|
|
Top Stories
Reuters:
"ZTE Corp, China's second-largest telecoms equipment maker, has
essentially stopped doing business in Iran after a U.S. investigation
into alleged sales of embargoed equipment, the company's chairman told
Reuters on Thursday. ZTE said in March 2012 that it would curtail
business in Iran following a report by Reuters that it sold Iran's
largest telecoms firm a powerful surveillance system capable of
monitoring telephone and Internet communications. The company is now
facing a U.S. criminal investigation over the issue. 'We've basically stopped.
We have to continue to service the products we had sold before - we have
no choice,' Hou Weigui said in an interview in Beijing. 'We maintain
communication with them to enable locals to carry out maintenance.' Hou's
disclosure is the first public acknowledgement of how deeply the scrutiny
has affected the company. While he declined to give details on the amount
of business ZTE had done in Iran before, Hou said the compensation it had
to pay clients there for breaking contracts, and the fact that it had to
halt some shipments even after equipment had been manufactured, were
important reasons for the company's first-ever annual loss in 2012, of
2.84 billion yuan ($460.1 million)." http://t.uani.com/ZBMMpv
AFP:
"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that
international sanctions imposed over his country's nuclear drive had
caused 'problems', but insisted they had not stopped progress.
Ahmadinejad spoke in Ghana as he wound up a three-nation tour of west
Africa that also took him to Benin and Niger, the world's fourth largest
producer of uranium. 'If a country is really determined to achieve
progress, it will achieve it in spite of colonial pressure or sanctions,'
he said through an interpreter after signing agreements with Ghana on
areas including education and agriculture. 'Yes, the pressures have
created problems for us, but they have never been able to bring our
progress to a halt.'" http://t.uani.com/XIsM84
Reuters:
"The chief executive of South African telecom MTN Group on Thursday
hailed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling as a major boost to its defense
against a $4.2 billion lawsuit from rival Turkcell. 'It's definitely a
positive for our case,' Sifiso Dabengwa told Reuters in a telephone
interview on Thursday. Turkcell is suing MTN, Africa's biggest mobile
phone company, in a U.S. federal court using a 224-year-old law. However,
the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday limited the ability of human rights
plaintiffs to invoke that law, a ruling seen as a major victory for
foreign multinationals. The federal court had delayed ruling on the
Turkcell suit filed a year ago, pending the outcome of Wednesday's
Supreme Court ruling. Critically for Turkcell's suit - which involves two
companies that are not based in the United States - the ruling is seen as
limiting the reach of U.S. courts in claims seen as lacking sufficient
connection to the United States. Turkcell said in a statement it was
'inappropriate' to comment before a ruling from the federal court, adding
that its case could be addressed in the coming weeks. Turkey's largest
cell phone firm alleges that MTN used bribery and peddling of political
influence to win a mobile license in Iran that was first awarded to
Turkcell." http://t.uani.com/Zu5Rhx
Nuclear Program
Reuters:
"Israeli threats to attack Iran's nuclear sites are the harmless
barking of a dog, Iran's military said on Thursday, marking the last Army
Day ceremony of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency with trademark acerbic
rhetoric against the Jewish state. Ahmadinejad, who steps down at
elections in June after eight years at the helm of the Islamic Republic's
government, has used the podium at previous Army Day parades to lash out
at the United States and its allies. On Thursday Ahmadinejad confined
himself to praise of the country's armed forces, and it was Iran's ground
forces commander Ataollah Salehi spoke up against Iran's sworn foe. 'A
dog does nothing more than bark and we have no confidence in these
threats,' Iran's state news agency (IRNA) quoted him as saying." http://t.uani.com/11kHph5
AP:
"The Iranian president on Thursday slammed the West for its naval
presence in the Persian Gulf while the country's army commanders warned
archenemy Israel against any military strikes on Iran. President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad said 'foreign presence' was the source of insecurity in the
Gulf and the strategic Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which
about one-fifth of the world's oil supply passes. Iran, on the other
