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Top Stories
Reuters:
"Iran plans to build more nuclear power reactors in an
earthquake-prone coastal area, Iranian media said on Wednesday, a day
after a strong tremor struck the region close to its only existing such
plant. Tuesday's 6.3-magnitude quake hit 89 km (55 miles) southeast of
the port of Bushehr, killing 37 people and injuring more than 900 as it
flattened small villages. The dead included eight children under the age
of 10. But the nuclear power station 18 km (11 miles) south of Bushehr
was unaffected, according to Iranian officials and the Russian company
that built the facility. Tehran has repeatedly rejected safety concerns
about Bushehr, which is located in a highly seismic area on Iran's Gulf
coast and began operations in 2011 after decades of delays. The head of
the Islamic state's Atomic Energy Organisation said hours after the
earthquake that more reactors would be built there... A report published
last week by U.S. think-tanks the Carnegie Endowment and the Federation
of American Scientists said that, 'ominously', the Bushehr reactor sits
at the intersection of three tectonic plates, and that warnings about the
threat of earthquakes had 'fallen on deaf ears.'" http://t.uani.com/12JzKdr
Reuters:
"Iran exported nearly 18 million barrels of fuel oil in the first
quarter, or around 200,000 barrels per day, an increase of nearly 12.5
percent from the previous quarter, according to traders and data from
Thomson Reuters Oil Analytics. The figures show that Iran's fuel oil
exports remain healthy despite tougher Western sanctions aimed at
restraining the country's nuclear ambitions, although the measures have
more than halved its exports of crude oil over the past year. Iran's
market-savvy officials and Gulf-based middlemen have adopted creative
strategies to get around the sanctions, from using ship-to-ship
transfers, to discharging and loading at remote ports and blending Iran's
fuel oil with other fuels to hide its origin. Sales of fuel oil through
direct sales agreements between the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC)
and buyers were pegged at 7.8 million barrels, according to at least one
Iran-based shipping source familiar with the country's fuel oil exports.
Average monthly exports through direct sales between January and March
were 2.6 million barrels, or 86,666 barrels per day (bpd), with exports
despatched from the country's largest oil export terminal at Kharg
Island, the source said." http://t.uani.com/10T1l9b
Reuters:
"The United States expects importers of Iranian crude oil to make
further significant cuts in their purchases, a senior U.S. official said
on Wednesday, though she noted that there are seasonal fluctuations. 'I
do expect that reductions in the importation of oil will continue,' the
senior State Department official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
'There is seasonality, there are spikes, it does go up. There are prior
contracts and seasonality to those contracts, so we know there will be
fluctuations, but I expect that there will be continued reductions.'
Asked if she expected these to be significant reductions, the official
replied 'yes.' Under U.S. law, countries that import Iranian crude oil
must make 'significant reductions' -- as determined by the U.S.
government -- or their banks run the risk of being cut off from the U.S.
financial system under U.S. sanctions." http://t.uani.com/17qIKaV
Nuclear Program
AFP:
"Iran insisted on Tuesday it will not suspend its enrichment of
uranium to 20 percent nor will it ship out its existing stockpile -- two
keys demands of world powers in failed nuclear talks with Tehran. 'We
will continue to enrich uranium to 20 percent purity as long as it is
needed to fuel the Tehran research reactor,' atomic chief Feryedoon
Abbasi Davani told reporters in remarks published by the ISNA news
agency. Iran, he said, will neither 'ship out its stockpile nor dilute
the material' -- which at 20 percent purity is only a few technical steps
short of bomb-grade enriched uranium." http://t.uani.com/14X8ewM
NYT:
"The Navy is going to sea for the first time with a laser attack
weapon that has been shown in tests to disable patrol boats and blind or
destroy surveillance drones. prototype shipboard laser will be deployed
on a converted amphibious transport and docking ship in the Persian Gulf,
where Iranian fast-attack boats have harassed American warships and where
the government in Tehran is building remotely piloted aircraft carrying
surveillance pods and, someday potentially, rockets. The laser will not
be operational until next year, but the announcement on Monday by Adm.
