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TOP STORIES
Criminal networks are using Iran as a transit point for
illicit Somali charcoal exports that earn Islamist militants al
Shabaab millions of dollars annually in tax, U.N. sanctions monitors
said in a report seen by Reuters.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that
Iran's economy fell into a recession this year that will get worse
next year as a result of renewed U.S. sanctions on Tehran.
Iran's crude exports fell further in the first week of
October, according to tanker data and an industry source, taking a
major hit from U.S. sanctions and throwing a challenge to other OPEC
oil producers as they seek to cover the shortfall.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
India hopes to secure a waiver from U.S. sanctions on
Iran before they take effect on Nov. 4, as it had significantly cut
Iranian oil imports before the deadline, officials said on
Monday.
US prosecutors have told Standard Chartered they are
preparing to bring criminal charges against two of the bank's former
employees over alleged sanction breaches involving Iran-linked
companies, according to people briefed on the matter. The move
indicates a hardening of the approach of US officials to breaches by
banks and follows President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the
international nuclear agreement with Iran and re-imposing economic
sanctions.
US sanctions on Iran will not impact Qatar Airways'
flights to the Islamic republic, the airline's boss Akbar al-Baker
said on Monday.
The United States has granted BP and Serica Energy a new
license to run a North Sea gas field partly owned by Iran in a rare
exemption by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration as it
prepares to renew sanctions on Tehran next month.
Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh has dismissed as
"nonsense" claims by the Saudi crown prince that Saudi
Arabia can replace sanctions-hit Iranian oil in the market.
The Trump administration is waging economic warfare
against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and rightly so... But rather
than attack the financial basis of terror with a scalpel, President
Trump's national security team is wielding an axe. When it comes to
Iraq, that axe promises to benefit Iran at the expense of Iraqi
nationalists and liberals who would like nothing more than to push
back Iranian influence.
TERROSIM & EXTREMISM
On July 11, 2018, the government of Argentina took its
first action against Hezbollah by freezing the financial assets of 14
individuals belonging to the Barakat clan in South America. Last
week, Brazilian Federal Police arrested the leader of this clan, Assad
Ahmad Barakat, who was sanctioned by U.S. Treasury's Office of
Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in 2004 and is considered one of
Hezbollah's most important financiers.
While they are in jail on allegations of financing the
terror group, Hezbollah, the companies founded by these bank-rollers
remain operational in Angola, the Southern African country that has
earned a reputation as a refuge for international terror financiers.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
The United States on Monday asked judges at the
International Court of Justice to throw out a claim by Iran to
recover $1.75 billion (1.5 billion euros) in national bank assets
seized by U.S. courts. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that the
assets must be turned over to American families of victims of the
1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, among others.
"Threaten and rebrand" negotiating isn't
pretty. That doesn't mean it can't work.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
A senior Iranian official on Monday said Israel would be
hard-pressed to conduct airstrikes in Syria after Russia provided the
country with the advanced S-300 air defense system.
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