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TOP STORIES
A special European Union initiative to protect trade
with Iran against newly reimposed U.S. sanctions faces possible
collapse with no EU country willing to host the operation for fear of
provoking U.S. punishment, EU diplomats said. The main European
powers - Germany, France and Britain - will raise pressure on
Luxembourg to host the so-called Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) after
Austria refused to manage the plan, threatening its viability.
The head of Iran's naval forces has said he plans
to soon send a fleet to visit Italy, where the U.S. Navy and the
U.S.-led Western military alliance have critical command posts. Rear
Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, commander of the Iranian navy, expressed
the desire during a meeting with Italy's deputy naval commander on
the sidelines of the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium in the
southwestern port city of Kochi, India.
The Trump administration hopes that the US-backed fight
against ISIS in its last foothold in northeastern Syria will end
within months but American forces will remain to ensure the
"enduring defeat" of the militant group, a top US diplomat
said on Wednesday. Ambassador James Jeffrey, the US special
representative for Syria engagement, said the United States believes
the way forward in Syria includes defeating ISIS, reinvigorating the
political process and winding down the long-running civil war.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
In theory, the devaluation of the Iranian rial this
year-to date, the currency has lost about 70 percent of its
value against the dollar-should have been good for Hormoz
Hematian. The founder of Tehran's contemporary art
gallery Dastan's Basement, Hematian spends a significant portion
of his time traveling the world to show his artists' paintings,
sculpture, and installations to an international audience; he's been
to six different fairs or exhibitions in 2018 alone.
South Korea's October imports of Iran oil remained at
zero for a second straight month ahead of U.S. sanctions against Iran
that came into effect on Nov.5, customs office data showed on
Thursday. In September, South Korea's imports of Iran oil fell
to zero for the first time in six years as South Korean buyers halted
purchases from the Middle Eastern due to uncertainty over whether
they would receive a waiver from the U.S. government.
Global oil prices are already adjusting after being hit
by uncertainty about Iran's production, the head of Russia's No.1 oil
firm Rosneft said on Wednesday, when asked about the need to cut
output. Igor Sechin, speaking to reporters in Singapore, declined
to give a forecast for oil prices. Sechin said it would be
"silly" to make predictions about oil prices as it was
unclear what action the United States might take, and what other
major oil market players, including Saudi Arabia, could possibly do
in terms of adjusting production.
It's been days since the fourth crisis which the
Iranians have caused in terms of forming the Iraqi government or
finalizing its formation. The first crisis was replacing Abadi and
they succeeded in that under the impression that the new Prime
Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi was independent. Abdul Mahdi submitted his
credentials and repeatedly stated that Iraq is not part of the system
of sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on Iran.
Six months after its withdrawal from the nuclear deal
with Iran, the United States has reimposed sanctions on flag carrier
IranAir - including every aircraft in its fleet. The move will
directly target the safety of ordinary Iranians while at the same
time imposing an extra burden on a civilian airline already laden
with numerous problems in its structure and business model.
On November 5th, Ahmad Amirabadi, a member of the
Iranian parliamentary board of directors, posted an
exasperated tweet: "Almost all the individuals and entities
that were active in bypassing the previous [US] sanctions [during the
Obama administration] are included [in the new list of Specially
Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons]. The question is, how this
information has fallen in enemy's hands. The security forces should
investigate."
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
Workers of the Ahwaz Steel Factory continued their
ongoing strike for the sixth consecutive day on Wednesday chanting
slogans against the Iranian regime. The workers took the streets in
Ahwaz and protested in front of the governorate and chanted slogans
like "We will not leave from here, until we receive our
rights" and cried out that "no nation has seen this much
injustice".
Amnesty International called on Iranian authorities to
"immediately" disclose the fate and whereabouts of hundreds
of Ahwaz minority detainees, who are being held without access to
their families of lawyers. In the last few days, Ahwazi Arab activists
outside Iran have told Amnesty International that 22 men, including
civil society activist Mohammad Momeni Timas, have been killed in
secret.
Rights group Amnesty International condemned Iran's
execution on Wednesday of a gold trader and his accomplice as
"abhorrent" and said it followed a "grossly unfair
show trial". Vahid Mazloomin and accomplice Mohammad Esmail
Ghasemi were executed after being found guilty of "corruption on
earth", Iran's most serious capital offence, the judiciary's
Mizan website said.
