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Reuters: "North Korea and Iran appear to have been regularly exchanging ballistic missile technology in violation of U.N. sanctions, according to a confidential U.N. report obtained by Reuters on Saturday. The report said the illicit technology transfers had 'trans-shipment through a neighboring third country.' That country was China, several diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity. The report was submitted to the Security Council by a U.N. Panel of Experts, a group that monitors compliance with U.N. sanctions imposed on Pyongyang after it conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009. The U.N. sanctions included a ban on trade in nuclear and missile technology with North Korea, as well as an arms embargo. They also banned trade with a number of North Korean firms and called for asset freezes and travel bans on some North Korean individuals. 'Prohibited ballistic missile-related items are suspected to have been transferred between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and the Islamic Republic of Iran on regular scheduled flights of Air Koryo and Iran Air,' the report said." http://t.uani.com/mw9GHe
WSJ: "Germany has signed on to a European Union plan to sanction an Iranian-controlled German bank that handles billions of euros in annual transactions for clients doing business in the Islamic republic, people familiar with the matter say. 'The track is set for sanctioning of the European-Iranian Trade Bank AG,' a German official who is familiar with the decision said. The E.U. is expected to formally announce the decision to sanction EIH, as the bank is known under its German acronym, on May 23rd, when E.U. foreign ministers review proposals for new sanctions against Iran, the person said. In a statement, EIH says that its activities are legal and that it continues to operate under a German license. The decision marks an about-face in Germany's policy. In February, Germany blocked a French proposal in Brussels to designate EIH for EU sanctions, two diplomats familiar with the discussion said. German business representatives have lobbied at Germany's Economics ministry in support of EIH, arguing the bank enables transactions that are essential for legal exports to Iran. Germany changed its position after a team of Bundesbank investigators uncovered 'increasing amount of evidence' that EIH had funded transactions for businesses that were sanctioned by the United Nations, the official familiar with the German decision said. This constitutes support for illegal Iranian activities, the person said. The Bundesbank has not released the evidence yet." http://t.uani.com/jw4WjT
AP: "Iran could face a new array of U.S. sanctions under proposed House legislation that's meant to force Tehran into international talks on its nuclear program. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Howard Berman of California, the panel's top Democrat, have introduced a bill that would impose penalties on human rights abusers in Iran, including freezing their U.S.-based assets, denying them visas and prohibiting financial or business transactions with any U.S. entity. The round of sanctions also would target foreign companies that do energy business with Iran's Revolutionary Guard; expand help to pro-democracy groups in Iran; and require all companies, U.S. and foreign-based, that are registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission to report on whether they are conducting activities with Iran that could trigger sanctions. The bill also would restrict the travel of Iranian diplomats to a 25-mile radius of New York and Washington. The powerful Revolutionary Guard controls companies and organizations that have links to weapons proliferation, as well as companies and organizations involved in nuclear or ballistic missile activities." http://t.uani.com/j59wQ2
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
AFP: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad branded Israel a cancer cell that must be removed Sunday, after Israeli gunfire killed 12 people and wounded hundreds as Palestinians marched in a mass show of mourning over the creation of the Jewish State. 'On the anniversary of this regime, people demonstrated in various places, but there were dead and wounded and this regime once again showed its real nature,' he said in a television interview. 'Like a cancer cell that spreads through the body, this regime infects any region. It must be removed from the body,' he added. His statement came after earlier calls for Israel to be wiped out. Palestinians on Sunday marched on Israel's borders with Lebanon, Syria and Gaza to mark the anniversary." http://t.uani.com/mSRBFk
AFP: "Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was a prisoner in US custody for 'sometime' before he was killed by the American military, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday. 'I have exact information that bin Laden was held by the American military for sometime... until the day they killed him he was a prisoner held by them' the hardline president said in a live interview on Iranian state television. 'Please pay attention. This is important. He was held by them for sometime. They made him sick and while he was sick they killed him,' Ahmadinejad added. He accused US President Barack Obama for announcing the Al-Qaeda leader's death for 'political gain.' 'What the US president has done is for domestic political gain. In other words, they killed him for Mr Obama's election and now they are seeking to replace him with someone else,' Ahmadinejad said without elaborating." http://t.uani.com/lAPDFf
