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Top Stories
Free Beacon:
"Iran is engaged in an elaborate oil smuggling scheme that enables
it to skirt international sanctions as it transmits valuable crude oil to
China, according to an investigation released last week by a watchdog
group. Iranian ships have been travelling out of the country's Kharg
Island oil export terminal, making their way east of the Strait of
Hormuz, then shutting down communication devices in order to mask their
activities, according to United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI), which
recently concluded a detailed investigation into Iran's sanctions-busting
behaviors. UANI discovered Iranian ships are illicitly offloading their
crude oil at sea, falsely billing it as a legal product, and shipping it
to China, which is the top purchaser of Iranian crude oil. Western
governments including the United States have failed to act on this new
information despite UANI's efforts to petition authorities, a spokesman
told the Washington Free Beacon. Iran activities can clearly be
classified as illegal smuggling because 'the vessels transfer their oil
to other vessels in secret, in order to disguise its origins and
circumvent international sanctions,' UANI spokesman Nathan Carleton
said." http://t.uani.com/Z2TCc5
AP:
"Technicians upgrading Iran's main uranium enrichment facility have
tripled their installations of high-tech machines that could be used in a
nuclear weapons program to more than 600 in the last three months,
diplomats said Wednesday. They say the machines are not yet producing
enriched uranium and some may be only partially installed. Still the move
is the latest sign that 10 years of diplomatic efforts have failed to
persuade Tehran to curb its uranium enrichment. Instead, Iran continues
to increase its capacities. The installations also suggest that Iran
possesses both the technology and the raw materials to mass-produce
centrifuges that can enrich uranium much faster than the more than 12,000
inefficient machines now making up the backbone of its enrichment
program." http://t.uani.com/ZzCbLQ
Reuters:
"Iran may in the future need highly enriched uranium to power
submarines and other vessels, a top nuclear official was quoted as saying
on Tuesday. The comments by Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, the head of Iran's
Atomic Energy Organisation, are likely to stoke Western concerns about
the nature of Iran's nuclear program, as uranium enriched beyond 20
percent fissile purity is a relatively short technical step from
weapons-grade. 'For now we have no plans for enrichment above 20
percent,' Abbasi-Davani said, according to the Fars news agency. 'But in
some cases ... such as ships and submarines, if our researchers have a
need for greater presence under the sea, we must build small engines
whose construction requires fuel enriched to 45 to 56 percent.' Western
experts doubt that Iran, which is under a U.N. arms and nuclear
technology embargo, has the capability to make the kind of sophisticated
underwater vessel any time soon that only the world's most powerful states
currently have. But experts have said Iran could use the plan to justify
more sensitive atomic activity." http://t.uani.com/17Gk9Pk
Nuclear Program
WSJ:
"The U.S. should change its approach on Iran by holding two-way
talks and offering to ease punitive sanctions in exchange for nuclear
concessions, according to a bipartisan group that has drawn support in
the past from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. A report on Wednesday by the
Iran Project, which is backed by a group of former diplomats, military
officers and lawmakers, will recommend the U.S. promise to lighten
sanctions if Iran reduces stockpiles of enriched uranium and provides
other concessions. 'Here is an option that really ought to be looked at
before you move to military force,' said veteran U.S. diplomat Thomas
Pickering. 'The negotiation track should be made as robust and forward
leading as the pressure track has been up until now.' ... Fred Kagan, a
defense expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said
Iran wants the capability to become a nuclear state and diplomacy stands
little chance of success. 'It is naiveté about how the Iranians operate,
and it is naiveté about what we are looking at,' Mr. Kagan said. 'The
Iranians have made the decision to acquire the capability to field a
nuclear weapon.'" http://t.uani.com/ZwiYvg
AFP:
"The leaders of Iran and Niger on Tuesday said they had engaged in
'fruitful' discussions but had not talked about uranium during Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's two-day visit to the world's
fourth-largest uranium producer. 'Niger is a uranium producer, but as
surprising as it may sound to you, we did not touch upon that,' Niger's
President Mahamadou Issoufou said during a press conference in Niamey.
