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Reuters: "The Treasury is close to a decision on blacklisting several foreign banks for defying sanctions against Iran, a senior Treasury official said on Tuesday as lawmakers voiced concerns about weak enforcement of an Iran sanctions law passed last year. David Cohen, nominated to be Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, told senators that he will vigorously enforce the new law. So far, no banks outside of Iran have been sanctioned under it. The law, which implements U.N.-mandated sanctions and aims to cut off funds that could support Iran's nuclear program, effectively requires banks to choose between dealing with the U.S.-led financial system or doing business with Iran... Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, said he was concerned that Treasury is not adequately enforcing the new law, including among banks in Turkey, where business ties to Iran run deep." http://t.uani.com/kfLIW8
Dow Jones: "Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, a key Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, suggested Tuesday that he may not vote in favor of two Treasury officials nominated for key roles in setting U.S. sanctions policy unless they demonstrate a commitment to enforce new sanctions meant to pressure Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Menendez was speaking at a hearing for David Cohen, nominated to become undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, as well as Daniel Glaser, nominated to become assistant secretary for terrorist financing. Both stressed they were deeply focused on enforcing the sanctions. But the New Jersey Democrat said he is particularly concerned about Turkish firms doing businesses with blacklisted Iranian banks and that Chinese companies continue to invest in Iran's energy sector." http://t.uani.com/m0FKsh
FP: "The Obama administration and most of Washington may be focused on Libya or Pakistan, but several offices on Capitol Hill are preparing new sanctions bills to increase pressure on Iran. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) will kick off the slew of new Iran sanctions legislation expected to be introduced in May on Wednesday, when he introduces a new bill to promote human rights and democracy in Iran. He is working on a bipartisan and bicameral basis with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Rep. Robert Dold (R-IL), and Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL). The bill, called the Iran Human Rights and Democracy Promotion Act of 2011, would force the administration to appoint a special representative on human rights and democracy in Iran and impose sanctions on companies that sell or service products that enable the Iranian regime to oppress its people, such as communications spying equipment... But Kirk's bill is only one piece of the larger puzzle of Iran bills circulating on Capitol Hill right now. Two senior Senate aides told The Cable that the plan is to compile several Iran bills together into one massive, new Iran sanctions bill to be unveiled by the end of May. 'By the end of this month, there's probably going to be a comprehensive bill that deals with Iran on a variety of levels, including proliferation, human rights, and energy,' one senior GOP Senate aide said... Many in Congress are increasingly unhappy with the Obama administration for failing to enforce penalties on companies from third-party countries that are still doing business with Iran... But there's one thing both chambers agree on: the need to stop Chinese companies from undermining U.S. sanctions by backfilling the business Iran is losing due to the exit of American and European countries." http://t.uani.com/jRqaHn
Nuclear Program & Sanctions
NYT: "The United States and Romania announced an agreement on Tuesday on the location for basing American antimissile interceptors in Romania as part of a program designed to link Washington and its NATO allies against an Iranian threat. The agreement immediately drew complaints from Russian officials... The United States and NATO maintain that the reconfigured missile-defense system based in Europe could not diminish the deterrent power of Russia's vast nuclear arsenal, and state that the system of antimissile interceptors and radars is designed to halt missiles from Iran." http://t.uani.com/lzJNYL
The Hindu: "After having explored various options to make payments and having run out of them, India is understood to have decided to pay Iran for the crude oil supplied by it in rupee terms. After discussions between the Finance Ministry and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Ministry, it has been decided that the Ministry will seek the note of the Union Cabinet to switch over to the rupee payment system for the Iranian crude, officials in the Petroleum Ministry said. Under the newly floated but yet to be approved proposal, National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) will open rupee account with Indian banks and could use the money to purchase non-strategic items such as railway imports and buy commodities. It will not be able to use the money to invest in India or for buying shares or companies. The Finance Ministry will prepare and submit a list of do's and don'ts for Iranian authorities from the money it gets as part of the crude oil payments." http://t.uani.com/lbIBB0
