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TOP STORIES
Iran has lost $10 billion in
revenue since U.S. sanctions in November have removed about 1.5
million barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian crude from global markets, a
U.S. State Department official said on Wednesday. Brian Hook,
the State Department's special representative on Iran, said in
remarks at the CERAWeek energy conference that due to a global oil
surplus - in part due to record U.S. production - the United States
is accelerating its plan of bringing Iranian crude exports to
zero.
A senior U.S. Treasury
Department official has told a Congressional subcommittee that U.S.
has "engaged extensively with European countries on the
significant risks" of providing Iran with a special facility for
trade. Under Secretary of U.S. Treasury Sigal Mandelker, the head of
Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI) told
the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services on
March 12, the U.S. continues "to maximize economic pressure on
the regime to combat its weapons proliferation, terrorism, and
regionally destabilizing activities."
Iran's semi-official ISNA news
agency says the country's Revolutionary Guard is holding a drill near
the strategic Strait of Hormuz to test dozens of Iranian-made drones,
including armed drones. Thursday's report says it's the first time
such a high number of offensive drones are being used in a drill. It
quotes Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh of the Guard's aerospace division as
saying Iran has the region's biggest offensive drone fleet. It says
the drones flew for about 1,000 kilometers, or 620 miles, then hit
their targets."
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
The United States aims to cut
Iran's crude exports by about 20 percent to below 1 million barrels
per day (bpd) from May by requiring importing countries to reduce
purchases to avoid U.S. sanctions, two sources familiar with the
matter told Reuters. U.S. President Donald Trump eventually aims
to halt Iranian oil exports and thereby choke off Tehran's main
source of revenue.
Iran is running short of options
to replace its aging fleet of tankers and keep oil exports flowing
because renewed U.S. sanctions are making potential sellers and flag
registries wary of doing business with Tehran, Western and Iranian
sources said. Since U.S. President Donald Trump reimposed
sanctions in November, exploratory talks with South Korea for up to
10 new supertankers have stalled and Panama has also removed at least
21 Iranian tankers from its registry forcing Tehran to put the
vessels under its own flag, the sources said.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
has stressed Washington's commitment to swiftly bring Iranian crude
oil exports to zero, saying Tehran's role in the energy market has
been diminishing due to US pressure. Washington reimposed oil
sanctions on Iran last year, sharply reducing its volume of crude
exports in the past several months in an effort to curb Tehran's
nuclear, missile and regional activities.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
In their perverse way,
dictatorships know full well they're doing wrong when they imprison
dissidents. They betray this by the absurdity of the accusations they
make against their critics, as if trying to conceal the real intent
of their persecution. The result, of course, is the opposite - the
silenced dissenter emerges as the righteous accuser, the tyrant as
crook.
A report critical of Iran's
human rights situation and its crackdown on people protesting
declining living standards is under review this week at the U.N.
Human Rights Council. The U.N. special investigator on the human
rights situation in Iran, Javaid Rehman, said the country faces
myriad challenges, many related to rising inflation and deteriorating
economic and social conditions such as late or unpaid wages, food
shortages and lack of health care.
The United Arab Emirates says
seven Emiratis and two Egyptians held by Iran since January after
being detained in the Persian Gulf have been freed. The Emirati
Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday the nine were detained
while on a fishing trip. It said those detained were released into
the care of the UAE Coast Guard. Iranian media quoted Emirati media
on the release, without elaborating on the case.
U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS & NEGOTIATIONS
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
slammed China's mass detention of Muslims but took a lighter hand on
North Korea as the State Department released its annual human rights
report Wednesday. Iran also came in for harsh criticism while rival
Saudi Arabia, cited for many identical domestic rights abuses as well
as the murder of US-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, was given
easier treatment.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Iranian photographer Ebrahim Noroozi has made a career
out of capturing the unseen in his homeland. The three-time World
Press Awards winner is unafraid to focus on dark, heavy, troubling
subjects, such as the spectacle of public execution, or the residual
impact of extreme domestic violence. While these series have been
focused on the immediate and visible, this week we're looking at one
of Noroozi's most beautiful - but no less tragic - collections: The
Lake on its Last Legs.
