate in the
second-term government of newly re-elected President Hassan Rouhani.
"Through interviews and articles, Mr. Rouhani has been made
aware of the demands of ethnic and religious minorities, especially
Sunnis," said Molavi Abdolhamid, the Friday prayer leader of
Zahedan, the capital of the Sunni-dominated Sistan-Baluchistan
Province. "Now that the elections have been held with great
excitement and he has received a high number of votes, Mr. Rouhani
should implement the law and end discrimination so that competent
individuals from ethnic and religious minorities could be properly
utilized in government," added Molavi Abdolhamid, who endorsed
Rouhani. "This would make a great impact on national solidarity
and security."
OPINION & ANALYSIS
Qatar's policies of continuing its relations with
countries undermining the security of the region have aggravated the
crises in the region, especially its relations with organizations
classified as terrorist groups in the Gulf, like the Hezbollah
militia. Doha's interference is similar to Iran's interference in the
internal affairs of several countries. In Qatar's case, its
interference through its many positions on various regional issues
are on record at various points in time and have contributed to the
escalation of regional crises and deterioration of ties with the
other Gulf countries. Regarding the Palestinian case, Doha supported
the Hamas coup against the Palestinian Authority, thus deepening the
Palestinian division. It has also highlighted its relations with Israel,
although the latter considered Hamas as a terrorist organization.
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