Reuters: "Iran plans to export up to 3.5 liters of gasoline per day by March 2012, an energy official was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency. Iran, which was long dependent on imported gasoline for 30-40 percent of its consumption, said last year that it had started exporting the fuel. 'We plan to export 3 to 3.5 million liters of gasoline per day by the end of the current Iranian year (which ends on March 19),' energy official Jalil Salari told the IRNA news agency." http://t.uani.com/kFykkp
Domestic Politics
Reuters: "Iran will merge its oil and energy ministries, one of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's deputies told the state broadcaster on Wednesday, signalling a shake-up of the department in charge of the world's fifth-biggest crude exports. 'According to what the cabinet approved today, the oil and energy ministries and labour and social welfare ministries will be merged,' Vice-President Lotfollah Foruzandeh was quoted as saying by IRIB. The announcement is part of a plan to slim down the number of ministries to 17 from 21, which the government says will produce a more streamlined, efficient administration. But making major changes to the oil ministry is a move unlikely to be met with universal approval." http://t.uani.com/j3WfQ7
Foreign Affairs
AFP: "Iranian police dispersed hundreds of youths Tuesday at an Asian Champions League match between Iranian and Saudi sides protesting Saudi military aid to Bahrain in crushing a pro-democracy movement. At the match between Iran's Persepolis and the Saudi team Al-Ittihad, some 300-400 youths dressed in black and carrying Bahraini flags began protesting. They were first rounded up and isolated in a section of the stands before being expelled from the stadium shortly after the second half began. The protesters, some of whom were arrested, shouted 'Death to the Al-Sauds' and 'Death to the Al-Khalifas' in reference to the ruling dynasties in Saudi Arabia and its tiny neighbour Bahrain." http://t.uani.com/krSp8g
Opinion & Analysis
Stephen Schwartz in NRO: "Since its onset in mid-January, the Arab Spring has caused serious problems for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Even more than other Middle Eastern states threatened by mass dissent, Iran's ruling regime has fostered bizarre conspiracy theories blaming its intellectual enemies, both foreign and domestic, for threatening its dominion with a 'velvet revolution.' Peaceful protests brought down the Tunisian and Egyptian regimes, and his campaign of brutal repression now threatens Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, a key Iranian ally. The collapse of Assad's bloody rule would be felt acutely by the Iranians, who support Syria against the Sunni Arab powers, particularly Saudi Arabia, and use it as a conduit to ship arms to Hezbollah across the border in Lebanon. Indeed, Iran's anxiety over the Syrian uprising these last six weeks has sharpened divisions in the ruling strata, including factions siding with the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and his figurehead as president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Khamenei and Ahmadinejad openly disagreed when Ahmadinejad dismissed intelligence minister, Heydar Moslehi, supposedly at the insistence of Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, Ahmadinejad's former chief of staff and brother-in-law. Moslehi had reportedly been spying on Mashaei. Khamenei compelled the president to reinstate Moslehi, and Ahmadinejad stayed away from his office for a week, in what BBC News chose to describe as a 'boycott of his duties.' When Ahmadinejad returned to work to head a cabinet meeting last weekend, rumors of a complete break between he and Khamenei were put to rest. Mashaei, who remains a close adviser of Ahmadinejad, had been demoted from the presidential cabinet on April 9, although he retained numerous other state positions. Allegedly, Mashaei was removed from his top post because his ultranationalist views on culture and religion were too unorthodox for Khamenei and other conservatives, who despise him openly. Mashaei, who has no religious training, has encouraged Ahmadinejad on the path of an 'Iranian Islam' similar to German national socialism, centered on the country's cultural heritage and its supposed place in the state's vision of an apocalyptic return of the 'hidden imam,' or mahdi. But Mashaei told Iranian media he gave up his work as Ahmadinejad's chief of staff to prepare for elections to be held in 2013. Hooshang Amirahmadi, a U.S.-based ally of Mashaei's and founder-president of the American Iranian Council, has affirmed a claim disclosed by WikiLeaks that Ahmadinejad is grooming Mashaei to succeed him." http://t.uani.com/m5AweG
