Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Eye on Iran: Trump Zeroes In On North Korea, Iran Threats





   EYE ON IRAN
Facebook
Twitter
View our videos on YouTube
   





TOP STORIES


[In his state of the Union address] Trump... upped the ante in his stand-off with Iran, vowing US support for street protests against Tehran's clerical regime... "America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom," he promised, to applause from assembled lawmakers.


An Iranian court has sentenced a wealthy Iranian-American art gallery owner and his wife to long prison terms on espionage and other charges, according to a letter he wrote from jail. Karan Vafadari, a 55-year-old landowner and member of the Zoroastrian religious minority, was given a sentence of 27 years in prison, 124 lashes and a cash fine of $243,000 and confiscation of all his assets... Mr. Vafadari's wife, Afarin Nayssari, a 46-year-old architect and U.S. green-card holder, was sentenced to 16 years in prison...


Instead of blaming others Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei should take responsibility for Iran's economic and political shortcomings, an opposition leader under house arrest said in a letter published on Tuesday. In rare public criticism of Khamenei, Mehdi Karroubi accused Iran's hardline top authority of abusing power and urged him to change the way he runs the Islamic Republic before it is too late.

UANI IN THE NEWS


Cipher Brief experts General (ret) Michael Hayden and former CIA senior officer [and UANI Senior Adviser] Norman Roule have had many conversations on the subject of Iran and the broader Middle East-but not usually in front of a public audience... [Roule o]n Iran's influence on the broader Middle East: "Iran has injected into the region this sense of surrogates that follow an Iranian lead-some to greater or lesser extent-and has provided them with advanced weapons technology. This has changed the DNA of the region. Can the DNA be changed back? I don't know... What you had in December, and what you're having today... is unrest in...at least 6 or 7 cities. Crowds are in the thousands, not the millions. They are rudderless. They are brought together by a common thread of unhappiness with their standard of living, but they don't actually have something they're running towards-they're running away from something."

IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL


Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Abbas Araghchi has expressed hope that Europe will remain committed to the nuclear deal. 

NUCLEAR & BALLISTIC-MISSILE PROGRAMS


In a last-ditch attempt to prevent President Donald Trump from exiting the Iran nuclear deal, European leaders have finally promised to work with the United States to address Iran's ballistic missile program. If Trump is serious about fixing the deal, the transatlantic working group now tasked with forming a common U.S.-EU position must produce nothing less than a commitment to reimpose tough sanctions on Iran should the regime's missile development and testing continue.

IRAN PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS


An Iranian woman has been arrested and bail set at more than US$100,000 (S$130,865) after she protested against the mandatory headscarf, a lawyer said on Tuesday (Jan 30). Narges Hosseini, whose age was not known, was jailed after posing in central Teheran on Monday without a headscarf, lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh said.


Amnesty International is outraged by reports that the Iranian authorities have executed a young man convicted of murder who was only 15 years old at the time of the crime. The organization learned that 22-year-old Ali Kazemi was hung earlier today in prison in Busher province.


The U.S. already applies a number of sanctions against Iran for its religious oppression. We should give greater support to communications and information-sharing that are key to protecting dissidents like this heroic woman and the freedom cause itself:


In Iran, a young woman with a growing Twitter reputation as the world's bravest proponent of women's rights is now reported to be facing serious criminal charges in that repressive theocracy for a single act of peaceful defiance -- appearing in public without a head scarf.


Protests have swept across Iran in recent weeks, the largest in almost a decade, as Iranians take to the streets to protest abysmal economic conditions and allegations of widespread corruption. In recent days, however, at least six Iranian women have captured the attention of the West by challenging the country's hijab mandate. Images of these women taking off and waving their headscarves are going viral on social media.

U.S.-IRAN RELATIONS


Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the people of Iran will continue supporting the Islamic Republic despite foreign pressure... Rouhani spoke during a visit to the mausoleum of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. Rouhani said in remarks broadcast by state TV: "The Iranian nation will never give up Imam Khomeini's legacy; Islamism and Republicanism. Return is impossible."