At least four people were killed
and five others injured on Thursday in a gas pipeline explosion in
southwest Iran, the Iranian Students News Agency ISNA reported.
"Gas leakage from a pipeline that linked the gas network from
Mahshahr city to Ahvaz city, caused the blast," ISNA quoted
local official Kiamars Hajizadeh as saying. "At least four
people, including one child and a woman, were killed in the blast and
five people were wounded."
A statement made by the National
Iranian Petrochemical Industries Company (NIPIC) on Wednesday March
13, revealed that the Petrochemical Commercial Company (PCC), the
center-piece of a major financial scandal being investigated at a
Tehran court, has failed to return 500 million euros of its debts
since 2013. This clearly contradicts an earlier statement by Tehran
prosecutor Abbas Jaafari Dolatabadi who had insisted there was no embezzlement
in the case and the suspects simply "mishandled funds" from
export of petrochemicals to the tune of interest on 4 million euros
in their accounts.
Organisers of a fashion show in
Iran were charged after videos of the event, which featured
fantasy-inspired dresses and women not wearing hijabs, surfaced on
social media. The outfits were considered by the public prosecutor to
have strayed too far from traditional Islamic clothing. An Iranian
fashion label organised a private show in a high-end salon on March 1
in Lavasan, an affluent suburb of Tehran, sending women down the
runway without hijabs, a violation of the country's strict laws
mandating that women appear in public with headscarves.
Thousands of Iranian actors,
filmmakers, and other artists are on a secret blacklist banning them
from performing or presenting their work publicly, a former director
of Iran's state-run radio and TV has revealed. Islamic Republic of
Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the state-run entity that monopolizes all
radio and TV broadcasting in the country, even bans some artists from
entering IRIB buildings, former IRIB Director-General Mohammad
Sarafraz told pro-reform daily Sharq March 12.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
The threat posed by Hezbollah
and Ali Musa Daqduq, a senior operative in Hezbollah, was
unmasked by Israel on Wednesday. Daqduq was responsible for the
"abduction and execution of five American servicemen in Iraq in
2007," the IDF said. The role of Hezbollah members in neighboring
states is an illustration of how groups allied with Iran are
continuing to build a web linking Tehran to Beirut via a "road
to the sea" that transits Iraq and Syria.
GULF STATES, YEMEN & IRAN
Yemen's government accused the Houthi group on Wednesday
of committing acts of genocide against civilians in Hajjah province.
Members of the Hajoor tribe have been fighting the Iran-backed rebels
in the mountain areas of Kushar district, in the northern province,
for more than a month. "The Iranian-backed rebels are using
heavy weapons such as ballistic missiles to target villages, killing
at least 100 people and displacing more than 400 civilians,"
Muammar Al Eryani, Yemen's Information Minister, said on Wednesday.
IRAQ & IRAN
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
capped his state visit to Iraq on Wednesday by meeting the
country's most respected religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali
Sistani- a sit-down that has eluded previous Iranian presidents and
American leaders alike. The meeting signals to Washington that
the religious, cultural and economic bonds that tie Iran and Iraq
will not be undermined by a focused U.S. effort to isolate Tehran,
analysts said. At the same time, it is likely to bolster Rouhani's
standing at home.
Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric told
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday that Iraqi sovereignty
must be respected and weapons kept in state hands, a veiled reference
to increasingly influential Iran-backed militias. It was the
first meeting between an Iranian president and the 88-year-old Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who rarely weighs in on politics but exerts
wide influence over Iraqi public opinion.
The geo-economic aspects of President Hassan Rouhani's visit to Iraq
couldn't be more pleasing to Iran's conservatives. Ever since the US
departure from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) last
May, conservatives have urged Rouhani to bypass
Washington's reinstated sanctions by focusing on trade with neighbors
like Iraq as opposed to the Europeans.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Iran's General Prosecutor says
that Tehran has referred to Interpol the case of a woman in Canada
accused in his country's petrochemicals scandal and expects
extradition. The news website of Iran's Judiciary quotes Mohammad
Jaafar Montazeri as saying that an arrest warrant for Marjan
Sheikholeslami has been issued and sent to Interpol, and he hopes
"they will cooperate".
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