'The specific question of uranium has not been discussed.' ... 'We are
(both) signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and we agree
that uranium should serve people, promoting life and not (be used) for
destruction,' Issoufou told reporters." http://t.uani.com/ZzBX7h
Sanctions
UPI:
"An oil exhibition in Iran is a chance to show that sanctions do
little to displace the country as a world leader, Iranian Oil Minister
Rostam Qasemi said. Iran kicks off its 18th International Oil, Gas,
Refining and Petrochemical Exhibition this week. Qasemi said the event
showcases Iran's ability to make progress in the energy sector despite
economic sanctions. '(Sanctions) have not only failed to paralyze Iran but
also contributed to the blossoming of national domestic talents in the
light of self-sufficiency campaign,' he was quoted by Press TV as saying.
Qasemi said he expects more than 1,000 foreign and domestic companies to
attend the four-day event." http://t.uani.com/112IJVw
Bloomberg:
"Dubai's state refining company, which buys most of its condensate
from Iran, is seeking alternative sources of the fuel to curb imports
from the Islamic republic and avoid running afoul of international
sanctions. Iran is 'still the major supplier,' Saeed Khoory, chief
executive officer of Emirates National Oil Co., said today in an
interview in Dubai. 'We are trying to find other sources.' ENOC, as the
refiner is known, wants new suppliers of condensate because U.S. sanctions
threaten financial penalties for companies that trade with Iran. ENOC
said in February it had signed a contract with the Gulf sheikhdom of
Qatar for a year's supply of condensate. ENOC operates a 120,000
barrel-a-day condensate refinery that splits the light crude into oil
products such as naphtha, reformate, jet fuel and diesel." http://t.uani.com/XRae7T
Domestic
Politics
NYT:
"Southeast Iran was hit Tuesday by the most powerful earthquake to
strike the country in 40 years, and its reverberations were felt as far
away as India, but Iranian officials said the tremor had originated so
deep underground, and in such a sparsely populated area, that it caused
relatively few casualties and only minor damage. The authorities in Iran
had initially feared hundreds of deaths from the 7.8-magnitude
earthquake, but scaled back their assessment as it became clear that its
depth, initially reported to be only about 10 miles beneath the surface,
was more than 56 miles beneath. The shallower the quake, the greater the
ground motion and potential for damage. The earthquake, which struck at
3:14 p.m. local time, was felt in several countries, rocking buildings in
the Indian capital, New Delhi, sending panicked residents of Karachi,
Pakistan, fleeing into the streets and causing tremors through Persian
Gulf states." http://t.uani.com/17nQCHl
AFP:
"The U.S. on Tuesday offered assistance to Iran and Pakistan after a
massive earthquake near their border, despite Washington's tense
relationship with Tehran. Secretary of State John Kerry offered 'our
deepest condolences' to the families of the dead and to the injured
following the magnitude 7.8 quake that killed at least 34 people. 'We
stand ready to offer assistance in this difficult time,' Mr. Kerry said.
Disaster relief contributed to an earlier thaw in relations between the
U.S. and Iran, which--then led by reformist president Mohammad
Khatami--accepted U.S. personnel following the massive Bam earthquake in
2003. But Iran has declined U.S. offers for assistance in more recent tragedies."
http://t.uani.com/13h5WJa
Opinion &
Analysis
Marc Champion in
Bloomberg: "Iran suffered a massive 7.8 magnitude
earthquake this morning -- one more demonstration of why the country's
nuclear program is an albatross it should shed. Just last week, that a
smaller 6.1 magnitude quake hit 100 miles from Iran's only nuclear plant,
Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, killing 37 people and injuring 950.
Fortunately, that quake was too small to damage the Bushehr reactor and
today's was too far away, on the border with Pakistan. There were
conflicting reports of how many died either side of the border, but the
toll is likely to be relatively small for such a big tremor, because the
area is sparsely populated. (For comparison, a smaller 6.6 earthquake in
2003, in the adjacent Iranian province of Kerman, killed more than
26,000). These two narrow escapes should be extremely worrisome for
Iranians and the Persian Gulf city-states across the water from Bushehr.