Alejandro Barbajosa in Reuters: "The United States may have missed its moment to apply more political pressure on governments to stop buying Iranian crude as rising fuel prices make Washington wary about further interruptions to the global supply chain. U.S. leverage has waned after the civil war in Libya virtually halted the north African country's crude shipments, highlighting risks to Arab exports from unrest across the region. That has thrown oil markets off balance, sending Brent crude to a 32-month high above $127 a barrel in April and boosting American gasoline pump prices to near $4 a gallon. Asia's fastest-growing oil consumers, the main buyers from Iran, are more than ever prioritizing security of supply given that spare capacity is limited. 'Over the last two months, the instability in the Arab oil-exporting countries has created a very strong incentive for the major Asian oil importers to reconsider doubts, if any at all, about dealing with Iran,' said Hooman Peimani, head of the energy security division at the Energy Studies Institute of the National University of Singapore. 'Prior to that, there were many suppliers that India and China could potentially consider to decrease imports from Iran, at least to some extent. That time is already gone.' India, involved in an oil payments row with Iran, has prevented the dispute from escalating and cutting oil flows from the Islamic Republic, a blessing in disguise for consumers reeling from crude's rally... Until the wave of protests and revolt changed the face of politics in the Middle East and North Africa, the India-Iran oil dispute gave a hint of how oil trade routes and relationships would be redefined if politics rendered buying Iranian oil more difficult. Iran's immediate option would be to start storing the oil in tankers until Tehran found an alternative market or route to get rid of supplies. 'If refiners want Iranian oil, they will get it through a trader,' said Manouchehr Takin, a senior petroleum analyst at the Center for Global Energy Studies in London. 'Of course it would be at a cost to the Iranians, and they would probably have to do a discount.' Iran could also resort to offering crude in a barter exchange for gasoline that it normally imports, obviating the need for a payments mechanism, another trader said. Discounted oil would be especially attractive for Chinese refiners with stakes in Iran's oil industry." http://t.uani.com/lZk8f4
Ben Cohen in HuffPo: "In his essay, 'The Myth of Sisyphus,' the French philosopher Albert Camus depicted suicide as an abdication of one's responsibility to confront the absurdities, disappointments and frustrations that accompany human existence. Our inherent freedom, Camus believed, confronts us continually with the question of whether life is worth living. To answer in the negative is to reject that freedom. What, then, are we to make of those who commit suicide in the name of freedom? ... And then there is the subject of this article, an Iranian intellectual who chose suicide on April 29 by throwing himself from the balcony of his Tehran apartment. His name, well-known to those who follow the struggle for human rights in Iran, but with nowhere near the mass recognition of a Nelson Mandela or Vaclav Havel, was Siamak Pourzand. Unlike the three previous examples I gave of political suicide, in which those who died were either young (Palach was 20, Bouazizi was 26) or in middle age (Zygielbojm was 48) the 80-year-old Pourzand was clearly in his final years. A prominent journalist and critic before the Islamist seizure of power in 1979, he had endured more than three decades of vicious harassment at the hands of the regime, including kidnapping by the security police and several years in the regime's notorious Evin Prison, an incarceration that catastrophically impacted his personal health. Somehow, he managed to evade the sentence of execution that is imposed with gruesome regularity -- three hundred in the last year alone -- upon the regime's domestic opponents. After all that suffering, why did Pourzand, one of Iran's great men of letters, a one-time contributor to the prestigious French journal of film criticism, Cahiers du Cinema, pass the death sentence on himself? We will never know the answer, although we can glimpse the tortured thoughts swirling through his head in this achingly beautiful tribute by his daughter, Azadeh... There's that word: freedom. The only thing we can know with certainty is that Pourzand chose to end his life. So was this desperate act of an elderly defeated man who could take no more? Or will Siamak Pourzand be remembered as Iran's own Jan Palach: a man who committed suicide not during the first hopeful flushes of democratic protest in 2009, but, in the manner of his Czech counterpart, two years later, when the deadly weight of Iran's regime seemed immovable, yet was eventually overturned?" http://t.uani.com/jG1bLF
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