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TOP STORIES
With Trump warning of a last chance for "the worst
deal ever negotiated", Britain, France and Germany have begun
talks on a plan to satisfy him by addressing Iran's ballistic missile
tests and its regional influence while preserving the 2015 accord
that curbed Iran's nuclear ambitions for at least a decade.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is seeking British and
French support for tough new penalties against Iran and preventing a
U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. Tillerson on Sunday began
a nearly weeklong trip to Europe, and a U.S. official said Iran was
expected to dominate Tillerson's talks in London and Paris, the first
two stops.
Iran's supreme leader has ordered the Revolutionary
Guard to loosen its hold on the economy, the country's defense
minister says, raising the possibility that the paramilitary
organization might privatize some of its vast holdings... But whether
the Guard would agree remains unclear, as the organization is
estimated to hold around a third of the country's entire economy.
UANI IN THE NEWS
Clearly, the financial, legal and socio-political
uncertainties of doing business with Iran are great. UANI will
continue to work to ensure such risks are universally understood,
including in Congress and among companies as they contemplate their
respective next steps in relation to the murderous and
terror-sponsoring regime in Tehran. Claiming ignorance of the risks
associated with Iran is longer an excuse for either.
With President Trump's decision last week to lay down a
red line on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and at the
same time slap more onerous nonnuclear sanctions on Iran, its
clerical establishment has vowed a "severe response." But
while Tehran's rhetoric has been threatening, its riposte is likely
to be restrained due to three inconvenient realities: the Iranians
need the JCPOA more than Washington; the United States has limited
equities in Iran; and Iran is overextended in the region.
IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL
Germany is lobbying among European allies to agree new
sanctions against Iran in an attempt to prevent U.S. President Donald
Trump from terminating an international deal curbing Tehran's nuclear
program, Der Spiegel magazine reported on Saturday. The report cited
diplomats in Brussels as saying that Germany was pushing for new
sanctions together with Britain and France to show the United States
that European allies were taking Trump's criticism against Iran
seriously.
France's foreign minister said on Sunday he would visit
Iran on March 5 to discuss its ballistic missile program and the
nuclear deal agreed with world powers in 2015, as tensions between
the two countries rise.
The Iran nuclear deal is on life support and on a
trajectory for collapse, many policy experts believe, despite U.S.
President Donald Trump's current continuation of sanctions
relief.
NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC-MISSILE PROGRAMS
France's foreign minister accused Iran on Monday of not
respecting part of a U.N. resolution that calls on Tehran to refrain
from work on ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads.
Iran's defense minister today denied a report that
Tehran has accepted Western demands to hold negotiations on the
country's controversial missile program, according to Tasnim News
Agency.
IRAN PROTESTS
The European Parliament is set to host a senior Iranian
official said to have been involved in a violent crackdown on
protesters, prompting criticism from Iranian opposition groups and
Israeli politicians.
Iranian media are reporting that members of parliament
will be allowed access to prisoners who were detained during
antigovernment protests that rocked the country, beginning last
December.
The biggest challenge to Iran's establishment in years
fizzled out after a couple of weeks of violent demonstrations, but
while widespread discontent has been quieted for now, the calm won't
last forever. The roots of the protests -- frustration among the
youth over their lack of freedoms and opportunities -- remain just
below the surface. And with the younger generation clearly exhibiting
its willingness to take to the streets to express its anger over the
status quo, the onus is on the Islamic republic's aging leadership to
bridge a growing generational divide.
At 25 percent, the interest rate paid on a savings
account at the Caspian Finance and Credit Institution in Tehran was a
better return than Mehrdad Asgari could earn investing in his own
business renting out construction equipment. So in December 2016, he
jumped at the chance, depositing $42,000 in a savings account. Before
long though, Caspian stopped allowing withdrawals. After three
months, it stopped paying interest. Finally, in May, it shut its
doors for good - becoming one of the largest in a long series of
failures of Iranian financial institutions in recent years. The
closings have destroyed the savings of thousands of people, imperiled
the banking system and helped fuel the anti-government protests that
roiled the country late last year.
As protests recently began to consume Iran, European
capitals were at a seeming loss for words. After several days of
silence, Europe's leaders issued curt statements of sympathy for the
protestors - but with a notable tinge of moral equivocation. A
European Union statement and Britain's foreign secretary separately
called on "all concerned to refrain from violence."
Germany's foreign minister urged "all sides" to abstain
from bloodshed. What accounts for Europe's apparent conflation of
victim and oppressor?
