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TOP STORIES
France and Germany are to take
joint responsibility for an EU-Iran trade mechanism to minimize the
risk of U.S. punishment but few now believe it will cover oil sales,
heightening fears for the fate of the landmark international nuclear
deal with Iran. Diplomats said the French-German gambit is a
"safety-in-numbers" tactic to overcome the refusal of
individual EU states to host the mechanism to sidestep the risk of
being targeted by the revived U.S. sanctions regime against Iran.
U.S. officials said they would
sanction two Iranians and seek the prosecution of two others for the
"SamSam" cyberattacks that allegedly hacked into servers at
hospitals, schools, ports and other institutions, then demanded
bitcoin as ransom and laundered the money through online exchanges.
Brian Benczkowski, head of the Justice Department's criminal
division, said the conspiracy represented an "extreme form of
21st-century digital blackmail."
Iran's state TV says the
country's navy has acquired two new mini submarines designed for operations
in shallow waters such as the Persian Gulf. Thursday's report says
the one of the submarines - also known as midget submarines - was
built in 18 months. The other, previously built, took 10 months to
overhaul. The report says the two Ghadir-class submarines have
sonar-evading technology and can launch missiles from under water, as
well as fire torpedoes and drop marine mines.
UANI IN THE NEWS
...He said that Lebanon supports
the "resistance" which is a reference to Hezbollah and that
"we are with our resistance and terrorism." He claimed that
even if others call that terrorism it was a source of pride. David
Daoud, a Research Analyst on Hezbollah and Lebanon at United Against
Nuclear Iran (UANI) tweeted about the incident, noting the irony that
in offering Lebanon's "counterterrorism expertise," the
security chief was also praising Hezbollah.
NUCLEAR DEAL & NUCLEAR PROGRAM
European Union foreign policy
chief Federica Mogherini met Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad
Zarif in Geneva on Wednesday and reiterated the bloc's determination
to preserve the multilateral nuclear deal, an EU statement
said. Mogherini underlined need for continued full and effective
implementation of the Iran nuclear deal by all parties,
"including the economic benefits arising from it", it said.
The Wall Street Journal
reported Nov. 26 that Paris and Berlin are about to
create a payments channel to maintain trade with Tehran in defiance
of US sanctions. The news has been largely received in Iran as a
signal that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA) will yet be salvaged. The channel, known as
a Special Purpose Vehicle, has been under
discussion for months by Iranian and European negotiators.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
On Nov. 4, Iran commemorated the
39th anniversary of the day some 400 militant Islamist students
seized the U.S. Embassy in downtown Tehran. The United States marked
the date, too: On Nov. 5, it imposed a new round of sanctions on
Iran, which President Donald Trump's administration has termed part
of a "maximum pressure" campaign to bring the country back
to the negotiating table. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif
quickly responded with a video message in which he told Trump to
"dream on."
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
has said that Iran has no interest in easing the suffering of Yemen's
people and "the Mullahs don't even care for ordinary
Iranians". Pompeo's remarks coincided with a closed session of
the United States Senate that debated a response to Saudi Arabia for
the murder of columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in
Istanbul. The senators passed a resolution to pull U.S. support from
the war in Yemen, in what is seen as a rebuke to both Riyadh and
President Donald Trump.
MILITARY/INTELLIGENCE MATTERS & PROXY WARS
Supreme Leader ayatollah Ali
Khamenei on Wednesday asked the commanders of Iran's navy to increase
"power and readiness" so that "enemies will not dare
to threaten the Iranian nation". November 27 marks "Navy
Day" in Iran and Khamenei met with commanders, according to his
website. Iran's has two navies; the navy attached to the army and the
Islamic Revolution Guard Corps Navy.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei called Wednesday for the country to boost its naval
forces as a deterrent against its enemies and hailed the deployment
of new ships. "Increase your capabilities and readiness as much
as you can so that the enemies of Iran will not dare threaten this
great nation," Khamenei said in a meeting with Iran's naval
chiefs, quoted on his official website. The Islamic republic was
confronted by "a vast lineup of enemies and rivals", he
said.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Lamal Chinar smiles as she
operates a fairground ride in the snow-capped Mount Tochal, north of
the ever-encroaching outskirts of Tehran. Schoolchildren on a trip
away from the crawling traffic and smog of the Iranian capital scream
with joy. But beneath the surface she worries. Like so many of her
compatriots, Chinar is both bystander and victim in America's
expanding drive to immobilise the Iranian economy through sanctions.
