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TOP STORIES
The United Nations has determined that debris from five
ballistic missiles launched from Yemen into Saudi Arabia since July
contained components manufactured in Iran and shared key design
features with an Iranian missile, a new report says.
India's imports of Iranian oil may be hit from
end-August after the State Bank of India (SBI) informed refiners it
will not handle payments for crude from Tehran from November onwards,
the finance chief of Indian Oil Corp (IOC) said on Friday.
In an attempt to harness soaring prices, Iran's
President Hassan Rouhani has ordered his cabinet ministers to open
warehouses and "put stockpiled commodities at the people's
disposal."
UANI IN THE NEWS
As EU chiefs scramble to implement a "blocking
statute" in a desperate attempt to thwart impending U.S.
sanctions on companies doing Iran business - in the wake of President
Trump's May 8 decision to withdraw the U.S. from the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - now is a good time to revisit
all those business deals that were signed during the "full"
JCPOA.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC NEWS
After Saudi Arabia and Russia competed for the opening
of the 2018 World Cup in Moscow, both countries will play part in a
different and fateful match on June 22, as they join other
oil-producing states in deciding the future of oil output. The two
countries are seeking to persuade 22 other countries to agree with
them on raising their oil production starting July.
As the Trump administration prepares to ramp up
sanctions against various Iranian entities following U.S. withdrawal
from the nuclear deal, two forces will undermine the impact of any
financial actions, while two others will reinforce them.
NORTH KOREA & IRAN
A senior Israeli diplomat has welcomed Tuesday's
U.S.-North Korean agreement to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula,
saying it puts more pressure on Israeli foe Iran to drop its own
nuclear ambitions.
SYRIA, RUSSIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
The Syrian army and its allies bombarded rebels in the
southwestern Deraa region on Friday, killing at least six people, a
war monitor said, in a region widely seen as a potential flashpoint
for further escalation in the conflict.
Israel has attacked Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim
militias in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on
Thursday, casting such actions as potentially helping to stem a
Syrian Sunni Muslim refugee exodus to Europe.
In an interview with Iranian-funded, Arabic news channel
Al-Alam, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad discussed a wide range of
issues, including the Iranian presence in the southern part of his
country and the possibility of visiting Tehran soon. The interview
started with questions about southern Syria, which has become
contentious and a source of media speculation regarding stories about
the possibility of Russia-Israel negotiations to block Iranians from
having a presence anywhere in that area. Assad said the choice in the
south has been the same as all over: Either make peace with the armed
groups or "resort to force." He blamed Israel and the
United States for supporting what he called "terrorists"
and for the lack of an agreement so far.
Hezbollah fighters are still stationed in western and
southwestern Homs in Syria, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights (SOHR) reported on Thursday, and are refusing to comply with a
Russian demand to pull away from the Israeli border. "All that
has happened is a media withdrawal," the non-government
affiliated organization reported, claiming the Russian forces are
deployed in a way that ensures they will not need to come in any
contact with Hezbollah fighters. In a speech delivered in early June,
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah claimed that "the whole world
can not remove us from Syria."
Despite Israeli efforts, Iran is continuing to try to
improve its ability to launch rockets from Syria, IDF Intelligence
Directorate head Maj.-Gen. Tamir Heyman said at a closed-door forum
of the International Homeland Security Forum in Jerusalem on
Wednesday.
The head of [Israeli] Military Intelligence revealed a
map of suspected Iranian bases in Syria to a group of foreign
security officials on Wednesday, noting they were not located near
the sites of battles between the Syrian regime and rebel groups,
according to a video of the speech leaked to Israeli TV news.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
A member of Iran's Gonadabi dervish minority says she
has learned that her jailed daughter and other dervish women detained
near Tehran have been severely beaten by Iranian security
agents.
A video of a woman shouting "death to
Khamenei" among protesters demonstrating against the execution
of political activists in the streets of Karaj, a suburb of Tehran,
has been circulating between social media activists on
Wednesday.
The United States expressed concern on Thursday at
reports of the re-arrest of Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin
Sotoudeh, who most recently represented women detained for protesting
Iran's mandatory hijab law, the State Department said.
EU politicians urged Iran on Thursday to
"immediately" release Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent human
rights lawyer and winner of the EU's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of
Thought.
By arresting Iran's top human rights lawyer, Nasrin
Sotoudeh, powerful Iranian hard-liners are aiming to silence the most
prominent voice for the voiceless in the Islamic republic... These
are some of the sensitive political cases Sotoudeh has represented
and the issues she has raised in recent years...
[Nasrin] Sotoudeh was arrested on Wednesday shortly
after announcing plans for a sit-in to protest a new government rule
that restricts the rights of activists and dissidents from hiring an
independent lawyer... "She was detained to prevent her from
holding this public protest," Hadi Ghaemi, the executive
director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, which is based in
New York, told me. "Her arrest was Orwellian, as the agents
carrying it out claimed she has a five-year sentence in a case that
has been decided in secret. She and her husband have no idea of when
this prosecution took place, under what charges, and based on what
evidence. That is an unbelievable miscarriage of justice."
IRAQ & IRAN
A surprise alliance between the winners of Iraq's
election appears to reflect manoeuvering by neighbouring Iran to form
a broad Shiite coalition as it scrambles to protect its
influence.
OTHER FOREIGN AFFAIRS
A high-ranking Jordanian source told Al Arabiya.net on
Friday that Jordan transferred its ambassador Abdullah Abu Rumman
from Iran to the Jordanian Foreign Ministry headquarters in Amman
based on a decision by the Jordanian cabinet. "There is no intention
to name another Jordanian envoy in Tehran at the time," the
source told AlArabiya.net.
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