More than 1,000 Iranian civil society activists have
signed a letter to Iran's judiciary chief urging him to resolve the
case of eight environmentalists jailed since January and February on
suspicion of being spies. Iranian authorities detained seven of the
environmentalists in January and the eighth in February. The seven
detained in January are members of the Persian Wildlife Heritage
Foundation.
Iranian teachers have gone on a nationwide strike for a
second consecutive day to demand better working conditions for their
poorly paid profession, one month after their last mass protest.
Photos posted on the Telegram channel of the Coordinating
Council of Teachers Syndicates in Iran (CCTSI) showed elementary
and high school teachers staging sit-ins and holding protest signs in
and outside their offices in at least 27 Iranian cities Wednesday.
Iran could imprison and flog those who opt
for "un-Islamic" plastic cosmetic surgery as part of a
crackdown on people altering their appearance, a senior MP has said.
Hassan Norowzi, a spokesman for the Iranian parliament's judicial
committee, said surgeons offering procedures including
"cats eyes" and "donkey ears" could also be
stripped of their licenses.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Vice President Mike Pence said that the U.S. would
be prepared to engage in cold war to get the concessions
Trump wants from China. That would be bad enough in itself but,
worse, the U.S. might not win an escalating conflict with Beijing.
According to a new study commissioned by Congress, national
defense isn't up to snuff to America's modern challenges.
U.S. IRAN RELATIONS / NEGOTIATIONS
US President Donald Trump nominated retired general John
Abizaid as ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He has opposed the Iranian
nuclear program, but also urged Israeli restraint in confronting it.
As an observer for the UN in 1985 Abizaid saw some of Hezbollah's
first terror attacks and has spoken about the threat of terrorism in
the region. His nomination comes at a crucial juncture for US-Saudi
relations and also Riyadh's role in the region. Abizaid will fill a
spot that has been open for several years.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
The internal power struggles in Iran have not stopped
since 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Shah's regime and was
monopolized by the religious establishment that controls all joints
of the Iranian government. The conflict between the wings of the
reformist and militant regime has reached bloody levels against the
backdrop of the Green Movement of 2009, which would have almost
overthrown the hardliner conservatives loyal to Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei, had the bloody crackdown by reformist not been
suppressed.
CONGRESS & IRAN
Sanctions "hurt Iranians." That was the
unstartling revelation by an American think tank personality and
"friend of Iran" in a recent radio interview. Well, of
course they do. But the larger goal is to force the behavior of the
regime; regrettably, but to be brutally honest, "hurting
Iranians" is part of the process to pressure the
leadership. The think tank interviewee's other non-insight was
to suggest that "Tehran's strategy is to wait Trump
out."
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
At an Iranian government-owned car plant near Homs, the
small number of vehicles on the assembly line underscores the
obstacles hobbling Tehran's economic ambitions in Syria. The
plant was set up before Syria's war began as the two allies tried to
bring their economies closer together and was restarted in 2016 on
Tehran's orders after having closed early in the conflict.
Sassy, pint-sized Iranian pop artist Golazin Ardestani,
an up-and-coming star of the underground pop scene back home in Iran,
has a surprising anecdote to share. Giggling and running a hand
through her short, peroxide-blonde hair as she plunks herself down on
a plush bar couch, she says her mom and dad used to call her their
"Israeli baby."
Iranian military chief of staff General Mohammad Baqeri
referred Thursday to the recent escalation in the south. "The
last victory in Gaza turned over a new leaf for the resistance.
The victories will continue until the Zionist entity ceases to exist.
The Zionist enemy's cotton dome has failed, and now it is more concerned
about Iran's arrival in occupied Palestine," he asserted.
IRAQ & IRAN
Baghdad has agreed with Tehran to exchange Iraqi food
items for Iranian energy supplies and has requested permission from
the United States to extend its sanctions waiver to allow the deal to
proceed, Iraqi officials have been quoted as saying. Two unidentified
Iraqi government officials told the Reuters news agency on November
14 that the country needed more time to find alternative sources to
Iranian gas supplies to fuel its electrical stations and avoid a
"real power crisis."
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