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TOP STORIES
As Iran braces for U.S. sanctions that target its
financial lifeline-oil sales-it is resorting to a series of
extraordinary steps to try to insulate the country's increasingly
restive working class from the likely economic fallout.
Sinopec Group and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC),
the country's top state-owned refiners, have not made any nominations
to load Iranian oil for November because of concerns they would be
violating U.S. sanctions, said two persons with direct knowledge of
the matter.
A new European Union mechanism to facilitate payments
for Iranian exports should be legally in place by Nov. 4, when the
next phase of U.S. sanctions hit, but will not be operational until
early next year, three diplomats said. The mechanism, a so-called
special purpose vehicle (SPV), is designed to circumvent the
sanctions, under which Washington can cut off any bank that enables
oil transactions with Iran.
SANCTIONS, BUSINESS RISKS, & OTHER ECONOMIC
NEWS
The United States is set to allow Iran to remain
connected to the SWIFT banking system, an international monetary
consortium that facilities cross-border transactions, according to
sources familiar with ongoing talks between top U.S. officials and
European allies who have been pressuring the Trump administration to
take a softer line on Tehran ahead of the Nov. 4 implementation of
new sanctions on Iran.
The crude oil market is still uncertain over the likely
impact of the renewed U.S. sanctions against Iran, but two things
seem to be becoming clearer: Iran is struggling to keep buyers, and
much of the crude it is shipping is being stored.
At many banks, Nov. 5 will be a scary day. That's when
broad U.S. sanctions are set to be re-imposed on Iran, thereby
placing new pressure on its struggling economy and increasing the
regime's desperation for hard currency. A crucial side effect of this
effort has gotten too little attention: Iran will likely attempt to
skirt these sanctions through cyber-enabled money laundering - and
banks will be a prime target.
Iran may benefit from assumptions that it is shipping
less oil on the eve of US sanctions that begin on November 4.
According to a team that tracks crude oil tankers, ships departing
from Iran have been "cloaking" their movements by turning
off their AIS transponders that publicly geolocate vessels.
The Jerusalem Post can reveal that the German bank
Varengold in the city of Hamburg conducts business with Iran Air - an
airline that will be sanctioned by the US government on November 4 -
and the Liechtenstein-based Union Bank is also involved in commerce with
the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iran plans to supply more than 20 million barrels of
crude oil to the Chinese port of Dalian in the October-November
period, up sharply from the usual monthly volumes of up to 3 million barrels,
Igor Sechin, the CEO of Russian oil major Rosneft, said on Thursday.
Turkey has asked
for exemptions from the US before reimposing sanctions on Iranian
finance and energy sectors.
Although the cost of visiting Iran as a tourist has
halved in the past six months, the number of Americans and Europeans
visiting the country has dropped by 42 percent, according to Chief
Executive of the Iranian Tour Operators Association Ebrahim
Farajpour.
TERRORISM & EXTREMISM
The Trump administration has an opportunity to showcase
its opposition to Iran this week when families of U.S. Marines killed
in the 1983 Beirut bombings visit the White House to mark the
anniversary of the attack. Kin of the 241 lost U.S. service members
have already collected $1.7 billion in seized Iranian assets over the
years and are pushing to unlock one more trove.
PROTESTS & HUMAN RIGHTS
The wife of a prominent Iranian teachers union leader
said Wednesday that Iranian security forces had detained her husband
and hospitalized him for a purported mental illness that she knew
nothing about. Hashem Khastar, a unionist representing teachers in
Iran's northeastern Razavi Khorasan province, was the latest of
several education activists to be detained in Iran this year while promoting
teachers' rights to engage in union activities and protest peacefully
for better working conditions.
Amnesty International is warning that a defender of
Iranian women's rights who has been jailed in Tehran is in poor
health due to a hunger strike and should be released immediately. In
a statement on October 24, Amnesty said that Farhad Meysami, a medical
doctor who was detained in July for protesting against laws forcing
Iranian women to wear the hijab, has been on a hunger strike since
August 1 and is now in "very frail" health and has lost 18
kilograms while being held in a medical clinic at Tehran's Evin
prison, where he is being force-fed intravenously.
The U.N. independent expert on human rights in Iran
urged Tehran on Wednesday to abolish the death penalty for juveniles.
IRANIAN INTERNAL DEVELOPMENTS
Most of Iran's retirement funds are facing financial
trouble and rely on heavy subsidies from the government, Iranian Vice
President Eshaq Jahangiri says.
Khamenei's latest guidelines for Iranian culture and
governance focus on resisting any efforts to reform the regime's
decisionmaking tendencies.
RUSSIA, SYRIA, ISRAEL, HEZBOLLAH, LEBANON & IRAN
Iran wants to boost its Syrian profile, and presence, by
plugging into that country's electrical sector needs. While fighting
and military actions seem to be subsiding in the country, talk of
reconstruction is surfacing as the Syrian government's allies, namely
Russia and Iran, seek to secure contracts to rebuild devastated
sectors.
GULF STATES,
YEMEN, & IRAN
Pakistan is mediating between Iran and Saudi Arabia in
an effort to end the conflict in Yemen, Prime Minister Imran Khan
announced in a televised address Wednesday night.
To make Iran oil
sanctions work better, the fields in the neutral zone must produce
oil. They aren't.
IRAQ & IRAN
Iran is building factories to manufacture and upgrade
missiles in Iraq, in addition to its efforts in Syria and Lebanon,
Israeli intelligence has discovered. According to reports, Iran has
already shipped missiles to Shi'ite militias in Iraq and helped Iraq
set up missile factories in its territory.
Following Iraq's "inconclusive" national
election on May 12, the United States tried hard to guarantee a
second term for former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. Washington's
special envoy Brett McGurk spent months talking Iraqi politicians
into following the American blueprint aimed at isolating Tehran and
"keeping anyone friendly to Iran out of power." But it was
all in vain.
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