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TOP STORIES
Iran oil shipments are declining at a
faster-than-expected pace ahead of U.S. sanctions set to begin in
November.
Iran's Parliament summoned President Hassan Rouhani to
answer questions on Tuesday about the country's economic crisis, and
then voted to reject his explanation, in a remarkable rebuke of a
sitting leader. Mr. Rouhani blamed United States sanctions, not
government management, for his country's troubles.
France has told its diplomats and foreign ministry
officials to postpone indefinitely all non-essential travel to Iran,
citing a foiled bomb plot and a hardening of Tehran's attitude
towards France, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.
UANI IN THE NEWS
One area... where Trump's new policies have been aligned
with European interests is in his policy on Iran. Trump's decision to
withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more
commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, promises to do more to
protect the security of Europe than almost any decision made by
Europe's own political leaders this year.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Iran
could abandon its nuclear accord with world powers after the U.S.
withdrawal if it does not serve its interests, casting doubt on
negotiations with European countries to salvage the deal.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
The United States on Tuesday defended its re-imposition
of sanctions against Iran as a legal and justified national security
measure that cannot be challenged by Tehran at the United Nations'
highest court.
Citizens in Iran are resorting to using the U.S. dollar
as the government in Tehran faces increasing pressure from tightening
U.S. sanctions and a faltering domestic economy, reports the WSJ's
Asa Fitch. A steep plunge in the value of Iran's currency has led to
a spike in demand for dollars in recent months from Iranians seeking
safer assets.
Iraq will send a delegation to the United States seeking
an agreement on financial transactions with Iran following
Washington's reimposition of sanctions on Tehran, Prime Minister
Haider al-Abadi said on Tuesday.
India will not completely halt Iranian oil imports and
will finalise its strategy on crude purchases from Tehran after a
meeting with top U.S. officials next week, a senior government
official said.
British officials have been turning to Japan for tips on
how to dodge American sanctions on Iran, according to local media.
Iranians are fed up with collapsing economic prospects
at the hands of what looks to them like systemic regime
mismanagement... the authorities typically say they have a plan or
are making changes to address these problems. Sometimes the plans
materialize. Sometimes not. Either way, nothing changes. Meanwhile,
it is difficult to know how much of Iran's economic malaise can be
attributed to decades of sanctions, how much to government
malfeasance and corruption - the latter being most often cited by
people on the street - and how much is a result of good old-fashioned
bureaucratic incompetence
Current U.S. sanctions on Iran are unlikely to stop
Iranian oil exports completely, a long-time adviser at Saudi Arabia's
Energy Ministry said on Tuesday, adding Iran would be unable to close
the straits of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab even partially.
"Move aside, animal!" the Iranian policewoman
yells. The target of her rage: a young woman wearing her hijab, or
headscarf, only loosely, thereby exposing her hair. For Iran's Basij,
or morality police, it's a crime that warrants a violent response.
Iran's economy faces a bleak future under unprecedented
US sanctions, the second package of which taking effect in November
following the first package that was imposed this month. The Iranian
currency has experienced a significant drop of 70 percent of its
value in recent months, but this decline threatens to turn into a
complete collapse as the new wave of US sanctions would hit the oil
and gas sectors, which are vital to the Islamic Republic's economy.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Human rights activists in Iran have said they are
worried about a man on hunger strike who was reportedly jailed for
protesting against rules requiring women to wear a hijab. Farhad
Meysami, 48, a doctor and publisher before becoming a civil activist,
was arrested in his office in July and taken to Tehran's notorious
Evin prison.
Since May 2018, revolutionary courts have sentenced at
least 208 members of the religious minority to prison terms and other
punishments in trials that violate their basic rights, Human Rights
Watch said today.
The husband of a British-Iranian charity worker who has
been imprisoned in Iran for more than two years says his wife has
been hospitalized after suffering panic attacks.
