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TOP STORIES
Russia does not believe there is a case for United
Nations action against Iran, Russia's U.N. ambassador said on
Wednesday after traveling to Washington to view pieces of weapons
that Washington says Tehran gave Yemen's Houthi group.
Iran will not escape punishment if it continues to
proliferate technology for the production of sophisticated missiles
in the region, US Assistant Secretary of State David Satterfield said
on Wednesday.
The top adviser to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei said on Thursday the country's leadership had no intention
of reining in its influence across the Middle East despite U.S.
pressure to do so, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
IRAN PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
British barristers have written to Iran's supreme leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to protest against the treatment of lawyers in
the country and the ongoing detention of prominent human rights
advocates.
The German government's human rights commissioner on
Wednesday condemned Iran's reported execution of a man who was 15
years old when he committed his crime, calling it a completely
unacceptable violation of international law.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS
The White House wants to keep Iranians out of the United
States... The Trump administration justifies this ban, which includes
five other majority-Muslim countries, on national security grounds -
an odd argument, since such a concern ought to incline the
administration to give more visas, not fewer, to Iranians.
Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif on Wednesday
slammed President Trump for remarks about Iran during his first State
of the Union address, saying they showed his
"ignorance."
SANCTIONS ENFORCEMENT
France will start offering euro-denominated loans to
Iranian buyers of its goods later this year, to help trade flourish
outside the reach of U.S. sanctions, the head of state-owned
investment bank Bpifrance said.
OTHER TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
The Trump administration announced on Wednesday a slate
of new sanctions on an Iranian-backed terror organization and its top
allies in the Hamas movement, according to an announcement that is
being viewed as part of an effort to disrupt the Islamic Republic's
terror networks operating on the border of Israel.
MILITARY MATTERS & PROXY WARS
A significant recent development in Iran's attempts to
liberalize the country's investment climate was the announcement by
Defense Minister Ali Hatami that military organizations have been
tasked by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to divest from
"nonrelated" economic activities. Al-Monitor recently
discussed the implications of this instruction, especially the fact
that it will be difficult to find buyers who are prepared to invest
in assets that have been controlled by military organizations over
the past two decades. In this article, we will look at the entities
at the core of this process and try to figure out what scenarios
could emerge over the next few years, especially how the ownership
structures could change.
SYRIA & IRAN
The Iranian issue is something the Trump administration
appears to care about a great deal-and rightfully so... In Syria,
Iran is arguably the most influential actor of all, exerting an iron
grip over the future of the country thanks to a 150,000-strong militia
force under its control and not of the regime in Damascus... The
U.S... has declared the need for Assad's removal for nearly seven
years, but it has never determinedly sought to realize it. Continuing
to declare grand goals without deploying the necessary means will
only further erode American credibility... [W]hen Iran emerges from
the conflict with a newfound ability to project power against our
allies Israel and Jordan, it is time to reassess the priorities of
our Syrian strategy, or to ask whether we indeed even have a strategy
at all.
IRAQ & IRAN
After Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi unexpectedly
announced a political alliance with one of the Popular Mobilization
Forces' (PMF) militia leaders, Hadi al-Amiri, the US has raised
concerns as the two sides were always seen as political enemies...
Many of the militia under the umbrella of PMF are Iran-backed which
increased international fears of a growing Iranian influence in Iraq.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
President Hassan Rohani has said that the Iranian people
continue to support the clerical establishment despite foreign
pressure but insisted that the country's leaders must listen to
protesters behind a recent wave of unrest.
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