Bloomberg: "Iran started its first underground natural-gas storage facility with an annual capacity for 3.3 billion cubic meters of gas, Press TV reported yesterday. Five to seven million cubic meters of natural gas a day will be injected during the first six months of the year at the facility in the Sarajeh region of Qom province, the state-run channel reported, citing Javad Owji, managing director of National Iranian Gas Co." http://t.uani.com/kBKOrs
Human Rights
AP: "Iran threatened Saturday to allow the transit of illegal drugs through its territory to Europe if the West continues to criticize the Islamic nation for its practice of executing drug traffickers. Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, said Iran was sacrificing blood in fighting drug trafficking and suggested it is unfair that it is then condemned by the West for executing smugglers. 'Westerners have to either be Iran's partner in the fight against drug traffickers or we must think otherwise and, for instance, allow the transit' of drugs across Iranian territory, Larijani said in a comment posted on the judiciary's website Saturday. He said such a move would reduce the number of overall executions in Iran by 74 per cent, 'but the way will be paved for the smuggling of narcotics to Europe.'" http://t.uani.com/lzPJww
TIME: "Iran's judiciary has postponed the blinding of a man as punishment for throwing acid in the face of a young woman in 2004, after she rejected his offer of marriage. The delay came in the face of mounting outcry both inside Iran and in the West over the sentencing, which is permissible under qesas, a principle of Islamic law allowing victims analogous retribution for violent crimes. The case has stirred passionate interest in Iran since 2004, when Majid Movahedi, a university student, accosted Ameneh Bahrami on a Tehran street and tossed a red bucket of sulfuric acid in her face. Bahrami, an attractive young engineer, had repeatedly spurned Movahedi's proposals and reported his harassment to the police. She was blinded and severely disfigured in the attack, and has spent the intervening years between Iran and Spain undergoing numerous unsuccessful operations to reconstruct her face and repair her sight." http://t.uani.com/jR5QOp
Domestic Politics
FT: "Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the Iranian president, has sacked three senior ministers despite protests from lawmakers and a constitutional watchdog that the move is unconstitutional. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad dismissed the ministers of oil, welfare, and industries and mines on Saturday, ostensibly to cut the size the cabinet. The oil ministry is due to merge into the energy ministry, industries and mines will be combined with commerce, while welfare will join labour. But the sackings are also likely to escalate tension with anti-presidential conservatives who dominate the regime. Political insiders are involved in a power struggle, centred on Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's closest ally, ahead of parliamentary elections due in March next year and presidential poll in 2013." http://t.uani.com/jJkJRi
AP: "Iran's president on Sunday dismissed criticism of appointments and dismissals from his Cabinet without parliamentary approval. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks in a televised speech risked widening a rift with the parliament and with hard-liners intent on limiting his power or even impeaching him. Ahmadinejad decided to streamline his Cabinet by combining eight ministries into four. The parliament insisted it must approve the appointments of the new ministers, but Ahmadinejad refused. Instead, he appointed caretaker ministers, including himself as caretaker oil minister. In his TV speech Sunday, he said, 'Merging is obligatory, under the law.' He dismissed the parliament's claims as mere debate. 'I am not worrying at all,' he said. 'Debates are a part of freedom.'" http://t.uani.com/jfhLmZ
AFP: "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been put 'under a spell' by his chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, an ultra-conservative cleric was quoted by local media on Sunday as saying. 'I've told some of my close friends that I am more than 90 percent certain that (Ahmadinejad) has been put under a spell. This is not natural at all,' Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, believed to have once been a mentor of the president, told the weekly Shoma. 'No sane person does such things unless his free will has been taken away,' Mesbah Yazdi said in reference to a crisis that has erupted since mid-April between Ahmadinejad and the hardline conservative camp close to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei." http://t.uani.com/jFc5Mz
AFP: "Thousands of Islamic militiamen loyal to Iran's rulers have staged exercises for deployment against protesters in the event of any anti-regime demonstrations, a reformist daily reported on Saturday. Around 3,000 members of the Basij militia on Friday held mock 'street battles using the experience of events' that followed Iran's contested 2009 presidential election, Arman newspaper said, quoting a Revolutionary Guards commander. Some of them were 'injured' during the exercises which pitted militiamen 'playing the role of seditionists (reformist opposition protesters)' against special units. The commander of the Revolutionary Guards in Tehran, Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani, told the units taking part in the exercises that the Islamic republic remained 'vulnerable' to domestic 'sedition.'" http://t.uani.com/lV1xmc