Beginning on Dec. 28, a wave of protests surged across
Iran, with at least 75 cities reportedly experiencing one or more
demonstrations in the first week. Soon after they began, commentators
rushed to attribute the protests to various grievances, from Ponzi-like
banking scheme collapses and budget corruption allegations to soaring
prices of eggs and gasoline. However, our research suggests that
rather than grievances alone, an underappreciated precursor for the
protests was the buildup of demonstrations and rallies by teachers,
workers, trade unions and civil society associations.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
What is it with the Harvard Kennedy School's penchant
for celebrating dishonorable characters?... I'm speaking of Hossein
Derakhshan, an Iranian blogger and vehement apologist for the Tehran
regime. Last week, the Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media,
Politics, and Public Policy named Derakhshan a fellow for the spring
semester.... Derakhshan has spent years viciously assailing real
dissidents, and he has a long record of public statements in support
of the regime, its leadership and security apparatus, and its
conspiratorial and anti-Semitic worldview.
As an Iranian-Canadian academic, an international writer
and an ex-fellow of Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies who
spent 125 days in solitary confinement in the Evin Prison, I am
writing to you [Harvard] to express my great concern over the news of
extending a fellowship to Hossein Derakhshan. Hossein Derakhshan is a
notorious figure among Iranian intellectuals, artists and civil
society activists, certainly not because of any achievements in
academia or in science and technology, but mainly because of his
infamous character of betraying and denouncing his fellow countrymen
and collaborating closely with the Iranian security forces.
SANCTIONS RELIEF
Iran's trade with the European Union member states
during the 11 months to Nov. 30, 2017, stood at close to €18.56
billion, registering a 57% increase compared with the corresponding
period of last year. Iran's top five trading partners over the period
were Italy with more than €4.54 billion, France with €3.45 billion, Germany
with €2.99 billion, Spain with €1.67 billion and the Netherlands with
€1.34 billion worth of exchanges, the report reads. Trade with Italy
saw a 117% upsurge year-on-year-the highest increase in bilateral
exchanges between Iran and EU members over the period, latest
Eurostat figures shared with Financial Tribune show.
In his meeting with the Norwegian Ambassador to the
Islamic Republic of Iran Lars Nordrum on Saturday, Minister of Energy
Reza Ardakanian revealed the expansion of cooperation between Iran
and Norway in the field of renewable energies.
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
In a letter to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,
Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Palestinian Hamas, has praised Iranian
support for the militant group, and particularly Tehran's
"unwavering and valuable" stance on the issue of Jerusalem.
According to the Iranian media, Haniyeh denounced President Donald
Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and
emphasized in the letter that launching another intifada against
Israel would be the best course of action at present.
A new photo has been released of Osama bin Laden's son
in law and al-Qaeda spokesman in Iran.
HUMAN RIGHTS
As marchers across the United States took to the streets
on the second anniversary of the Women's March, it had a meaning that
for some went far beyond the nation's borders. One of the thousands
of people marching in New York City on Saturday was Iranian
journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, who founded the social media
movement My Stealthy Freedom in 2014, which uses social media to
collect images and videos of women in public without wearing hijab.
Detainees arrested during the protests that began in
Iran in December 2017 have been told to tell officials that they're
drug addicts, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has
learned.
According to a close source, authorities had informed
Abolfazl Chezahi Sharahi's family that his execution was scheduled to
be carried out on Wednesday, January 17. However, the execution of
this juvenile-offender was delayed... for unknown reasons. However,
he still stays in danger of execution.
There are articles in the Islamic Republic's
Constitution that should be revised, the most prominent Sunni
religious leader in Iran has said, noting, "People's problems
and hardship are not limited to economic matters." In his Friday
speech, January 19, the head of dar-ul-uloom (seminary) of Zahedan,
Molavi Abdolhamid reiterated, "People are not only under
economic pressures; the political and social pressures should be
addressed [as well], and all people of Iran should live freely
according to the Constitution."
MILITARY MATTERS
Iran's state TV says the country's navy has kicked off
its two-day annual drill near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.
SYRIA & IRAN
Iran on Sunday called for a quick end to a Turkish
incursion into northern Syria's Afrin province, saying it may help
"terrorist" groups, state news agency IRNA reported.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, LEBANON, & IRAN
The Houthi rebels, Iran's allies in Yemen, Thursday
launched another missile attack into Saudi Arabia, targeting an air
defense operations center in the kingdom's border province of Najran,
Iranian and Lebanese media outlets reported.
The Iranian economy, which had been on a strong revival
path following the 2015 nuclear deal with the world powers, appears
be on shaky ground as the deal itself is facing uncertainty and the
country is facing huge political upheaval, according to Institute of
International Finance (IIF)...
IRAQ & IRAN
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday called for
boosting relations with the Iraqi Kurdish region as part of a united
Iraq, Iranian media reported, after ties were strained over an
independence referendum in the area last year.
IRANIAN DOMESTIC ISSUES
Last week, after two weeks of protests in Iran, the
country's High Education Council announced that teaching English is
now banned from Iranian primary schools. The announcement has me
thinking about King Kong.
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