Jonathan W. Greenert, the chief of naval operations, seemed meant as a
warning to Iran not to step up activity in the gulf in the next few
months if tensions increase because of sanctions and the impasse in
negotiations over the Iranian nuclear program. The Navy released video
and still images of the laser weapon burning through a drone during a
test firing." http://t.uani.com/12GCbkI
Sanctions
WSJ:
"Eni SpA, Italy's biggest oil and natural gas company by volume,
said Tuesday its activities in Iran may face U.S. sanctions against
investments in the Islamic republic, and they could be material. Eni
said, in its 2012 annual report, that it doesn't believe its activities
in Iran are sanctionable under current U.S. rules but notes it has no
formal assurances from the U.S. State Department. 'If sanctions were
imposed, their impact could be material and adverse to Eni,' said the
Rome-based company. Eni has operated in Iran for several years as part of
four service contracts: South Pars, Darquain, Dorood and Balal. Eni said
all the projects have been completed with the exception of Darquain,
which is in the process of final commissioning and is being handed over
to the national Iranian oil company. The Italian company's projects in
Iran are in the cost-recovery phase, and it adds it has no plans to make
further capital expenditure in the country in future years. Eni's daily
output in Iran averaged 3,000 barrels of oil equivalent in 2012,
representing less than 1% of the company's total production." http://t.uani.com/10SfUtI
Syrian Uprising
CSM:
"Before the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began
in 2011, Hamas was a key ally of Damascus and a component of the Iran-led
'axis of resistance' that challenged Israel and the West in the Middle
East. But after two years of bloodshed in Syria, Hamas has abandoned
Damascus and distanced itself from Iran, a major supporter of the Assad
regime... But given the shifting dynamics of the region and the
sharpening of the Sunni-Shiite divide, Hamas still appears to be keeping
its options open with its former patron Iran and fellow anti-Israel
resistance group, the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah... But
while Hamas has abandoned Syria, has it completely renounced its
relationship with its former sponsor Iran? Meshaal admitted last November
in an interview with CNN that the Hamas relationship with Iran was
'affected and harmed' by disagreements over Syria, but downplayed its
severity. 'It is not as it used to be in the past, but there is no
severing of relations,' he said." http://t.uani.com/Xry8oa
Human Rights
Copenhagen Post:
"Amnesty International [is] elated that Denmark will no longer be
indirectly contributing to the execution of drug traffickers. The
development minister, Christian Friis Bach (Radikale), has decided to
cease providing financial support to a United Nations anti-drug programme
due to revelations that Iran has been using the programme to execute
hundreds of criminals every year. 'It's a signal to Iran that the
implementation of the death penalty is unacceptable and not something we
can be involved with,' Bach told Politiken newspaper. Via the Foreign
Ministry's aid organisation, Danida, Denmark has contributed five million
kroner annually over the past two years to the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which among other tasks battles the drug trade in
Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. But with the news that the Iranian
government has been executing hundreds of criminals as a result of the
anti-drug programme, human rights organisations such as Amnesty
International accused Denmark and other donor countries for indirectly
sponsoring the death penalty in Iran." http://t.uani.com/Zm42yN
Deutsche Welle:
"Minorities in Iran face stepped-up efforts to silence and stamp
them out - including mass arrests and executions. An Ahwazi Arab activist
seeking appeals for five men on death row shared his personal story with
DW. Of the 21 countries that practice the death penalty, Iran
carried out the second-greatest number of executions in 2012 (after
China), according to a report released by Amnesty International on Wednesday
(10.04.2013). Beyond the 314 official executions in the Islamic Republic,
the group cited reports of at least 230 additional secret executions. One
of the deadly offenses is 'enmity against God,' a vague charge the