Bloomberg: "Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he will oversee the country's Oil Ministry following the dismissal of Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi as part of a plan to combine several ministries. 'I am the caretaker for the Oil Ministry,' Ahmadinejad said in an interview on Iran state television late yesterday. The government had been required to reduce the number of ministries to 17 from 21 by 2015, as part of a plan to improve efficiency. The government announced on May 9 that the Oil Ministry will merge with the Energy Ministry. The Industries and Mines Ministry is to be combined with the Commerce Ministry, while the Welfare Ministry will merge with the Labor Ministry, it said." http://t.uani.com/kh0dHo
Opinion & Analysis
Nawaf Obaid in WashPost: "A tectonic shift has occurred in the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Despite significant pressure from the Obama administration to remain on the sidelines, Saudi leaders sent troops into Manama in March to defend Bahrain's monarchy and quell the unrest that has shaken that country since February. For more than 60 years, Saudi Arabia has been bound by an unwritten bargain: oil for security. Riyadh has often protested but ultimately acquiesced to what it saw as misguided U.S. policies. But American missteps in the region since Sept. 11, an ill-conceived response to the Arab protest movements and an unconscionable refusal to hold Israel accountable for its illegal settlement building have brought this arrangement to an end. As the Saudis recalibrate the partnership, Riyadh intends to pursue a much more assertive foreign policy, at times conflicting with American interests. The backdrop for this change are the rise of Iranian meddling in the region and the counterproductive policies that the United States has pursued here since Sept. 11. The most significant blunder may have been the invasion of Iraq, which resulted in enormous loss of life and provided Iran an opening to expand its sphere of influence. For years, Iran's leadership has aimed to foment discord while furthering its geopolitical ambitions. Tehran has long funded Hamas and Hezbollah; recently, its scope of attempted interference has broadened to include the affairs of Arab states from Yemen to Morocco. This month the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, Gen. Hasan Firouzabadi, harshly criticized Riyadh over its intervention in Bahrain, claiming this act would spark massive domestic uprisings. Such remarks are based more on wishful thinking than fact, but Iran's efforts to destabilize its neighbors are tireless. As Riyadh fights a cold war with Tehran, Washington has shown itself in recent months to be an unwilling and unreliable partner against this threat. The emerging political reality is a Saudi-led Arab world facing off against the aggression of Iran and its non-state proxies. Saudi Arabia will not allow the political unrest in the region to destabilize the Arab monarchies - the Gulf states, Jordan and Morocco. In Yemen, the Saudis are insisting on an orderly transition of power and a dignified exit for President Ali Abdullah Saleh (a courtesy that was not extended to Hosni Mubarak, despite the former Egyptian president's many years as a strong U.S. ally). To facilitate this handover, Riyadh is leading a diplomatic effort under the auspices of the six-country Gulf Cooperation Council. In Iraq, the Saudi government will continue to pursue a hard-line stance against the Maliki government, which it regards as little more than an Iranian puppet. In Lebanon, Saudi Arabia will act to check the growth of Hezbollah and to ensure that this Iranian proxy does not dominate the country's political life. Regarding the widespread upheaval in Syria, the Saudis will work to ensure that any potential transition to a post-Assad era is as peaceful and as free of Iranian meddling as possible." http://t.uani.com/j6Zgc3
Jamsheed Chosky in World Politics Review: "At first glance, the power struggle currently taking place among Iran's ruling elites might seem bizarre. After all, it is not often that the chief executive of a 21st-century nation is accused of 'witchcraft,' 'experimenting with exorcism' and 'communicating with genies.' Mullahs have tarred Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration as containing 'deviants, devils and evil spirits.' Ahmadinejad responded that his opponents have launched a 'conspiracy' to undo socio-economic changes beneficial to most Iranians. At the heart of the widening dispute is Ahmadinejad's increasing independence from the system of 'velayat-e faqih,' or guardianship of the -- religious -- jurist, on which Iran's Shiite theocracy has been grounded since the 1979 revolution. The disputed presidential election in 2009, where protests initially targeted Ahmadinejad but swiftly turned to abolishing the theocratic state, opened this avenue of attack for Ahmadinejad. Now Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other mullahs say they fear that Ahmadinejad has turned against guardianship of the jurist. In the process, Ahmadinejad is becoming less of a wildcard, while the Shiite clergy are appearing irrational. In essence, Iran's political battle is over two possible paths ahead: a continuation of the Islamic Republic with its Islamist system of governance or the emergence of a more secular nation with elected, nonclerical officials. The clergy have plenty of reasons to worry. The president has demanded that the mullahs refrain from stipulating societal norms, arguing that Islamic mores are not part of Iran's heritage. His allies, including Chief of Staff Esfandiyar Rahim Mashaei, have belittled clerical roles in politics as 'unproductive' and 'worthless.'" http://t.uani.com/kVPV7a
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