In a nation where police arrest, interrogate and force
women to make public apologies for posting "un-Islamic"
selfies and "promiscuous" videos of themselves dancing on
Instagram, 19-year-old Kimia Naderzadeh is not interested in testing
the limits of laws that clearly treat her as vastly inferior to a
man.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis stressed on Tuesday
that Washington will hold Iran accountable for its actions in the
Middle East.
"You give literally millions of dollars" in
economic relief to Iran "and they don't stop their
ballistic-missile testing, they don't stop selling arms, and they
continue to support terrorism," Haley continued. "I look at
[Iran] as the next North Korea. If you continue to fund this, and
they continue to do these bad acts, and no one holds them
accountable, we one day are going to be talking about Iran the same
way we talk about North Korea."
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Security forces in Iran have arrested tens of spies
working in state bodies, Intelligence Minister said on Tuesday, at a
time of rising tensions between Iran and the West following the
reimposition of U.S. sanctions on Tehran.
Iran's intelligence minister has boasted on state
television about his country's successful recruitment of a former
Cabinet-level official from a "hostile" country, signaling
Tehran's first acknowledgment of compromising an arrested Israeli
official.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, meeting
with Rouhani and his cabinet on Wednesday, told the government to
work "day and night" to resolve economic problems.
Iranian lawmakers launched impeachment proceedings
against the education minister on Wednesday, ramping up pressure on
the president who is under unprecedented attack from parliament over
his handling of the economy in the face of new U.S. sanctions.
Iran's president attempted to explain to parliament on
Tuesday how he would pull the country out of its economic nosedive,
taking shots at the U.S. before lawmakers voted to reject his
explanation.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has drawn
a social media backlash from Iranians for saying the pressures they
face are a result of the life they have chosen to live.
It is official: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is
embattled and holding onto his position for dear life. What does this
mean for which direction Iran will choose in the current nuclear
standoff with the US? Will it fold and compromise, stick to its guns
and start to violate the 2015 nuclear deal and maybe even make a dash
for nuclear weapons, or might the regime finally get toppled?
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN.
Iran will maintain its military presence in Syria
despite U.S. pressure for its withdrawal, a senior Iranian official
said on Tuesday, revealing more details about a military cooperation
deal that Tehran and Damascus signed this week.
The United States offered to leave Syria completely in
exchange for a full withdrawal of Iranian troops from the southern
part of the country, the Hezbollah-affiliated news outlet Al-Akhbar
reported Tuesday... Syria's national security chief Ali Mamlouk
reportedly rejected the US offer... He went on to say that President
Bashar Assad had repeatedly made clear Syria's "strong
relationship" with Iran, Hezbollah and other armed groups in the
region.
The events of the past days in Syria have one thing in
common: as the war in Syria is entering its final stages, a new
battle is emerging. Both Russia and Iran, who supported the Assad
regime throughout the civil war, are expecting to reap the benefits
of Assad's victory.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) begins on
September 10 the trials of four members of the "Hezbollah"
security apparatus accused of assassinating former Lebanese Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
A local Yemeni official said that Iran had doubled its
supply of arms to Houthi militias in Yemen during the suspension of
the military operation to liberate Hodeidah.
The already-controversial 2022 World Cup could yet
become even more contentious, after Iran offered to help Qatar
prepare for the football tournament... Iran's President Hassan
Rouhani - under pressure at home due to the impact of U.S. sanctions
on the economy - has been pushing for even closer cooperation. In a
phone call with the Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani on
August 26, Rouhani proposed the two countries set up a joint shipping
line to promote bilateral trade.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Kurds who joined [the Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK)] are
from Iran but fled the Islamic Republic's repression, and found
refuge in the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government areas of
northern Iraq. According to PAK, four of their members have been
targeted by Tehran in the last month.
CYBERWARFARE
An apparent Iranian influence operation targeting
internet users worldwide is significantly bigger than previously
identified, Reuters has found, encompassing a sprawling network of
anonymous websites and social media accounts in 11 different
languages.
Twitter has removed another batch of accounts from its
platform for participating in what it calls 'coordinated
manipulation.'
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