Now, Trump has warned that he will scrap the accord and reimpose U.S. sanctions eased under it unless European allies "join with the United States in fixing significant flaws in the deal."

BUSINESS RISK


Kuwaiti citizens have lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the collapsing investment firms in Iran, Kuwait's al-Qabas Arabic daily reported. 

SANCTIONS RELIEF & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS


Non-oil trade between Iran and Oman during the first nine months of the current Iranian year (March 21-Dec. 21, 2017) amounted to more than 1.33 million tons worth $393 million, registering a 24% rise in weight but a 12% fall in value, Iran's commercial attaché to the neighboring country announced.

HEZBOLLAH & LEBANON


Maturing under Tehran's tutelage, Hezbollah's hackers are quickly learning the art of cyber warfare. The formidable militant organization is increasingly turning its attention to the digital realm to engage in espionage, psychological operations, disruption of critical services and criminal activity to fund its activities on the ground.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS


UN Ambassador Nikki Haley took her Security Council colleagues on a field trip in the US capital, complete with a lunch with President Trump. Did the Monday feel-good adventure make a dent? Who knows? But it certainly should have - especially when it comes to Iran, which along with North Korea presents the most burning foreign-policy challenge for President Trump.


At the Syrian border, Golan Heights - Who knew that the future of warfare would present itself with such serene beauty - like one of those warm 19th-century David Roberts landscapes of the Middle East. How so? I'm traveling along the Israeli border road at the intersection of Lebanon, Syria and Israel, and off in the distance there's a freshly snow-capped Mount Hermon, begging for skiers. It's framed by Lebanese and Syrian villages nestled into terraced hillsides, crowned by minarets and crosses. The only sound you hear is the occasional rifle burst from Lebanese hunters.
CYBERWARFARE


Iranian hackers reportedly targeted Israeli nuclear scientists with phishing scams in an effort to gain access to sensitive material.

SYRIA & IRAN


Iran won't withdraw from Syria unless President Bashar Assad asks it to leave, a senior Iranian diplomat told reporters in Russia, one day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened military action to force Iran's departure. "They are there at the Syrian government's request to resolve issues that the Syrian people have been facing," Iranian deputy foreign minister Jaberi Ansari said Tuesday.


The chief commander of Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units has said that the paramilitary forces are ready to go to Syria to fight ISIS and defend Iraq's borders, Iranian and Lebanese media reported.

GULF STATES, YEMEN, & IRAN


Tensions between the Gulf states and Qatar developed into an outright feud last June as a result of Qatar's drift toward Iran, which led the Saudis and their partners to impose a boycott and cut off air, sea, and land routes to Qatar. Instead of responding positively to a demand that it cut ties with Tehran, Qatar defiantly restored full diplomatic relations with Iran. Now, the battle between Qatar and the quartet of Arab states led by Saudi Arabia has broken out on a new front: Dueling media coverage of the protests in Iran, with Qatar taking the side of the regime and the quartet backing the protesters.

IRAQ & IRAN


The secretary general of Harakat al-Nujaba, an Iranian-sponsored Iraqi militia group fighting in Syria and Iraq, alleges that the US military has targeted the organization's forces in Iraq, Lebanon's al-Mayadeen and Iran's Far News Agency reported.

AFGHANISTAN & IRAN


Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has alleged that the US is relocating elements of the Islamic State (Isis) from the conflict-torn Middle East to Afghanistan in order to justify Washington's presence in Kabul amid rising terror attacks against Afghan interests in recent weeks.

IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS


Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the people of Iran will continue supporting the Islamic Republic despite foreign pressure. His comments came Wednesday, just hours after President Donald Trump said the U.S. stands with the people of Iran against the country's ruling establishment. Rouhani spoke during a visit to the mausoleum of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.


An Iranian opposition figure under house arrest has voiced rare criticism of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, blaming him for the "disastrous results" of the Revolutionary Guard's vast political and economic influence. In a rare letter published Tuesday, Mahdi Karroubi says Khamenei violated the constitution, and called on him to order the Guard to loosen its grip on the economy.







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@uani.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.

No comments:

Post a Comment