Her personal concerns are twofold - how to find the medicines her
mother needs for a severe heart condition and how to transfer her
money in and out of Iran.
When hard-liners in Iran
succeeded in banning the popular smartphone messaging app
Telegram, they were unlikely to have predicted that they would
return to the very same platform seven months later. On April
30, the conservative-dominated judiciary ordered internet
service providers to block access to Telegram, despite
opposition from Iran's moderate government.
IRANIAN REGIONAL AGGRESSION
What times we live in. Sometimes
it seems as if everything we used to believe about the Middle East
and North Africa - indeed about the world - is crumbling to dust
before our eyes. At other moments, we seem to find ourselves
unexpectedly presented with scenes from an old and familiar play with
a happy ending; only to find ourselves back in the theater of the
absurd.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
There is broad agreement in
Israel about the fact that Iran has captured the top spot on the list
of the Jewish State's bitterest enemies over the past decade. Israel
views the "Iranian threat" as the sole existential threat
to the country's future. Iran is Israel's last remaining significant
strategic threat in all security-related respects. The Iranian
nuclear program is considered a direct strategic threat, and Iran's
expansion throughout the Middle East and the Shiite axis it heads
from the Persian Gulf in the south to the Syrian port of Latakia in
the north are regarded as a significant conventional threat.
Russia, Turkey and Iran failed to make any tangible
progress in setting up a Syrian constitutional committee at a meeting
in the Kazakh capital Astana, the office of U.N. Syria envoy Staffan
de Mistura said in a statement on Thursday.
GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN
"The world's worst
humanitarian crisis," said U.N. World Food Program Executive
Director David Beasley, is in Yemen. He is not exaggerating. More
than 75 percent of the country needs humanitarian aid - a greater
percentage than any other nation on Earth. According to the U.S.
Department of State, some 18 million Yemenis (out of a total
population of 22 million) are hungry, homeless, and increasingly
hopeless. How did the war start? Who is involved? Yemen has seen
decades of war, first with the 1960's civil war that ended
IRAQ & IRAN
Economic and political tensions
are rising between Iran and Iraq. One of the major contributors is
the souring of Muqtada al-Sadr's personal relationship with Iran and,
to a lesser extent, Iraq's cooperation with the sanctions imposed on
Iran by the United States this month. For much of his career as the
leader of the Sadr Trend, Muqtada al-Sadr has had a very close relationship
with the Iranian leadership - both political and religious.
CYBERWARFARE
The United States on Wednesday
indicted two Iranians for launching a major cyber attack using
ransomware known as "SamSam" and sanctioned two others for
helping exchange the ransom payments from Bitcoin digital currency
into rials. The 34-month long hacking scheme wreaked havoc on
hospitals, schools, companies and government agencies, including the
cities of Atlanta, Georgia, and Newark, New Jersey, causing over $30
million in losses to victims and allowing the alleged hackers to
collect over $6 million in ransom payments.
Two Iranians were behind the
ransomware attack that crippled Atlanta's government for days this
year, the Justice Department said in an indictment unsealed on
Wednesday, detailing a sophisticated scheme of attacks on hospitals,
government agencies and other organizations. The men, Faramarz Shahi
Savandi and Mohammad Mehdi Shah Mansouri, chose targets with complex
yet vulnerable systems - organizations that could afford to pay
ransoms and needed to urgently restore their systems back online,
prosecutors said.
MISCELLANEOUS
During the six-hour drive from
New York City to a tiny town in northern Vermont, Iranian student
Shirin Estahbanati cried at the thought of seeing her father for the
first time in nearly three years. Since then, he had suffered a heart
attack, and she hadn't dared leave America to comfort him. But
as she traveled north, she also couldn't stop worrying. What if she
missed the turnoff and drove across the U.S.-Canadian border by
mistake?
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