In Dubai this morning, swaying buildings were evacuated because of the
strength of an earthquake more than 400 miles away. After last week's
quake, gulf-state officials said that they wanted to send inspectors to
check Bushehr for themselves. Their capitals are downwind from the plant,
and much closer to it than Tehran. Bushehr's Russian operators said again
today that the plant was unaffected. Bushehr is unique, a Russian reactor
bolted onto a different German design after a consortium led by Siemens
AG ceased work at the time of the 1979 revolution. It is a bespoke
nuclear plant, which in terms of safety and predictability is a bad
thing. Mismatches in the design were one reason (there were many) why it
took so long and cost so much to build. Iran insists it wants to make
nuclear fuel only for civilian purposes. So it's worth a quick recap of
why the Iranian program hurts Iran: Bushehr provides just 2 percent of
the country's electricity, so it isn't necessary; Iran has the world's
second largest reserves of natural gas after Russia and the world's
fourth-largest proven reserves of oil, so again nuclear isn't necessary;
in part because of sanctions imposed over Iran's economically worthless
nuclear program, investment in the country's gas and oil extraction has
suffered, and production and exports are well below where they should be
-- this was true even before sanctions got tough last year. Most
important, Iran's lack of training and equipment and the failed response
to the 2003 is one of the countries least well equipped to deal with
major disasters, whether natural or nuclear." http://t.uani.com/13imBbr
Michael Ledeen in
WSJ: "With an Iranian presidential election coming
in June, President Obama may be presented with a second chance to get his
policy right. In 2009, when massive protests followed Iran's disputed
presidential vote, Mr. Obama sat by as the insurrection was brutally put
down by the Tehran regime. But the rage against the regime is still
intense, and if similar protests explode in June, the White House should
be prepared. The president ought to know from the example of the
Arab Spring that seemingly secure despots can be toppled by popular will.
The coming elections offer a chance for America to demonstrate its
belated support for the Iranian opposition, and Washington would do well
to encourage the Iranian people to rise up in the coming months. Mr.
Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said that Iran
is unlikely to produce a nuclear weapon in less than a year. That period
gives the U.S., Israel and their allies breathing room to pursue an
alternative to the two stark choices of accepting a nuclear Iran or
launching a military strike to stop it. A third option is encouraging and
supporting the opposition in Iran, where millions of people yearn to be
freed of the ayatollahs' oppressive rule. Like the Soviet Union in its
latter days, Iran's regime is hollow and detested by most of its people.
Few believed that Soviet rule would end without war, yet it imploded with
little violence. At the time, intelligence assessments described the Soviet
regime as stable and the economy as relatively healthy-even though unrest
was actually rampant, the economy moribund. Thanks to sanctions and
government mismanagement, Iran can't even make a pretense of economic
health: Official analyses from the Iranian parliament's research center
show that, in a survey of 98 companies, production over the past 12
months has declined 40.3%. Employment has dropped 36.5% over that same
year. Inflation is roaring: Finished products cost 87.9% more, and raw
materials are up 112%. The country is riddled with strikes and protests
from workers who haven't been paid for months. The Iranian government is
also widely viewed within the country as corrupt and illegitimate, having
stolen the 2009 elections. The Green Movement, which briefly flourished
after the vote, has seen its leaders arrested by Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei, who has also shut down scores of newspapers, magazines and
websites... What can the U.S. do to make this happen? Take a page from
the playbook used to stir internal challenges to Moscow's rule.
Leaders in both the executive and legislative branches should publicly
call for the end of the regime, just as President Reagan decried the
'evil empire.' And the Iranian people must hear about it: At present,
American broadcasting to Iran focuses heavily on American events and
policies, often very critically. A more concerted effort should be made
to give Iranians real news about their country. And members of the
opposition should be furnished with the hardware to better communicate
with each other and the outside world." http://t.uani.com/15jRwYV
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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.
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