Friday, June 15, 2018

Eye on Iran: UN Determines Iran Made Missile Parts Fired at Saudis from Yemen



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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.






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.

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