Iranian state has used in political attacks against government opponents
and minorities. About 40 to 50 percent of the Iranian population consists
of ethnic or religious minorities, including Azerbaijanis, Kurds and
Iranian Arabs, also known as Ahwazi Arabs." http://t.uani.com/12HM69H
FT:
"Her defiant viewing is emblematic of what experts say is a
counterproductive Iranian government policy of banning satellite channels
and confiscating the equipment used to receive them. Local media report
that about 60 per cent of Iranian families watch satellite programmes,
the number growing as people try to escape a stream of negative political
and economic news. In doing so, they are tacitly rebuffing Iran's
intelligence ministry, which sees a western conspiracy in promotion of
satellite channels. In a statement earlier this year, the ministry
blacklisted several satellite channels, including Manoto, alleging they
were affiliated to the BBC and were part of 'the psychological war unit
of British government's spy organisation'. The Islamic regime in Tehran
could intensify the crackdown on satellite dishes in the coming months as
Iran prepares for a presidential election on June 14, during which it
hopes to project a democratic image of the country through a high
turnout. Satellite channels usually discourage Iranians from voting by
asserting directly or indirectly that the election results are
rigged." http://t.uani.com/14bodbB
Opinion &
Analysis
Claudia Rosett in
Forbes: "Clearly the dangers posed by North Korea
reside not only in its arsenal, but in the precedents Pyongyang keeps
setting for just how much a rogue regime can get away with in this era of
receding American power. As North Korea hones its missile reach and
nuclear abilities - while threatening to incinerate Seoul, Washington and
U.S. bases in the Pacific - it appears the limits of such behavior have
yet to be discovered. That spectacularly dangerous message is surely
being read with interest by other anti-American regimes, especially by
North Korea's chief partner in proliferation, Iran. Iran's interest in
the North Korean playbook goes back some three decades, to the early days
of the Islamic Republic. It extends beyond a shared interest in military
hardware, to a mutually reinforcing policy of threatening the U.S. A
signal event in this relationship took place in 1989, shortly after the
end of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which North Korea supplied
weapons, including knock-offs of Soviet Scud missiles, to Iran. In May of
1989, Iran's then-president Ali Khamenei paid a visit to Pyongyang, then
ruled by Kim Il Sung, grandfather of North Korea's current tyrant, Kim
Jong Un. The gist of Khamenei's message during that visit is important,
because less than a month later Iran's revolutionary tyrant Ayatollah
Khomeini died, and Khamenei took over as Iran's Supreme Leader - which he
remains to this day. During his 1989 trip to North Korea, Khamenei was
full of praise for North Korea's heavily armed hostility toward the U.S.
In a statement to Kim Il Sung, broadcast by Tehran Radio, and reported at
the time by the Associated Press, Khamenei said, 'Anti-Americanism can be
the most important factor in our cooperation with the People's Democratic
Republic of North Korea.' He added, admiringly, 'You have proved in Korea
that you have the power to confront America.' Plenty has changed in the
world, but the anti-American alliance between Iran and North Korea has
endured. In 2009, according to a laudatory account by Pyongyang's Korean
Central News Agency, Iran held a ceremony at its embassy in Pyongyang to
commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the meeting between Iran's
Supreme Leader Khamenei and North Korea's late Great Leader Kim. In 2012,
when a high-level North Korean delegation to Tehran signed a Scientific
Cooperation Agreement with Iran, fraught with nuclear overtones, Khamenei
gave his public blessing to the deal - citing a shared need to defy
'common enemies.' Underpinning this cozy anti-American axis are decades
of weapons development and trade. Iran has the oil money that cash hungry
North Korea craves for its weapons programs, and North Korea has the
willingness to pioneer ever more dangerous means of threatening America
and its allies." http://t.uani.com/10Sdmgz
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Eye on Iran is a periodic news summary from United Against
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