hand, he claimed, has 'always guarded peace and security.' The remarks -
typical rhetoric from the Iranian president - came ahead of a military
parade in Tehran as Iran marked National Army Day. And while the Iranian
president didn't name any specific country, his remarks were an apparent
reference to Western nations and the U.S. 5th Fleet, based in
Bahrain." http://t.uani.com/13kxGZB
Sanctions
Bloomberg:
"Secretary of State John Kerry sought to discourage lawmakers from
pressuring China for further cuts in oil imports from Iran as a condition
for renewing its waiver from U.S. economic sanctions on the Islamic
Republic. A U.S. law enacted Dec. 31 requires China and other countries
to show they've 'significantly reduced' purchases of Iranian crude or
their banks and other entities that finance oil trade with Iran may be
cut off from the U.S. financial system. The U.S. is pushing China to
cooperate with sanctions designed to persuade Iran to abandon its
suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons. That initiative conflicts with a
separate effort to gain Chinese help in defusing tensions with North
Korea, whose closest ally and largest trading partner is China... On
Iran, Kerry said that any push to have countries such as China to further
reduce their imports of Iranian oil would affect Americans, as well.
'There's a point where these reductions become not only very difficult
for a particular country to go beyond a certain point, but also where
they have an impact on the global price,' Kerry told the House Foreign
Affairs Committee. 'If you want the price to go up here, you can have the
Chinese vying for more somewhere else because they can't get it where
they're getting it now,' he warned." http://t.uani.com/17rAaWE
Domestic
Politics
AP:
"Iran's state TV says a moderate, magnitude 5.2 earthquake rattled a
small town in the country's northwest. The TV says the quake shook the
town of Tasooj at 3:09 p.m. (10:39 GMT) on Thursday. The town is about
600 kilometers (370 miles) northwest of the capital, Tehran. There were
no immediate reports about any damage or casualties. The U.S. Geological
Survey put the magnitude of the quake at 4.8. It's the third quake in
Iran in the past 10 days. A magnitude 7.5 quake shook a sparsely
populated area near the Pakistani border on Tuesday. A week before that,
a magnitude 6.1 quake struck another part of the south, killing 37 people
and injuring hundreds. Iran lies on seismic fault lines and experiences
one slight quake a day on average." http://t.uani.com/11lpIwh
Guardian:
"Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the embattled former president of Iran,
has finally spoken openly about the rift between him and the country's
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In a meeting with former state
governors from the reformist and moderate camps, Rafsanjani is reported
to have put to rest any speculation that he might declare his candidacy
for the upcoming presidential election, saying that he did not foresee a
situation in which he and Khamenei could work together. The meeting,
according to Saham news agency, was organised by the ex-governors in an
attempt to persuade the 78-year-old politician to add his name to the
list of candidates. According to those present, he referred to his recent
sit-down with Khamenei, saying that the supreme leader apparently does
not perceive the country as facing the same problems that concern
Rafsanjani. Since the last presidential election in 2009, which was
followed by massive protests and a harsh crackdown, Rafsanjani has
repeatedly said he believes Iran to be in a state of crisis, both
internally and externally, and that only a more pluralistic and moderate
approach can solve it." http://t.uani.com/13kym11
|
|
Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
Nuclear Iran (UANI) a program of the American Coalition Against Nuclear
Iran, Inc., a tax-exempt organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the
Internal Revenue Code. Eye on Iran is not intended as a comprehensive
media clips summary but rather a selection of media elements with
discreet analysis in a PDA friendly format. For more information please
email Press@UnitedAgainstNuclearIran.com
United Against Nuclear
Iran (UANI) is a non-partisan, broad-based coalition that is united in a
commitment to prevent Iran from fulfilling its ambition to become a
regional super-power possessing nuclear weapons. UANI is an
issue-based coalition in which each coalition member will have its own
interests as well as the collective goal of advancing an Iran free of
nuclear weapons.
|
|
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment